Regular joes

Young Chang

I ate breakfast twice Thursday.

Bob Gaughran insisted on treating me to the blueberry pancakes at Cafe

Carluccio in Newport Beach, where he has been a regular for six years.

They’re the best pancakes in the world, he said, fluffy with big

chunks of blueberries.

Gaughran, 66, should know. He eats breakfast almost every morning at

Cafe Carluccio, where he reads the newspaper and shouts out things like,

“Hey, there’s Henry!” when a friend walks through the door.

Gaughran dines with a friend, Ralph Hawkins, also a six-year regular.

They don’t arrange to meet; they just do.

And as the two locals sit by a window for more than an hour, they talk

about life and its events. Sometimes, they are joined by regular Henry

Johnson, who grumbles that the window needs blinds.

In an age of drive-thru Starbucks, in a climate where the new “It”

restaurant changes almost as often as Hollywood’s latest “It” girl, isn’t

it cozy that there are still regulars who love their servers and servers

who love their regulars?

Locals say there are advantages to going to the same place time and

time again. The servers know your name. They always know how you take

your coffee. They fill you in on the soap opera of their lives.

In some way, even though they may serve a hundred other people,

there’s something nice in knowing they’re connected to you. And it works

both ways.

“We become a part of their lives,” said Jessica Addeo, a waitress at

T.K. Burger. “Their interests, their families -- that’s why I love

working here.”

Johnson jokes that Cafe Carluccio is his satellite office. A mortgage

broker, he’s had customers drop off their paperwork at the diner.

Hawkins has traveled to Italy and France with Cafe Carluccio owners

Karl and Nancy Poetes. He’s even met up with former employees of the

coffee shop while there.

“It’s like a ‘Cheers,’ ” Gaughran said. “It’s much more personable

here than at Starbucks.”

T.K. Burger, a burger shack about as big as a college dormitory room,

draws its own loyal customers.

When Greg Trimble and friend Scott Beerer are there, they own the

place. They sit at separate tables and reach across table boundary lines

for each other’s fries.

They chat with Jessica and Lisa Addeo, who stand behind the counter,

and say “hey” to other regulars they’ve bonded with over burgers.

Trimble always eats the “Big Bargain Special,” a cheeseburger and

fries. The servers know that’s a “no-onions and no pickles” request.

Trimble rarely even has to order.

The familiarity is part of why customers get to know their servers,

said Tammy Kavathan, a waitress at Gypsy Den in Costa Mesa.

“Everyone has their own personalities,” she said of her co-workers.

“You get to wear your own clothes, and there’s kind of an atmosphere

here.”

For customer Forston Ireland, the waitresses are largely why he has

dined at the restaurant at least four days a week for the last four

years.

He knows the servers’ names and jokes with them. They talk about

relationships and anything else going on in their lives. With the cook,

whose name is Jamie, Ireland talks about the Lakers.

And like any regular, he is comfortable where he is. The decor --

tapestries on the walls, books over on the bookcase, tattered sofas and

rugs on the floor -- have made Gypsy Den almost like his second home.

And, of course, he has his favorite room.

“This is the library setting,” he said, patting the couch.

Pointing across the open room, less than 20 feet away, he continues,

“That’s the den. Both places have couches. Sometimes I’ll even wait until

someone clears out.”

Courtney Oquist, who lunches at Gypsy Den on Mondays and Tuesdays when

she works in Costa Mesa, comes for the ambience and the food.

“If I was to make lunch at home, I’d make more food like this,” she

said.

Waitress Carol Seegraves, who has worked at Malarky’s Irish Pub in

Newport Beach for more than three years, said she loves it when she sees

a regular through the window and knows exactly what they’ll order when

they get to their usual seat.

“That’s the best part about waiting on regulars,” she said. “They know

how to order: eggs over medium with sourdough toast.”

Regulars at Malarky’s during the morning and lunch hours also get to

share an outside treat.

There’s a guy called the Cookie Man, said lunchtime patrons Chris

Eisenberg and Arlieen Spielman. He comes every morning and usually passes

cookies around.

“So is there really a guy called the Cookie Man?” I asked the

bartender.

The bartender looks at me and hesitates. “Yeah. He’s right there.”

I look to my left. His name is Jack Tenney. He’s 67 and goes by Cookie

Jack. He brings about two dozen cookies almost every morning and gives

them to Malarky’s customers and servers.

“They love them,” Tenney said.

Cookie Jack reminds me of when I was a regular.

It was at a hole-in-the-ground, late-night Korean restaurant in

Baltimore during college. My friends and I would go to Nam Kang at least

three times a week, staking out the same table.

Every Thanksgiving weekend, the waitresses gave us free Korean rice

cakes. They figured we were still around because home -- Korea -- was too

far to visit for a week.

If we arrived at midnight, the servers assumed we had an exam the next

day and brought us free coffee. And when it snowed, the owner drove us

home.

Ah, the joys of being a regular.