The other morning I was reading an interesting piece by Mark Alan Burger in Esquire about being a “regular” at a bar or restaurant.
It made me smile because he was absolutely right. There’s something truly fulfilling about walking into a place where somebody recognizes you, where you don’t have to explain yourself, where the bartender says hello before you’ve quite decided what you’re drinking.
Then I started wondering what that whole relationship looks like from this side of the bar.
I’ve been standing behind one for almost nine years now, and I suspect the view is a little different.
Not better.
Just different.
Funny thing about regulars. People assume they’re the folks who come in all the time. Sometimes they are. Sometimes they aren’t.
I’ve seen people come in every Friday for years and remain perfectly pleasant customers. Nice people. Good tippers. Couldn’t ask for better.
And then there’s the person who only wanders in every month or so, yet somehow feels woven into the fabric of the place. Like if they stopped coming entirely, one of the floor planks would begin to creak differently.
I don’t know exactly when that happens.
I’ve never been able to pinpoint it.
There isn’t a ceremony.
Nobody stamps a card and announces, “Congratulations, you’ve made it.”
It just happens.
Quietly. It almost feels accidental.
Now and then someone walks through the door after being gone for a while.
“Sorry,” they’ll say. “Life got busy.” Sometimes “a while” means three weeks. Sometimes six months. Sometimes longer.
Nobody owes us an explanation, of course. Life has a funny habit of barging in with other plans. Jobs change. Kids grow up. Parents get sick. Houses need roofs. The dog eats something expensive.
But when somebody says, “Sorry I haven’t been around,” I always think the same thing – We weren’t keeping score. We were just wondering where you’d wandered off to and hoping everything was alright.
That’s probably the first clue you’ve become a regular.
Not that we missed your business.
We missed you.
The bottles were all still here. The chairs hadn’t gone anywhere. It was the conversation that had been missing.
There’s a difference.
I couldn’t tell you what most people ordered on their first night in. Honestly, I probably couldn’t even tell you what year it was.
But I can remember where some of them sat.
I remember somebody nervously walking in alone for the first time. I remember someone bringing a first date. I remember people introducing friends with a strange sort of pride, as though they’d discovered this little place and wanted to share it without quite wanting it to become too crowded.
Neighborhood bars are funny like that.
Everyone wants their favorite place to be successful. Just not too successful.
I’ve noticed something else over the years: you become a regular long before anyone behind the bar starts calling you one.
You become a regular the first time you’re driving down West Fifth on a snowy weeknight and catch yourself looking toward the windows and hoping that the bar has a decent crowd tonight.
You become a regular when you hear someone mention “Speak of the Devil” across town, and you instinctively chime in, “Oh, you’ve never been? You’d like it.”
You become a regular when something happens at the bar, and your first thought isn’t, “Maybe we should go.” It’s, “Remember the last time they did this…”
You become a regular when Black Vulture Ramen announces they’re popping up again, and you immediately remember those chilly nights years ago on the indoor patio, the “Ramen Room”. Back then, nobody really knew what this was all about, except for the handful of us standing there with fogged-up windows and hot bowls in our hands.
Memory sneaks into places like that. It finds places to come to rest.
That’s the part people don’t always see from this side of the stick.
We remember. It’s not because we have exceptional memories – I know mine isn’t – it’s because bars collect people the way old records collect scratches; every nick means something happened:
Somebody celebrated. Somebody cried. Somebody got engaged. Somebody came in after a funeral because they didn’t quite know where else to go. Somebody discovered their favorite bourbon. Somebody swore they’d never drink another Negroni. Six months later…”Maybe I’ll try one again”
I suppose that’s what I’ve come to love most about neighborhood bars. They’re one of the last places where you can become known.
Not famous; just known.
No profile. No passwords or apps deciding what you’ll probably enjoy.
Just enough conversations, “good to see yous,” and enough ordinary evenings strung together that, one day, they aren’t ordinary anymore. They’re simply part of your life.
Burger’s essay made me think about how good it feels to find a place where you’re recognized.
Standing behind the bar, I’d add one small thing.
Regulars don’t just find a place – over time, without ever intending to, they help to create one.
Somebody will walk through our front door tonight for the very first time. Somebody else will walk in and say, “The usual.”
If we’re lucky, and I think we have been, those are the same person- just separated by a few years.
That’s the thing about regulars – they don’t arrive; they accumulate.
And, in the end, maybe that’s all a neighborhood bar really is.
A place where ordinary nights eventually become somebody’s life.
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