Here comes a regular

December 2, 2016 2:14 PM

Why not eat steak tartare at the same restaurant seven nights a week? It’s not because I’m boring; I’m just saving my exciting stuff for other areas of my life.
posted by The corpse in the library (125 comments total)

isn't the odd thing here that these people are eating out so often? i mean, if i ate out every day of the week, i'd probably end up a regular in several places, because the number of local restaurants is finite.
posted by andrewcooke at 2:19 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

That steak tartare woman . . . oh my.

I eat from the same lunch spot probably 4 days a week and get almost the same exact thing every time (its a salad bar in midtown manhattan so its not that I am want for other choices). I'm suuuper into food and cooking and eating out also, I just don't have the time or energy to put into lunches. So I guess what im saying is I see the appeal in these folks' routines.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:20 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

"I ordered the steak tartare, and I’ve eaten it pretty much every single day since."

"I normally eat only one meal a day, usually around 7pm. I never cook for myself."

Her one meal a day is steak tartare? Her poor colon.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 2:28 PM on December 2, 2016 [26 favorites]

I recently read Bee Wilson's First Bite: How We Learn to Eat. In it, she talks about how picky eaters will, unless challenged and unless they challenge themselves, generally become more picky over time. And that we often lock in these choices as children. The first woman, the woman who keeps getting steak tartare makes me wonder if that's the case with her. No one asks, but I wonder how much other types of food she eats. Although, looking at her picture, there does seem to be a side salad, so maybe I'm just off base here.

I'm a semi-regular at the pizza place down the block from where I work. When I walk in, they show me the slice of mushroom pizza to double check, as I'll sometimes go with something else. But usually, that's what I get. I attribute this to laziness and taking late lunches on my part. But then I'll go weeks without hitting up the pizza place. I'm there just enough that they all recognize me.
posted by Hactar at 2:30 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Mission Burrito was the saddest thing in grad school - it's a Chipotle knockoff, down to the decoration. The Brits were missing key distinctions between a sandwich and a burrito, like that the fillings should be kept hot. Or that cheese is not an extra.

I, and every other American I knew, went there every other day.
posted by PMdixon at 2:39 PM on December 2, 2016 [15 favorites]

the real MVP of this FPP is Samantha Earl's sartorial taste
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:39 PM on December 2, 2016 [19 favorites]

soylent
posted by grobstein at 2:40 PM on December 2, 2016

PMDixon, traditionally cheese is an extra in a mission-style burrito. And by tradition, I mean in the taquerias on Mission Street in San Francisco. There will be a separate menu item called a "super burrito" that includes cheese, avocado, and sour cream.
posted by ryanrs at 2:45 PM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

I can see how this happens even for not picky eaters. When I was in Winnipeg there was a great bubble tea place called Asia City and their Young Coconut shake was amazing. I would almost always get that but sometimes I would try something else (taro, avocado, etc) because I felt bad about always getting the same thing. It would be good but not as good as the Young Coconut would have been and then I'd regret making that choice.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 2:47 PM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

The pho place near my work is a destination 2-3 times a week or more. Not only do I not have to state my order anymore, it's gotten to the point that they start making my food if they see me in the parking lot, so I couldn't even eat at another place in that complex if I wanted to (I don't). When I travel out of town, I let them know so they don't file a missing person report.
posted by FatherDagon at 2:52 PM on December 2, 2016 [49 favorites]

i go to a german restaurant / beer garden in oakland nearly every weekend for brunch and radlers and cribbage which isn't the healthiest thing probably but man at least i don't eat only steak tartare every single day
posted by burgerrr at 2:52 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is related to one of my pet peeves: my husband does not have a regular fast food order. Like I understand not wanting to eat the same thing every time but he has to EXAMINE the menu at McDonald's every time and takes forever deciding and just for everyone else's convenience you should have an EASY default order you can a) tell someone picking up food for everyone or b) your spouse is grabbing food and shouldn't have to confer with you for 15 minutes every time before grabbing fast food.

BE A LITTLE REPETITIVE.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:55 PM on December 2, 2016 [57 favorites]

The steak tartar looks suspiciously like a can of catfood with an egg on top. I totally believe Tyne O’Connell sat next to Lauren Bacall though.
posted by Bee'sWing at 2:57 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Her one meal a day is steak tartare? Her poor colon.

Pretty sure the Toxoplasma gondii keep things moving.
posted by GuyZero at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

my husband does not have a regular fast food order

are you sure he's not lizard people
posted by burgerrr at 3:00 PM on December 2, 2016 [7 favorites]

I was 18 when I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

I think a lot of people who are "regulars" to this extent, even the ones who haven't been diagnosed, may be somewhere along the spectrum, or dealing with other, somewhat related, kinds of issues. Like, I only have so much energy in the day. I'm not actually a picky eater at all by conventional standards, but dealing with food generally is something that exhausts me like nothing else. So I gravitate back to the things that don't need decisions to be made about them. Routines help to deal with sensory processing disorders, autism spectrum disorders, eating disorders that can make certain food-related parts of the world very overwhelming otherwise.

Since I moved, I have very, very keenly missed my Bob Evans in Ohio, because that was my default when I was stressed out. I don't have a new default yet--or, well, I sort of do, but it's Wendy's and that's a problem at the moment. I'm trying to divert to Panera instead but it's a bit further a drive. I spend more money eating out than I like, but I'm actually eating every day right now and not reliant on meal replacement products, so hey, that's a win.

I'm actually kind of baffled as to how other people go through the day making three (or more!) decisions about something to eat every. single. day. I'd never get anything else done. I wish my brain could do that.
posted by Sequence at 3:02 PM on December 2, 2016 [23 favorites]

I would 100% be a regular at any breakfast place within a 5 block radius, but alas there is only a coffee shop. I generally stop there only on weekend mornings (and then take my coffee to the park, weather permitting). They all know my name, if not my order. (which never changes, so that's weird...)
posted by AFABulous at 3:02 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

The fact that the gay couple were living with one of their parents jerked at my heartstrings a little. I know they talked about homophobic abuse at other restaurants so we're clearly far from an idyllic future but I can't imagine even having a partner stay over at my parents' house, let alone having them live there; it's a little thing but it made me feel more hopeful. They get doing-it-right parenting points from me.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:02 PM on December 2, 2016 [17 favorites]

I'm working in Germany at the moment, and people from the office go to the Chinese buffet place for lunch often enough that the staff there know the drinks order without asking.

I was baffled (German is not a fluent language for me) when one of my coworkers tried a dish and said "Mittwoch!" (Wednesday!). That dish apparently gets hotter by degrees each weekday, and they'd skipped a couple of days by making Monday's dish extra hot.

What it means to be a regular: everyone else at the table understood him immediately.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 3:05 PM on December 2, 2016 [26 favorites]

Mrs. Vreeland ate the same lunch every day because she didn't want to waste time or energy thinking about it. If the most creative thing you do all day is order lunch, you might want a different job.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:06 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

BE A LITTLE REPETITIVE.

Between my unstructured job and lack of executive functions I have a near-inability to form routines and am accustomed to thinking of structure as The Enemy, so I am discovering the wisdom of this relatively late. But yeah, it frees up a lot of bandwidth when you don't have to actively choose things. Sometimes I kind of wish I could live according to some kind of super-regimented system where lights-up, lights-out, meals, etc. were all scheduled and predictable. (I mean, without going to prison or joining the military.)
posted by en forme de poire at 3:09 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Like, I only have so much energy in the day. I'm not actually a picky eater at all by conventional standards, but dealing with food generally is something that exhausts me like nothing else. So I gravitate back to the things that don't need decisions to be made about them. Routines help to deal with sensory processing disorders, autism spectrum disorders, eating disorders that can make certain food-related parts of the world very overwhelming otherwise.

Eating at places like Five Guys or Chipotle used to drive me up the wall before I figured out that I should work out one or two combinations that work for me and just memorize those. The menu style of no named dishes, assemble your meal out of ingredients is a morass of decisionmaking without this.
posted by indubitable at 3:11 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Jenna Lyons of J Crew also does this.
posted by Ideefixe at 3:27 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

Sometimes I kind of wish I could live according to some kind of super-regimented system where lights-up, lights-out, meals, etc. were all scheduled and predictable. (I mean, without going to prison or joining the military.)

I went to sleep-away camp from 1979 - 1985, and worked there as a CIT/Staff for a while.

A non-trivial number of ADULT staff cited "mess-hall" as their #1 benefit.
posted by mikelieman at 3:34 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

I live in a village where the dining options are, shall we say, somewhat limited in scope. So there are only a tiny handful of places at which I eat regularly, and I tend to stick to the same thing at each--enough that the local burger joint now puts in my order when I walk in the door. It does make me a bit self-conscious sometimes; then again, it's nice to have a moment where I don't have to think about what I'm going to do.

This habit paid off on occasion when I was a graduate student at the U of C in the 90s: for all the years I lived in Hyde Park, my once-a-week indulgence was a stuffed spinach pizza from Giordano's. The franchise owner must have appreciated the business, because every few months he would spot me a free meal.
posted by thomas j wise at 3:35 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Eating at places like Five Guys

Single ( Junior ) Bacon cheeseburger, with everything, minus mushrooms, extra bacon, pickles, and onion, jr. cajun fries NO TOPPER, and a regular drink. I'll go eat peanuts until you call my number.
posted by mikelieman at 3:36 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sometimes I kind of wish I could live according to some kind of super-regimented system where lights-up, lights-out, meals, etc. were all scheduled and predictable. (I mean, without going to prison or joining the military.)

try residence in a Zen monastery?
posted by kokaku at 3:38 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Every Saturday morning I had breakfast with my Dad at the same restaurant for twenty-five years. I loved that place, even though it had its flaws, because it was like a constant rock in the turbulence of my life. After he died I started going there almost every day. Then they closed and it was like a physical blow. I still feel that loss every Saturday.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:42 PM on December 2, 2016 [54 favorites]

Honestly, I want to BE the lady who has steak tartare every night. Goals.
posted by fiercecupcake at 3:43 PM on December 2, 2016 [16 favorites]

BE A LITTLE REPETITIVE.

I'm repetitive at places I go to all the time, but I eat fast food so rarely that I always become that irritating person standing there reading the entire menu and trying to figure out options. I try to do it off to the side of the line so as not to slow things up but the layout doesn't always allow that.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:45 PM on December 2, 2016

I don't know about every day, but I could eat steak tartare almost every day, as long as it was good. It is one of those dishes with nicely complex flavors and it would be easy to tweak slightly for variety if desired.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

That steak tartare woman . . . oh my.

The article said she was a writer so of course I had to check what she was writing, and learned that she was named the The Eccentrics Club's “Most Eccentric Thinker of the Year” last year.

She's also written a series of YA books about princes. I'm going to assume they're all very eccentric.
posted by effbot at 3:47 PM on December 2, 2016 [12 favorites]

I eat at Lidl's bakery section every day and you don't see me in the Guardian. Cheese twists not good enough for you, eh?
posted by Emma May Smith at 3:54 PM on December 2, 2016 [19 favorites]

Sometimes I kind of wish I could live according to some kind of super-regimented system where lights-up, lights-out, meals, etc. were all scheduled and predictable. (I mean, without going to prison or joining the military.)

I think there may be a reason that Valley tech companies serve three meals a day from a fixed menu and run their own bus services. My experience says that some percentage of their employees can't survive otherwise.
posted by GuyZero at 3:54 PM on December 2, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm about to close up for the day here at work, and like almost every other Friday I'm going to go across the street and get a medium rare burger. I do this because I almost never get a chance to leave the shop and get food on Fridays, so by closing time I'm ravenous and have no decision-making power left. At this point they know me by name, put my order in as soon as I walk in the door, and ask me what happened if I skip a week.

Honestly, it's pretty nice.
posted by nonasuch at 4:01 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

OK, so I'm not hungry in the morning at all. I know, as a tested fact, if I go to work without eating I will immediately become ravenous, like the second I sit down. As a result, I have eaten the same exact thing for breakfast for like seven years. I am not particularly a morning person, and I'm just not ready for the existential crisis of which of the infinite number of ingredient combinations I could make every morning. At this point it has become something like a zen practice, which I manage to screw up on a semi-regular basis. I have lovingly brewed hot water instead of tea several times.

My breakfast, for at least the last seven years is: Toast, with peanut butter and bananas, served open face. The beverage is black tea, hot with a little too much whole milk.
posted by Dmenet at 4:07 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Fortunately, this isn't at a restaurant, but my husband eats a cheese sandwich every night. I strongly suspect that was all he ate before he moved in with me.

Every single day, though, even when he eats a full dinner, even if he eats too much, and even if it's, say, macaroni and cheese, he will still eat a cheese sandwich.

I understand some consistency, like maybe having the same thing for breakfast every day while your brain is still in boot sequence, or always getting the same thing when you go to a specific place* or something, but I do not understand how he never gets tired of that. He's a weird guy.

* I am "number 11" at the place I get banh mi, which is pretty great, because the woman who makes the sandwiches and I have language barriers. So not only do we not have to go through the whole pantomime thing every time, but she sometimes expedites my order. There are benefits to being a loyal and predictable customer.
posted by ernielundquist at 4:11 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

It’s not because I’m boring; I’m just saving my exciting stuff for other areas of my life extraordinarily wealthy
posted by koeselitz at 4:16 PM on December 2, 2016 [18 favorites]

I used to live around the corner from a diner in Chicago. I probably had lunch there three times a week. Although I didn't order the same thing. I knew the food was reliably stuff I would like, so I could choose pretty much at random based on how hungry I felt.

And for a while, I lived with my parents in a Chicago suburb. They had just opened a new business, and it was a pretty distant schlep between the store and their home; we'd often be getting home after 9:00 PM and be too tired to think. There was one diner that would be open near them, and we wound up eating there…a lot. The Hillcrest. I remember one night I was behind the wheel, and I took a different route home, and insisted we not eat at Hilllcrest for a change. We wound up in a different restaurant that had the exact same menu.

I think there's a menu template for all Chicago diners. You can expect to see the same assortment of soups, salads, sandwiches, etc (even if they're prepared a little differently, they're all on the menu). I'm not sure if this is because all the diner operators are literally buying their menus from Larry the Menu Guy, or because the expectations for a diner menu are so deeply ingrained that it would never occur to any of them to not feature the same items.
posted by adamrice at 4:21 PM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

(okay, but aside from that these people are awesome and I loved reading this)
posted by koeselitz at 4:21 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm sure also that if you live with your/your boyfriend's parents going out to eat becomes a much higher spending priority just so you can get out of each others' hair for a bit. Eating out at a carvery a few times a week is more expensive than cooking but probably not in the same league as getting your own place in a London-area suburb.
posted by en forme de poire at 4:29 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

"...but I do not understand how he never gets tired of that."

I dunno about your husband, but for me a food routine is a way of maintaining some control over life. It isn't meant to be a stimulus, but rather a comfort. Like a little victory over chaos. And it's the kind of thing that's easy to maintain, even if you don't emotionally need to do it anymore.
posted by Kevin Street at 4:30 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

It’s like a buffer zone between the intensity of work and the calm of home.

I used to have a place like this, then we moved. Nothing fancy, but the staff were perfect at gauging how social I wanted to be.

And the cocktails were excellent.
posted by ghost phoneme at 4:37 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't eat out anywhere near often enough for this -- sure, there are restaurants where I always order the same thing, but I don't go there more than a few times a year. But I can make myself the same food every day for a week and be fine with it, I can make a big meal on Sunday and have leftovers for lunch every day and look forward to them every day. It's convenient.
posted by jeather at 4:45 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think a lot of people who are "regulars" to this extent, even the ones who haven't been diagnosed, may be somewhere along the spectrum, or dealing with other, somewhat related, kinds of issues.

I arrive with an interesting data point. My boss eats the exact same thing for lunch every day: A bagel (cold, dry, unsliced) and an apple. He's not on the spectrum -- he's an internationally recognized autism researcher and is considered one of the top 10 in his field.

There is further digging to be done here.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:48 PM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

The bagel apple lunch feels like it's expertly min maxed to be as unfilling and tasteless as possible, while also not being too healthy or anything.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 4:54 PM on December 2, 2016 [30 favorites]

I remember an article umpteen years ago—New Yorker maybe?--about a guy who’d go to the same lunch place every day for months until, one day, he’d dump them and start going to another one. He was just getting ready to dump the current one. Every day they welcomed him with warmth and smiles. Little did they know that today he would betray them, walk out the door never to return, and start going to the Greek diner down the street.

I confess that, when it comes to lunch, I too have engaged in similar caddish behavior.
posted by mono blanco at 4:55 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Routine is good because you can operate on autopilot and save decision making capacity for other things. I don't do this for food, but I will drive past three floors of empty parking spaces to get to my regular spot on P4.
posted by emeiji at 4:55 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm a picky eater. I may also be autistic.

However, I definitely also have numerous, potentially deadly food allergies and intolerances. So, most of the time you see me eat that same dish in that same restaurant? I know it's a dish that won't try to kill me, and I can relax and enjoy it. Sometimes, that's all I can handle, because trying to explain what sulfites are to a clueless restaurant staff, just to have them screw it up anyways, gets really old, really quickly.
posted by spinifex23 at 4:56 PM on December 2, 2016 [7 favorites]

The tragic side of being a regular isn't eating the same thing every time. It's when the restaurant removes your order from the menu—or, worse, silently changes the recipe. (I'm looking at you, Joy Time in Shibuya.)
posted by No-sword at 5:11 PM on December 2, 2016 [14 favorites]

I spent a few months eating the same thing every day as a way of dealing with food without making bad choices all the time. One of the things on my list of every day foods was a foot long roasted chicken sub with cheese, not toasted, extra tomatoes and cucumbers, a little bit of honey mustard. But since I generally don't like being recognized in restaurants, I would make sure I got my sub from a different Subway every day of the week. Since there is one at every major intersection in Toronto, this was not a problem.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:13 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

My breakfast, for at least the last seven years is: Toast, with peanut butter and bananas, served open face. The beverage is black tea, hot with a little too much whole milk.

Would it be too forward of me if I invited myself over?
posted by Literaryhero at 5:17 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

I EAT AT SAME PANERA EVERY WEEK ON THE SAME DAY
I ORDER THE SAME THING EVERY TIME
I NO LONGER NEED TO SPEAK
I STARE BLANKLY
I GET MY FOOD

I AM ZARDOZ

(This is 100% true. I would not trade my wordless exchange with Terry for anything, including eating something different for lunch on Wednesdays.)
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:26 PM on December 2, 2016 [20 favorites]

Routine is good because you can operate on autopilot and save decision making capacity for other things.

Satisficing.
posted by clew at 5:29 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

Every single "trendy" restaurant around me has steak tartare these days, and my neighborhood has gone from a drug dealer on my stoop when I moved in, to being able to get steak tartare at 3 different restaurants within 1 block of my house.

Can we also note the steak tartare lady, when her daughter has a bad day, has her meet her at the restaurant for champagne and cake?

Goals, seriously. Nothing about this seems wrong to me, except I can never order the same thing every day no matter how much I like it; if nothing else I change things up every once in a while just so I'm not ordering the same thing every day. Novelty reassures me that I'm not dead.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 5:33 PM on December 2, 2016 [18 favorites]

I used to eat at the same place every week, before they shut down. They seemed so frustrated that I didn't have a "regular" thing I ate so they could prepare it ahead of time. I just like variety.
posted by Quonab at 5:35 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I used to eat at the same place every week, before they shut down. They seemed so frustrated that I didn't have a "regular" thing I ate so they could prepare it ahead of time. I just like variety.

Hah, I've sort of gotten bullied into always ordering the same thing at the local coffee place, because after ordering the same thing a few times they started making it for me before I got to the window. I am not the kind of person to say "fuck you, throw that away and make me something different" so now I am pretty stuck with it. But, we're just talking about coffee here, not dinner.

I had a friend in college who would 'use up' taco bells. Once they started knowing his order before he spoke, he had to start going to another taco bell, presumably out of shame.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:38 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I went to a bar after work today and when I sat down the bartender said "Glass of water and the yoozh?" I wasn't sure whether to high five him or cry.
posted by tristeza at 5:42 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

I feel bizarrely guilty when I change up my regular order at the coffee/tea place across the street. Like I've betrayed the barista or something. In reality, it's either too hot for my usual, or what an especially indulgent treat. I changed it on a random whim today though: got a soy chai latte made with chocolate powder instead of the vanilla they usually use. Verdict: tastes like mildly spiced chocolate milk.

In general, I'm a routine person until I abruptly change the routine for inscrutable reasons. Like, for about four years, my standard breakfast was one or two packets of Trader Joe's Brown Sugar Maple oatmeal, with a chai latte. A few years back, I just couldn't stand the oatmeal any more, despite having genuinely enjoyed it for those whole four years. Now I'm back to my pre-oatmeal norm of toast, cereal, or breakfast bar type thing, if I have breakfast at all.
posted by yasaman at 5:42 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

I had a friend in college who would 'use up' taco bells. Once they started knowing his order before he spoke, he had to start going to another taco bell, presumably out of shame.

I start feeling this way about anywhere they start remembering me, mostly because it makes me feel like my life is in such a rut that total strangers can predict what I'm about to do.
posted by indubitable at 5:42 PM on December 2, 2016 [8 favorites]

Interesting how many of these stories relate back to family and a sense of home. My own experience is kind of the opposite: during a month abroad, I started to lunch in a counter-service cafeteria because it was the only place near my workplace that took American-style (chip and sign) credit cards and I didn't want to deal too much with cash. I typically got the same thing: jambon + emmenthal on a generic delicious baguette. By week 3, the lady behind the counter would reach for the sandwich when she saw me coming. Man, I miss that yeasty crusty delicious bread; if it were allowed I would have eaten it solo and been forever marked as l'américaine folle.
posted by basalganglia at 5:44 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

There's a pizza place nearby where I always get the same thing when I go unless the daily special sounds interesting. Pizza is an interesting case I think because if you've had pizza at a place before you can pretty much guess how another one is gonna be just from the list of toppings. Another place I go semiregularly had a monthly special pasta with smoked rabbit and peas that was AMAZING and I was so sad when it went out of rotation. Cost aside, I wouldn't do this kind of thing on a daily basis though, but once a week, sure.
posted by juv3nal at 5:46 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Novelty reassures me that I'm not dead.

I've always figured that if I do the same thing over and over, it's all just going to blur together in my memory, and then it's like I'm shortening my own life by repeating the same piece of it. What's the point of that? I try to avoid routine, and break my habits whenever I notice them, so that I can actually spend the time I'm alive doing things on purpose, because I decided to do them, and not just because it's what a past version of me decided to make a habit of.

The idea of being a regular at a specific place and ordering the same thing every time is... well, that just sounds unbearably boring. Why do that to yourself?
posted by crotchety old git at 5:47 PM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]

The pasta with smoked rabbit and peas was a year ago and hasn't put in a reappearance and I'm still thinking about it y'all.
posted by juv3nal at 5:49 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Actually, an interesting thing I'd like to broach to people who always get the same thing just to avoid using head space... how do you feel about places where you just get whatever they have today?

There's an indian place near me, and you can get the veggie, the meat and veggie, or the meat. You get whatever they're serving. No choices to make except beverage.
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:50 PM on December 2, 2016 [4 favorites]

Was Oliver Sacks somewhere on the spectrum? I could swear he talked about eating the same meals (tabbouleh and so forth) religiously.
posted by mr. digits at 5:52 PM on December 2, 2016

I went to a bar after work today and when I sat down the bartender said "Glass of water and the yoozh?" I wasn't sure whether to high five him or cry.

Skimming through the stories in this thread, I got a bit concerned when I realized that most places that consider me a regular are bars.

(no, my kitchen doesn't really count.)

Then I remembered that I haven't been to my favourite whiskey place in a while. Will have to do something about that tomorrow.
posted by effbot at 5:53 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't think I get the same thing to save headspace, particularly, but I'm game for limited choice menus because (rightly or wrongly) I infer a higher level of confidence from the kitchen about what they're putting out? There's an air of specialization versus jack of all trades etc. to it for me when a place does that.
posted by juv3nal at 5:54 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I get that too. If a place has a small menu I figure they probably kick ass at it so much that they can run the risk of turning away people for whom that isn't their thing.

But a lot of people in this thread are saying "I just want food, I don't want to think about it", I wonder if they'd be equally happy with "thing of the day" instead of "same thing every day"
posted by RustyBrooks at 5:58 PM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]

While my routine is not nearly as rote as those in the article, I do have one on the weekends. Every Saturday and Sunday, I get up, go to the gym, and then go to one of two places in Seattle: a Mexican restaurant whose owner came from Baja, and who makes a mean breakfast, or a Japanese-owned Hawaiian restaurant. Generally, the same friend joins me one of the two days.

The thing is, there's comfort in familiarity. I know everyone who works in the places, and the menu inside out. I can focus on enjoying the company, the coffee, and slowly waking up to the day.
posted by petrilli at 6:06 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I used to eat lunch at Druxy's maybe 3 days a week when I lived in Toronto. I think I confused them when I decided the chips & pop part of the sandwich/chips/pop combo deal was probably not good for me. "JUST THE SANDWICH?!" Their minds were blown, and honestly, it was hard for me to do that to them.
posted by transient at 6:11 PM on December 2, 2016

If I could eat Blue Ribbon Bakery's steak tartare every night I think I'd be pretty okay with life. I can't believe they're closing it.
posted by praemunire at 6:26 PM on December 2, 2016

Skimming through the stories in this thread, I got a bit concerned when I realized that most places that consider me a regular are bars.

That's probably true for me as well, though I am usually there as much for the food as the drink. The one thing that always surprises me is how few visits it can take at some places to become a regular, while at others you could never break into the circle of regulars no matter how often you went.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

The idea of being a regular at a specific place and ordering the same thing every time is... well, that just sounds unbearably boring. Why do that to yourself?

I like being a regular, it's a home away from home. Granted, I don't usually order the same thing: I'm usually rotating between a few dishes once I've figured out what the place does best. I'm also sitting at the bar, so there's usually a social element as well.

During the week, when I'm working, I'm usually eating leftovers at home anyways (whatever I felt like making a big batch of Sunday), so I'm not adverse to repetition when it makes my life easier.
posted by ghost phoneme at 6:37 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

I feel a lot better about them knowing my order at a bar. You go and order the same thing maybe five or six times in a night (or more), it's a communal kind of place where you're more likely to chat with the servers, and a lot of people have the same orders (my last local, probably ever because of the kid, knew to get me their cheapest beer, the same as probably half the people there). That always made sense to me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:55 PM on December 2, 2016

I used to get my lunch from a local stir fry / salad place (shout out to HoneyGrow in Philly!) and would always get their red coconut curry stir fry with pork instead of tofu. My 9 month old has terrible food sensitivities to basically all processed food (wheat, eggs, soy, dairy, shellfish, beef, and nuts) so finding a place where I can eat lunch out is pretty hard. It's pretty awful being the "food allergy" person at a restaurant. Honey Grow has a super detailed allergy menu and I like curry - so that's my go to. The staff knows me , so the rice noodles go in when I walk in the door. They are closed fir renovations now and I seriously am not sure what I am going to do for lunch anymore.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 7:01 PM on December 2, 2016

I generally love and crave novelty and change in all things except for one.

Breakfast.

I have ate freshly made waffles every single morning from the same scratch recipe for literally my entire life (barring sleepover/vacations, two years of dorm life, and that one summer I decided to make pancakes (with the same mix) instead). I'm pretty sure my earliest memory is eating waffles. I have a system for how the waffles are cut up and the order I eat it, to the point that when I have to replace a wafflemaker I look for one with the same size squares. I did make an exception for a Death Star wafflemaker. Having that is the only thing that could have possibly improved upon perfection.

If I could find a similarly perfect option for lunch or dinner, it would be so nice because it's this consistent moment of happiness and contentment in every day. ( I have considered waffles for two meals, but I think this trait goes from eccentric but enviable to potentially unhealthy at that point.)
posted by raeka at 7:20 PM on December 2, 2016 [15 favorites]

There's a local bar/barbecue joint we go to approximately weekly-ish. Their cocktails are excellent, but I always end up getting the same non-cocktail drink (shot of Old Overholt and a half of local-made-by-this-guy very dry cider) and nearly always the same food: two brisket tacos. It's all burnt ends and it's glorious. Sometimes we get the fried pickles, too.
posted by rtha at 7:24 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

You've had waffles for breakfast every day for years? I don't know whether to be more impressed by that, or that you've had breakfast every day for years. I have breakfast like once a month.
posted by RustyBrooks at 7:39 PM on December 2, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm not particularly picky but I definitely am the sort of person where when I find something I like, I'm pretty happy eating/watching/reading/listening to that same thing forever. I re-read books multiple times, rewatch TV shows and movies like it's my job, and I eat the same shit most days.

For breakfast I have 1 egg scrambled with 1 oz of shredded Dubliner cheese, 2 Morningstar Farms breakfast strips, and my travel mug filled with homemade chai (in the winter--in the summer I have a green tea latte).

Lately for lunch (though this does change a couple of times a year), I have 1/2 oz cooked salmon and 1/2 cup of rice with furikake, and a jar of miso soup with 2 oz of tofu. It's surprisingly filling.

And whenever I go out for lunch at work (not often), I go to the same place and get the same thing 90% of the time. I wish I knew how to quit you, Szechuan Express.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:04 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've also had the same order at Eat N Park for 25 years. I just hand them their menu right back when I get seated. As far as I am concerned there is only one reason to go to Eat N Park and that is to consume a chargrilled Gardenburger with a side of fries.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:06 PM on December 2, 2016

My son and I have a secret diner we go to in the "bad" part of town. We get out of there full for 16 bucks. We've been going every Friday for 5 years and he always gets the fried chicken livers. Couple weeks ago the server comes over to take my order ruffles his hair and tells him they've already started his and he makes his bearer-of-bad-news face and tells her he'd like the special. I turn to look at the board- it's beef liver. Ok, so I change my order to chicken livers and everybody's happy.

You gotta mix it up sometimes.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 8:13 PM on December 2, 2016 [10 favorites]

I get takeout wings at Wing Stop twice a week, and although I vary the flavors somewhat--a foolish consistency being the hobgoblin of small minds and whatnot--I always split my order between a hot flavor and a milder sweet/savory flavor. I got a thing going.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:54 PM on December 2, 2016

I just got this deep wistful feeling of missing one of my regular customers from my last job. At first she was "cappuccino with two raw sugars and whipped cream", but by the time I left, 6 years later, she was basically my mom. She is the best and most interesting woman I've ever met. She would come in every day, ask us about our lives, bring us gifts and send us photos when she went on vacation, and in return she got every sample we could find an excuse to give her, VIP treatment, coffee even when our registers were down, and celebrity status: all new hires were introduced to her and warned of her extreme awesomeness. It's been 6 months since I moved away. I have her phone number, but I don't know how to connect with her from afar. Over a cup of coffee it's so much simpler.
posted by Night_owl at 9:25 PM on December 2, 2016 [32 favorites]

I pick up my coffee at the coffee shop near my home, every day between 11am and noon.

It's good strong coffee, and the staff knows me by sight and by name. They are pouring a cup for me already as I enter through the doors. I love that place, the music, the newspapers, the comfy seats. I work mostly from home, so some days it's the only time I will get outside. Once outside, might as well go for a little walk as well, coffee in tow. That's all it takes.

As for the daily $2.50 that I pay for the coffee, whatev's. Like one of the interviewees said in the article upthread, I don't smoke, hardly ever drink, don't go clubbing. Don't take away my coffee.
posted by seawallrunner at 10:03 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]

There is a place I go once a week in a little food court close to work, just for char siu pork on rice. One day on a lark a few months ago I asked for noodle soup and the chef came out to ask if anything was wrong.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 10:12 PM on December 2, 2016 [18 favorites]

Breakfast is the one meal where novelty should be absolutely forbidden. Stomachs are not up to novelty when you've just woken up!

I am kind-of a conservative eater (I wouldn't say picky, but conservative), but I like to travel and try new travel foods ... except at breakfast. My stomach wants nothing exciting or new at breakfast. Toast, Cheerios, granola, maybe scrambled eggs if I've been up for an hour. Orange juice or Diet Coke to drink. That's IT. I don't care where in the world I am or how great the breakfasts are, that is all I can eat at that hour.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:21 PM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]

There definitely seems to be two entirely separate things going on here that sometimes combine:
1. routine for comfort
2. routine for convenience.

#2 seems to keep relating back to the choice fatigue phenomenon, but clearly also some of the people in the article/thread are actively choosing not to choose, in the same way as we might have 7 of the same outfits to wear in order to make mornings easier.

#1 actually seems the more common response, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could roughly lump people in to comfort-seeing and novelty-seeking when it comes to food. I like article such as this one because I really struggle to understand comfort-seeking. Give me a menu with my all-time favourite dish on, and one I've never had before, and 9 times out of 10 I'll go for the one I've never had before. The only times I ever order the same thing routinely from a place is if I've eaten my way through the whole menu already and there is no novelty. Sadly, this happens irritatingly often, as I'm a vegetarian.
posted by AFII at 12:36 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I regret the fact that I live and work just far enough out of town (different towns) that there isn't anywhere close & convenient enough that I can do this all the time. That being said, we get samosas from the gas station within walking distance of our house often enough that the dude there knows us.

If it weren't for the fact that I get two meals free at work and my partner does the bulk of the food preparation at home, I would eat so much worse than I generally do.
posted by terretu at 12:41 AM on December 3, 2016

I love repetition in my food. I don't crave novelty almost at all, and if I could find the perfect combination of things that were inexpensive, easy, reasonably healthy, and delicious, and stores would keep selling them and not change them, I could happily eat the same 3 meals every single day without alteration. However every time I've found something near that, it's abruptly been removed from the shelves/menus or I've had to stop eating it for some other reason.

I can't wait until there's some version of soylent that isn't awful so I can just stop thinking about food completely. I love eating, but I hate dealing with all the issues surrounding it more than I enjoy it much of the time. :-/
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 12:49 AM on December 3, 2016

The tragic side of being a regular isn't eating the same thing every time. It's when the restaurant removes your order from the menu

I got a personal apology from the owner when they removed one of my two choices from the menu. She approached with great nervousness and hesitation like she had to advise of a death in the family (the death of someone really unpopular apparently). Still breaks my heart, could never replicate it.
posted by kitten magic at 1:44 AM on December 3, 2016 [9 favorites]

And I'm always known by my order. If I switch it up at the Thai place I get asked if I'm ok, like I've clearly had a recent head injury. The fatherly pizza man wanted me to marry some guy who ordered the same pizza with the same changes a few minutes before I walked in the door. I swear he had a whole romantic comedy plotted out and pictured himself walking me down the aisle with my true (pizza) love.
posted by kitten magic at 1:49 AM on December 3, 2016 [21 favorites]

I could happily eat the same 3 meals every single day without alteration.

People definitely differ. I once attempted to economize by cooking in bulk, with the idea that I would eat the same dinner for a week, then switch to something else the next week, and so on. That experiment lasted two weeks, and I couldn't stomach either of those dishes again for at least a year. The repetition rendered them utterly unappetizing.
posted by crotchety old git at 2:06 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

In many cultures people eat the same few perfect things most of the time. What's stranger is the constant demand for novelty that characterizes the aestheticizing of subsistence and the fetishizing of consumer choice, not to mention the globalized food supply dependent on fossil fuel-powered long distance transport.
posted by spitbull at 2:12 AM on December 3, 2016 [8 favorites]

It's like you people don't worry about assassination at ALL!

More seriously, most restaurants here specialize in just one or two things so there isn't much choice to be made, but my work is out in the middle of nowhere and until recently there was nothing nearby but a Burger King (and even that is only 2 years old). I went there regularly enough to be on friendly terms with the staff but switched up my order enough that I never had a regular thing. I did however always use a coupon and they would ask me about it if it wasn't in hand while ordering.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:16 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh I do have one! Years ago I used to order from this nearby pizza place that, in Korean fashion, would put the pepperoni under the cheese so it wouldn't "burn". I had a ten minute conversation to convince them that I wanted the pepperoni on top of the cheese so it would get oily and crispy. After they finally relented I never had to ask again, they would answer the phone with my order (two pepperoni pies with the pepperoni on top), I would say yes and that would be the extent of the conversation.

Now that I say it, though, they probably just made a note in the computer so that anyone answering the phone would be aware of my proclivities. Anyway that was years and years ago.
posted by Literaryhero at 2:21 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

Two things, from different parts of my life:

When I was living with my aunt and uncle, I used to find myself at the Liberty in Libertyville at the very least once a month, if not more. It was a standard Greek family dinner in the burbs of Chicago. Giant menu, with a page of Greek dishes in amongst the standard Midwest diner fare. Every time I went, with friends, family, whoever, I would sit, paralyzed by the a menu filled with things I love. I would always be the last in the group to order, agonizing over what to do, and every single time, I would get the French Dip sandwich. Every. Single. Time. I mean, it was good, but it wasn't great, but I loved it. I've probably had a hundred French dips from that place.

More recently, when we had our restaurant up and running in Tokyo, we would find ourselves getting back to where we live after midnight almost every night. Suburban Chiba after midnight equals convenience stores or ramen, and I discovered that even my favorite ramen shop gets tiresome pretty quickly. That, and most convenience store food is unappetizing to me. It got to the point where I would just grab a bottle of drinking yogurt and go home, incredibly hungry, too tired to cook, but not interested in anything available. It was pretty much the only thing that I hated about running our restaurant.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:24 AM on December 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

And Thai food. I adore Thai food. I've never had anything I didn't enjoy at least a little, and loved most of it. But ga pao is my downfall. It's the best possible foodstuff I can imagine, spicy minced pork on rice with a runny egg on top? It's pretty much the only thing I ever order, and I always feel a moment of sadness that I'm not eating some of the other things I love. Then again, I'm ordering one of my favorite things ever, so the regret doesn't last long.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:29 AM on December 3, 2016

Ooooh, there's a gap in the market for a blog about eating a different meal at each of the 1,095 annual meals.

I'm not sure I could think of 1,095 meals that were distinct as opposed to slightly different.
posted by eyeofthetiger at 4:53 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

In stark constrast to my childhood, I'm a very liberal, adventurous eater. But I think there's a good bit of value in "being a regular," for a few reasons:

Decision fatigue is a thing. It may be satisficing to go to the same place for dinner every night, but breakfast in particular needs to be the same for me. I'm not a morning person and am barely conscious before caffeine, so wakeup routine needs to happen on autopilot, or I'm a bit off my game the rest of the day. Like the PR guy, I prefer to reserve decision energy for things during productive time.

Also, there's something reassuring about people knowing your order. Lots of people live away from family or their family has passed or they have a weird schedule that prevents friend-making, and one key area humans want community is around their food. Being a regular at a place gives you that. At a previous job we developed a significant level of loyalty with our regulars, and if their order was even the slightest bit wrong it gets remade, because people displaying loyalty to your business deserve loyalty back. This works both ways, too: hospitality can often be shitty, because in addition to dealing with the general public you get to clean up dirty stuff and wear yourself out physically. Having regulars come in and joke around or mess with you is usually a bright spark in the day.

I've seen lots of friends display very strange eating-out behaviour, and I'm certain that it's not making their lives better. This behaviour generally goes: agonise about what to order, deliberate over the options to the N^Nth degree, spend the interval between ordering and receiving the meal in a hot mess of anxiety, finally taste the food and regret not ordering something else (bonus step: steal my food). This is not sane behaviour. If you can't eat out without having an existential crisis, it may be better to develop a routine.

Finally, ain't nothing wrong with someone who likes a pint of Guinness a few times a week.
posted by iffthen at 5:17 AM on December 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

Years ago, I was a book buyer for a bookstore. We would get stacks and stacks of publisher catalogs and other book promotions and it was my job to go through it all and sift out the good stuff.

Every Tuesday and Thursday I would gather up a bagful of them and head down the street to a local tavern. It did not take long for the waitstaff there to recognize and get to know me and my favorite dish on the menu. After awhile, I could just walk in, they would see me & wave, I'd wave back and head to a table. A little bit later, my order would arrive and I would dive into both it and the pile of catalogs. As other have noted, there was a strong sense of community, a sense of a second home, to this routine. I got to know and even became friends with some of the waitstaff. I enjoyed it very much while it lasted.

That said, for those that think this sounds like the most boring thing ever, please do take note that you cannot actually step in the same river twice. No matter how much you try to do the same thing over and over, there's all these little details that can be noticed and savored if you pay attention.

For instance, the pattern the sun would make at a certain time in the afternoon along the far wall, and the way that would change with the seasons. Or the little smatterings of conversation that slowly go from casual banter to genuine friendship. The food as well - the same "ingredients" can have quite different flavor combinations depending on the time of year, one's personal set and setting, etc.

In other news, Edward Gorey used to go to the same spot every day and order pretty much the same thing every day (Tunafish). And he saved every lunch check he received. There's a framed display of some of them at the Edward Gorey house (which all good peoples must visit).

I think if Edward Gorey did it, the rest of us can assert that such routines do not make one a boring person. It's just that we have our own fun.
posted by jammy at 5:31 AM on December 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

I love variety in my meals, and I am one of those people who keeps a running list of where I've eaten for lunch lately and try not to get lunch at the same place in a fort night.

However, with that said, when I was single, I loved being a regular at a bar. At first, part of that was living in a small apartment on my own and wanting to go outside to read a book or do some writing in a place that had some ambient noise but where I didn't have to actually talk to anyone. But then, another thing that evolved from being a regular at the bar was being able to have regular conversations with the bartenders during slow periods. I found out that one of them grew up as a surfer in Maine and she'd tell me all of these stories of kayaking trips along the coast, and sometimes when I was planning a camping trip with friends, I'd just bring my maps to the bar to get her take on some ideas. Another was also a fellow D&D nerd and we brainstormed a gin-based cocktail of the week where he'd present you with a four-sided die and ask you to roll it, and your roll determined whether the cocktail's emphasis was on the gin, lime, basil, or syrup. When they'd move on to other gigs, I'd follow them along.

It's sort of similar to how I've had the same person cutting my hair for ... 13 years. I just follow her from shop to shop. Sometimes I've traded her concert tickets that I can't use in lieu of payment.

It never got to that level of friendship where we'd invite each other over to the other's place; but nonetheless, I like being a regular to build a relationship with the person serving me, and that doesn't necessarily mean eating the same thing in the same place all the time.
posted by bl1nk at 6:21 AM on December 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't think I am on the spectrum really, but I like what I like and am not very adventurous with food. I tend to have a limited set of things I eat for lunch, and I eat the same breakfast almost every work day (rice cakes with reconstituted powdered peanut butter, tasty, proteiny, filling and low calorie, plus quick to prepare and easy to take with me), and pack the same one or two lunches. But I get up at dark o'clock and start work at only slightly less dark o'clock so thinking about breakfast or lunch isn't really high on my list of priorities in the morning. But depending who's on shift at my local Tim Horton's, when they see me pull up they will sometimes say "extra large tea, double milk, no sugar?" before I even open my mouth.

I have been a regular at several restaurants and diners in my time, including a little hole in the wall place near where I worked in Toronto where they'd have my breakfast ready and packed up for me when I got there, and would make me my own special bran muffin (no raisins, obvs, because ew) when they made bran muffins. One of the many things I remember about 9/11 was that the folks at that hole in the wall place had skipped my usual breakfast and instead decided to save me a blueberry danish that morning and I was really looking forward to eating it when I walked into the office and saw everyone crowded around a desk...

I also loved going to a school with a uniform because I didn't have to think about what to wear, and I work at a job where I wear scrubs every day, which is close enough to a uniform that its Brundlefly sameness also pleases me. I don't have to decide what to wear beyond which set of scrubs.
posted by biscotti at 6:23 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

My attitude to food can be summed up by saying that if I encounter a flavour I don't like, that's a signifier that if I persist with it, it will most likely become a delicacy. I couldn't go through life eating the same thing regularly, so this was fascinating. I do enjoy variety after all, in people as much as food.
posted by walrus at 6:40 AM on December 3, 2016

Anybody else know the curious pain of being a regular and wanting to change your order? Server smiles confidently and anticipates what I'm about to say--"tofu plate," "short Americano to go," what have you--and then they seem so crestfallen when I say "Not today."

Sometimes I order the same thing not because I want it, but because I don't want to put us through the mutual embarrassment.
posted by Beardman at 8:11 AM on December 3, 2016 [7 favorites]

Variety in cuisine was really brought home for me when I went to study abroad in China in the mid-90s. It didn't occur to me until my plane was landing that I would be eating Chinese food for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 6 months. (In Shanghai in 1995, you still had to go pretty far out of your way and shell out beaucoup RMB to eat Western food, though decent Korean food could be had here and there and it's where I learned to love naeng myeon and kimchi ramyun.)
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:21 AM on December 3, 2016

When I was a student, and moved in with my then boyfriend, our apartment was a very cheap and extremely cold. Also, the kitchen was tiny and badly equipped for cooking. So we became regulars for breakfast and dinner at the local café. I also became a regular at a café near school. It was really comforting and lovely. For breakfast and lunch I'd have the same every day, and for dinner we'd have the special.

Sometimes I'd meet up with my granddad at lunch, and he'd tip so generously that I'd get free tea the next month. (Come to think of it, that might have been the plan).

Now, I am a regular at a small restaurant that has simple and well-made bistro-style food. I don't go there every day, but I go there at least twice a month - a couple of years ago I'd be there every week. I don't always have the same, but the menu is so limited it doesn't really matter. Every time I imagine going somewhere else, I get a bit stressed out. Why would I do that, I ask myself. What good can there come out of that? And mostly when I go elsewhere, I am disappointed. By the food, or the service, or the atmosphere, or the prices.
The thing is, I love food, and I really like going to special and interesting places. I use too much of my income trying out gourmet or speciality restaurants. But when I just want to spend a nice evening or afternoon with family and friends, I just really don't want servers interrupting our conversation and pointing with their little fingers at the food. And if the restaurant is not top-class and they do this to me, I get irrationally upset.
posted by mumimor at 9:17 AM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

The tragic side of being a regular isn't eating the same thing every time. It's when the restaurant removes your order from the menu—or, worse, silently changes the recipe. (I'm looking at you, Joy Time in Shibuya.)

And THAT is why I don't go to the Herndon Pho 75 or Vienna's Pho'n'More anymore. SERIOUSLY P'n'M WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO THE BO VIEN IT TASTES LIKE SOURED DOG ASSHOLES
posted by FatherDagon at 9:44 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

Dip Flash:

Skimming through the stories in this thread, I got a bit concerned when I realized that most places that consider me a regular are bars.

That's probably true for me as well, though I am usually there as much for the food as the drink. The one thing that always surprises me is how few visits it can take at some places to become a regular, while at others you could never break into the circle of regulars no matter how often you went.

For those concerned about being so easily recognized at a bar (and for Dip Flash not being recognized at a bar), I would posit that much of that is due to the bartender. I tended bar at a very high volume restaurant for well over a decade. I had my regulars and my "irregulars". Irregulars being ones who showed up once a year before getting on a cruise, or very sporadically, etc.

One, in particular, stands out. He would pop in only once or twice a year. Every time, he was shocked that I remembered him and his order. (Pint of local beer. Bowl of Gumbo.) There wasn't anything particularly memorable about him, like missing a limb or wearing a tuxedo or something. I took pride in my job and part of doing my job well was remembering people. Even ones that I saw so rarely.

At the same time, in that particular touristy town with an inordinately large number of bars, there were plenty I could walk into daily and they either wouldn't remember me or (more often, despite me tipping higher than average since I was in the industry) basically give me the cold shoulder. Having worked and observed many in the industry in this town, it was clear that a large number of people realized if they did the bare minimum, they could make a pretty penny just because of how many people would walk through the door.

(@Dip Flash, there is also something to be said of certain bars not considering you a regular unless you have been going there for years. I've seen bars where the bartender had been baby-sat by some of the regulars.)
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 10:31 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

I used to have a regular schedule and I was a regular at several different restaurants, of the sit-in-the-same-place-they-would-start-making-my-food-as-soon-as-I-walked-in variety. Now my schedule changes every three months and I can't really do that anymore, except on Sundays. I has a sad.
posted by yeolcoatl at 10:40 AM on December 3, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I find a thing I like at a place I usually end up getting that thing every time- at least for a long time. And there are places I'll go every week - at least for a while. In between the regular places I experiment with new ones though.
posted by atoxyl at 11:30 AM on December 3, 2016

Having a "I need to make no more decisions for the rest of the day" muscle memory autopilot is a useful thing. Plus, deviating from the routine wouldn't be as satisfying if I didn't have a routine to begin with.

Although I have on numerous occasions found myself in my own driveway when I had meant to go somewhere else on the way home.
posted by ctmf at 11:54 AM on December 3, 2016

I was thinking about this just the other day. There's a Sophie's Cuban Cuisine around the corner from my office, I have probably eaten at or ordered from them 40+ times over the past 3 years, and I literally ALWAYS get the exact same things, in three distinct situations:

Lunch: two beef empanadas and a passionfruit juice

Grabbing dinner after work on the way to something else: Cuban sandwich

Working late: roast pork with sweet plantains and black beans on the side

I have no idea why this happened, because I don't really do this sort of thing with any other restaurant.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:58 PM on December 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

i'm from Chicago. My boyfriend is from England. We live in New Zealand. so pizza choices are not as abundant as they are from our respective homes. however i've found a joint that has fennelly pork sausage. so every Friday, between 3and 4pm, my co-workers here this phone call : "hullo this is lemon_icing. yeah yeah. see you soon". click. large pizza, extra mozzarella, sausage with chilli flakes. and sometimes we get gifts of italian pastries.
posted by lemon_icing at 1:34 PM on December 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

when I realized that most places that consider me a regular are bars.

I can't afford to become a regular at a bar.
posted by porpoise at 4:24 PM on December 3, 2016

Night_owl, you need to call that customer and tell her that she's important to you. It'll make her day, if nothing else.
posted by adamrice at 4:28 PM on December 3, 2016 [2 favorites]

That said, I'm guilty of being frugal and making most of my meals, if it's just me I'll indulge Friday dinner and maybe Saturday lunch by eating out.

Problem is that while I'm extraordinarily adventurous and actively seek new restaurants with friends, I just can't be arsed - after making decisions with implications all week - to make another one.

For some reason, I feel ashamed of being a 'regular' and like others here and their friends, I "use up" a place and switch, but some of my go-to places are really f'ning good takeout. At these places, I pretty much order the same thing every time.

But it's cool sometimes if the owner/point of contact person is gregarious and treats you like a "friend" - maybe he really feels that way, dunno - and there's a little social interaction.

Luckily, I now have four or five go-to places and can rotate them enough. It's annoying that at some of the places (they ask for a name for the telephone takeout order) they recognize me and greet me by name but I can't reciprocate (and mild prosopagnosia and anxiety).

Oddly, I go to the Chinese-Canadian cafe next door to my rental when I need the convenience and I almost always order a different thing than I had the last time such that I've had maybe a half of their extensive menu.
posted by porpoise at 4:37 PM on December 3, 2016

"Although I have on numerous occasions found myself in my own driveway when I had meant to go somewhere else on the way home."

When I visit my parents, sometimes I go out to run an errand and find myself, twenty minutes later, in the high school parking lot because I started to think about something else while driving, and well, apparently that muscle memory is REALLY SOLID.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:12 PM on December 3, 2016 [4 favorites]

You know, it's good from the other side as well; long ago, I used to work in a bar in Toronto, and I had the regulars and their drinks down cold. Opening a Bud when someone walks in the door and them smile, grab it as they go past, and sit down entertains the both of you.
posted by transient at 6:41 PM on December 3, 2016 [3 favorites]

Disappointed to ctrl-F both that article and this page and return not a single mention of Gilbert and George's dining habits. Urethra.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:13 AM on December 4, 2016

I have one bar in my neighborhood where I'm a semi-regular to the point that some of the staff know me by name and think* that I have a "usual."

*Honestly that in-between phase where they know my name but I don't know theirs (or vice-versa) and, actually, I'd like to get something else, is pretty awkward.
posted by AndrewInDC at 7:49 AM on December 4, 2016

Thanks to still being able to be a regular on Sunday, I got to jump the (very short) queue for a table today. Hurray!
posted by yeolcoatl at 2:19 PM on December 4, 2016

How do you eat only one meal a day?
posted by Theta States at 10:28 AM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

> How do you eat only one meal a day?

Coffee and cigarettes don't count as meals.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:51 PM on December 5, 2016

Eating less or less often will make you feel more hungry for a while, but then your body just gets used to the new routine. Acustomization to routine is how both healthy dieting and anorexia work.
posted by yeolcoatl at 10:31 AM on December 6, 2016