"So this guy comes in alone all the time and every time he comes in he asks, "Do you think we can get some hot toast this time?"

As if he and I are conspiring against some other Bringer of Toast"

--Waiter in Chelsea

Perhaps the most interesting people you get in a restaurant are the regulars. In Manhattan it's kinda' weird because your regulars can be people who just don't have the time or space to cook, but you often get the feeling that it's really just lonely people looking for some sort of social contact.

You as the waiter are not just the person bringing the food, but someone who has been hijacked into this regular's social circle. So you get to hear about all their gripes and worries and who is out to get them (which really means who they are out to get). It's sort like those boring aunts you only see around the holidays, only it's not the holidays. It's every damn day you go into work.

Here's Roger talking about his regulars. He's from Chicago and works at a place just shy of NYU.

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We have a lot of regulars. I see certain people all the time. There's on older man who comes in twice a day. He drinks probably ten chardonnays. Every day he gets very wasted and then stumbles out. He used to shoot models for fashion magazines, but now he's just this old man who lives in the neighborhood.

He comes in and reads the paper. He knows every person by name, and he knows where everybody is from. He has a great memory, and he'll meet you once and he'll remember everything.

He always talks acting with me. Another waiter is into baseball and he always talks baseball with him.

We have nice regulars, but we also have crazy regulars. This one woman comes in a lot who actually does some of the decorating for our bar. She looks older than she is and is small and kind of wrinkly. She has really wild hair and she wears glasses and she always looks a little disheveled.

She'll sit at the bar and drink a cocktail, maybe a gin and tonic. And she'll sit there, kinda' muttering to herself. You'll get into a conversation with her and then you can't get away. You just don't want to get sucked into there. She'd said she's just not the same since she stopped using heroin.

A bartender, who has now left, used to serve her a drink and then run away before she could start talking. She's a storefront designer and the owner will hire her to decorate for times like Christmas and such. That's even worse because then she's hovering around and muttering to people. It's crazy.

We have an old man who comes in every night and demands a separate glass for his Metamucil. He's kind of annoying. Every night it's, "...and I need a separate glass for my Metamucil."

I know. I've served you seventeen times. I know everything he's going to ask for, but he still feels like he has to place the order every night. "I want the steak, medium rare, with the salad, and please bring out a side of olive oil..." And it's like, yea, you've ordered the same thing since I've been working here.

Any given night you'll see people from around this neighborhood. People from the bar we're at right now will come over. A lot at the sushi place down the street. A lot of people from the other restaurants stop in and we all talk about how each other's night went. It's kinda' like working in a small town. You see a lot of the same people and it just has that kind of feel.

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