Bob Rubright’s Blunch Blog

It’s official! Bob’s latest book, “Breakfast, Lunch & Diner” is coming out soon. Check back here for updates and purchasing information.

Every decent breakfast or lunch joint knows who its regular customers are. Some places claim that up to 85 per cent of their customers are regulars. But, regulars come in all sizes and shapes and often are not easy to define.

Lou Mitchell’s 85-year-old establishment in the Chicago loop (“Serving the world’s finest cup of coffee”) is a caring place that annually runs through 2,500 cases of oranges for fresh juice at breakfast time, hoping to please its regulars. For its regular customers—the word regular must be underscored here—Lou Mitchell’s gives out fresh prunes, a tradition of at least 50 years. “We prepare the prunes ourselves,” the owner tells me. “We boil them and pour water on them that contains a secret ingredient.” Mitchell’s has to be one of America’s most high-volume prune dispensers, all to keep customers regular.

Regulars operate in various ways. One group—at the old Colonial Hearth restaurant in Hazelwood, Missouri—petitioned the owner to raise her prices so the restaurant could remain open. “The cooks and waitresses supported us and the waitresses circulated the petitions to all the regular customers,” said Ruth Pepper, who told me that “I am the Colonial Hearth’s number one customer.” The regulars won; the owner relented and the place stayed open—until it closed for good several years later.

“The Rusty Zippers” were a ragtag clutch of regulars who came in every weekday at 10 and 2 at the Englewood Café in downtown Independence, MO. “In the morning, we talked politics and local news; in the afternoon we gossiped about Rusty Zippers who were absent,” a Zipper told me. “The only time we got together outside the restaurant was when we attended funerals, usually for one of the Rusty Zippers. On rainy days, everyone showed up. And on Monday, when Bill, the man who ran the dry cleaners next door, bought coffee for everyone, this place was loaded.”

Harry Truman who lived nearby visited the restaurant for breakfast in the early 1960s, a fact that the regulars broached often, especially to outsiders. “Harry was a bad driver,” one regular recalled. “When he drove his old green Chrysler to the Truman Library he usually drove in the middle of the street and often didn’t stop for stop signs. Once I was coming the other way and Truman forced me to leave the street and nearly get up on the sidewalk so he could pass. Later the Independence police gave him a driver for the Chrysler. The driver would sit in a shack behind Truman’s home and wait for the call.”

One 24-hour restaurant in Belleville, IL is serious about defining regulars. ”You become a regular when you want to become one,” said an owner. “We have people who come in here three times a week but don’t fit in because they don’t open up and talk to anyone or show any friendliness. When you are a regular you become part of each other’s lives.” At the Hy Ho restaurant, customers who sit at the counter are choice candidates for the rank of regular. “Regular counter guys bond,” the owner says. “Maybe three or four of them talk every morning, all sitting on their stools and leaning forward or backward to see one another. Then one day, one of them will say, ‘Let’s start sitting in a booth so we can talk better.’ As they bond, they’ll leave the booth and switch to a table in our main dining room. That’s when they are confirmed regulars.”

Coming this week will be the first installment of my blog about breakfast and lunch experiences in St. Louis and well beyond.
Stay hungry…
Bob