Are You a Restaurant Regular?
I think i'm incapable of being one, but i'd like to be.
As someone who writes about and deeply cares about how we eat, as the daughter of immigrants myself, and as a human being with more than a single milligram of empathy in my body, I have to take a moment to voice my support of the protestors. There is incredible reporting happening about the spine-chilling ICE raids that continue to happen in Los Angeles, and across the country, and my heart remains broken watching it all unfold. I hope we never fail to see the humanity in one another.
A few housekeeping notes. I started the Game Changers package at Food & Wine during my time there, and it’s fun to see it continue on! This year, I contributed a piece about Ninja and how they are able to churn out viral appliance after viral appliance.
I deleted Instagram off of my phone for a few days to give my brain a break from the onslaught of information. And while I am finding a lot of relief in it, I miss having it as a way to shoutout great meals that I have had. I recently re-visted Etra, home of my favorite pomodoro in LA, and they now also have a perfect limone on the menu. It’s so stellar that we finished our plate and then proceeded to order another one.
****I also realize I have not advertised this much, but I do take on a couple of consulting clients that are part of the food/restaurant/cpg/hotel/hospitality world. I have had two spots open up, so if you are a brand (or thinking of starting a brand) looking for some additional help especially when it comes to brand positioning, growth, marketing, and story telling, please get in touch. My email is ks@khushbushah.com.****
Okay on to today’s newsletter.
On a recent Friday evening, I found myself sitting at a booth in the middle of a palatial, airy dining room in Beverly Hills. I love these gently nonsensical restaurants where the majority of the clientele is more often there to be seen than to see what is actually on their plates. It’s people watching at its finest. As I picked at the plate of (truly stellar) lemony roasted potatoes in front of me, I noticed our server speaking to the uniquely dressed couple sitting kitty-corner to our table, lingering in a very comfortable manner.
As he stopped by to check in on us, I immediately asked for the couple’s lore, and he happily obliged. (There are few things I love more in this world than a chatty, loose-lipped server that is brimming with all the best gossip!!)
Turns out that the couple, a pair of lawyers, had been into the restaurant, Avra, at least 415 times in the nearly 8 years since Avra first flung open its doors on North Beverly Drive. I quickly did the math and that averaged out to nearly 52 visits, the same number as the number of weeks, in a calendar year. The couple comes in nearly every Friday and places the same exact order. (Though this time, the wife had been in for lunch with a friend earlier in the week and had a dish she had never had before that’s only available on the lunch menu. She requested to see if the kitchen could make it for dinner — the staff quickly obliged). The power of visiting over 400 times.
Our server told us of another regular, who has a special button in the POS system because of his order — a very particular off-menu salad. He comes in daily, eats the salad (which has basically every ingredient on the side), orders nothing else, pays, and then leaves. He has been doing this almost every day since the restaurant first opened.
I immediately had a lot of questions for them, after all, dinner at Avra is not cheap. And to order the same thing day after day or week after week, also fascinates me. Los Angeles has thousands and thousands of restaurants. In some ways, it sort of feels like a Disney adult — you’re spending so much money to return to the same place over and over again. Do you not want to go elsewhere? Are you not curious what Friday night might feel like elsewhere?
But what I felt most of all was jealously. I have often fantasized about being a regular somewhere — a something that has eluded me given my professional history as a food writer and restaurant editor. When you are so focused on eating everywhere, there just isn’t enough calendar or stomach space to dedicate to just one place. I understand there is a big appeal to consistency and knowing what you are going to get, but I think I crave new experiences too deeply.
Even now, when I find myself in retirement from the endless scouting, I am finally able to be a restaurant repeater — there are spots in LA that I like to call my back pocket restaurants, places that I have been to at least 6-10 times in my nearly 4 years of living here — but I am not sure I am a capable of being a regular, even though id like to be.
I was curious about what the bar is to be considered a regular and texted Sara Mardanbigi, the co-owner of Nixta in Austin, and Arjav Ezekial, the co-owner of Birdie’s in Austin for their thoughts. “It’s a frequency thing, for sure,” says Ezekial. “Once every four to six weeks… I would consider. The hyper regulars come in one a week.” Mardanbigi says “once a week for an extended amount of time,” and adds another, important, caveat. “Everyone on your team should know who they are and what they like. Even if that team member works infrequently, they still know them.”
Regulars are deeply important to restaurant culture. Ezekial goes as far as to say that they are the “lifeblood of a restaurant,” adding, “you build real relationships with them over time. See kids go from infants to toddlers to teenagers.”
It’s a great way to build community. I love that a restaurant, and it’s characters, can be a fixture in a life, in a family’s universe, especially in this day and age where so much feels one and done, on to next in 30 seconds or is done online and behind a screen. It seems the Cheers theme-song rings just as true today: “You wanna go where everybody knows your name/Where everybody knows your name/And they're always glad you came.”
Are you a regular somewhere? Do you have the same order each time? Would love to know in the comments.
Yes, I have loved trying to become a regular, especially as a near-constant solo diner. The validation and comfort factors often easily win out over a taste of the new.
I love being a regular at places, not because I expect special treatment but because I love to give my money to the people and places I love. When I lived in Bombay for 6 months there was a bar I visited almost every week with various friends, and in the course of those months I got to know the servers well. Each time I return to Bombay I will always invite friends to join me there, and in January 2024 I made it back for the first time in 7.5 years. When I walked in, one of the servers saw me and came over to say "Madam! Where have you been??" and it made my entire year.