The Regulars

I’m bad. A day late. And probably a dollar short. Apologies.

Since this is late, we’re that much closer to Saturday morning. And Saturday morning is when we go to The Breakfast Spot.

I’ve never really been a regular at a restaurant before. I’ve been a regular at a coffee shop, deli, or food cart where I routinely buy something quickly to eat on my way to or from work. But I’ve never been a sit-down regular. I love Thai food, but by god I wouldn’t want to be stuck with only that. Same for Lebanese or sushi…

But we’ve found this PERFECT breakfast spot. The food is great. But what’s really perfect about it is that it’s a small, cozy place, and it’s never busy. It’s so nice to go somewhere sans restaurant din and hour wait. We play cribbage or read books. It’s all very leisurely and I love it.

When you arrive, there is a crooked and weathered old tree out front that I would like to put in my pocket and take home with me so I can water it and pat it and whisper reassuring things to it.

And when you get inside, it has things like bowls of tiny adorable onions for decoration

and do-it-yourself loose leaf tea with these weird tea holding sticks of which I am proud to say I’ve finally mastered the use.

Then there’s the kitchen. One of those lovely homey kitchens you kind of want to have in your own house with pots hanging haphazard and full view so you can see the cooks making your food.

(In the center you can see the white cake, which is a red velvet cake, and I eat it. And it’s good. And cake for breakfastdessert should become a cultural norm.)

And almost every Saturday, the other regulars are there. We can’t figure out if they own the place (literally) or are family of a guy who works there who always comes out of the kitchen to smooch the kid, or what. But they are a dad and a mom and a baby. Baby is adorable and quite well behaved. He has his same bowl of Mashed Stuff every time. And Mom always speaks in Spanish and wears insanely colorful platform shoes that look to be made out of Fimo. She says hi. We say hi. I love them too.

And our waitress is so sweet. And she knows our routine. And we make small talk and she relays stories of trekking allllll the way across the river to have outings in downtown even though downtown is literally 28 blocks from the restaurant.

But then there’s this guy who works in the kitchen. A portly and friendly kind of a guy. A guy who should be everyone’s neighbor. And he wears his little white apron and has rolled up sleeves and a potbelly and he cooks yummy foods.

And see, there’s this comic, and he does this one bit (see 2:45) where he talks about how you could work it even while working at McDonalds that we just ADORE (and if you like that, watch this). Because everyone knows what it’s like to take some song you really like, some song that really pumps you up, and stick it on some headphones while you do something mundane. Like walk down the street, or pay the bills. And you just feel like a million bucks… And so we thought it would be fun to take the song and make our own music video of people we know doing their version of the fry shake.

And there is no one higher on our list to star in this video than this guy who cooks at the breakfast place.

Because every Saturday morning, when we walk into our little joint, wouldn’t you know he’s just HUSTLIN.