That is Awesome!
Man, and I thought it was a big deal when the waiter at the hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant closest to my work spotted me at a table one day and asked, “Lemme guess… Bean Curd Szechuan Style”? But nobody’s ever driven me back to work or tucked me into bed! (Although that might be because they don’t serve liquor…)
When I’m working second shift and I go there to get takeout, their toddler son is back from daycare and I try and play with him, because I’m paying his way through college, after all.
These days, I’m often at BP’s, where I can get my fill of sports and beer while yakking with the bar staff. They’re great folks and a few have become personal friends–recently when my wife and I were both going to be out of town and needed someone to feed our cats, one of the barmen offered to do it.
Sometimes, I go to the Pig and Whistle to play the NTN trivia games. Most often, I’m there on Tuesday nights, and knew I’d become a regular when the Tuesday night bartender mentioned that she wouldn’t be in the next week, but she would tell her replacement who I was, and what I liked to drink. When she returned a couple of weeks later, she asked me if everything was okay during her absence.
And it was good to see that I was remembered at The Earl of Whitchurch, which was the pub I was a regular at when I lived in Stouffville, Ontario. I hadn’t been there since leaving Stouffville fifteen months before, but as soon as I walked in while on a recent trip to catch up with friends and family over Christmas, both the owner and the server greeted me by name, and then asked the question that defines the term regular: “Do you want your usual?”
Damn, that felt good. 
The Carson City Nugget, a small casino here in the shadow of the Sierras.
Most mornings finds me in the coffee shop having their breakfast special. It’s a deal, an omlette (with choice of potatos, tomatos, or fruit) and toast. With coffee it’s $4.82, including tax. Depending on who’s working the cash register it goes down to $4.55 or $3.61 with the discount. Some of the money takers seem to have a poor grasp of whether or not to apply the 25% senior discount to the full amount or just the coffee.
I spend an hour or so there drinking 12-15 cups of coffee and reading. On the last cup I like to put aside the book and sip slowly while watching the main street and the mountains in the distance.
I used to go there, before they did the remodel and started carding (I was a freshman at NU at the time). There was the coolest guy who worked there, Michel. It’s where I learned that you should always brand your Guinness before drinking it.
I haven’t been there since my office moved, but there was a bar called “The Black Rooster” near my old office. The bartenders and waitstaff knew me by sight. I’m also a regular at a local Borders.
The local diner knows our Saturday breakfast order when we call it in. “That’s three sausage breakfast burritos. You stopping by Starbucks this morning or do you want us to start this now??”
The local Korean restaurant starts the soup when they see our car. They also gave us a wedding present.
The nearest 2 Chinese restaurants, we are either greeted with hugs or scolding for being away so long.
The deli/sushi place (great combo!) greets us by yelling out our order “Dragon and Rainbow rolls! How ya been?”
We really need to eat at home more often.
There’s this little soup/salad/sandwich joint not far from my office that makes the most transcendently unbelievable homemade vegetarian soups. They have a rotating menu of maybe twenty different soups, with two different ones to choose from every day. Sometimes it’s agonizing to pick just one. The sandwiches are IMHO overpriced and nothing really special (nice fresh ingredients, etc., but just the usual stuff), but the soup is really something, and cheap as dirt. The tab for a bowl of soup and a generous-sized fresh baked roll (more than enough of a lunch for me, and I have a hearty appetite!) is under $3.
The deal gets even sweeter when you bring in your own bowl; you get a small discount, and they’ll pretty much fill up whatever you bring in. I have this Tupperware soup cup that’s perfect; a little larger than their large, and it has a lid, which is nice, 'cause I usually carry lunch back to my office. Every once in a while when I come in to work around noon, I stop there before I go to my office, so I don’t have my bowl, and they always comment on it.
Harborwolf and I are regulars at a little coffee shop in our town called Island Bean. They make the best coffee, the best smoothies, and serve the best bagels in the area. It’s nice to go to a place that knows you and calls you by name.
A few months ago, we went to a DIFFERENT coffee shop in our town (I don’t know what we were thinking), and were terribly displeased with both the coffee and the smoothies. Yuck. I’ll never experiment again! 
Ahh, I miss that bar! What year was that that you went, if you don’t mind my asking? I’ve been going since about January 2002 (right after I turned 21).
Also, I went to NU, though what I liked about Flann’s is that it wasn’t really an NU bar. 
Well, I came into this thread to talk about Missoula places, but thank you, Ringo, for giving me a little nostalgia for Houston (moved here from there about 10 years ago). The Ale House was one of my hangouts as well. I only went to Cafe Edi a couple of times, and Lola’s–once. “Dive bar” is a kind phrase for that place. :shivers:
I used to be a regular at four Missoula bars: the Iron Horse, the Old Post, the Union Club, and Sean Kelly’s. Now, it’s pretty much just Sean Kelly’s, because they have the pub quiz on Tuesdays. Went there two days ago to meet my ex-wife and her girlfriend for dinner. It was very busy (pre-pub quiz), and it was taking a while to get anybody over to the table to get my drink order (they’d already ordered and mostly eaten). Suddenly, Candace (one of the waitresses I know there) swoops by the table, drops off a black and tan for me, and swoops away without a word.
My two dinner companions just gaped at me. 
Being a regular is a good thing.
I’m an old timer, in the Millennial class. It was in 1996 that I used to go there. They were famous for not carding, but decided to remodel and make it more upscale, so they wouldn’t risk the fines. It’s too bad. Our House East was a pretty awful bar, and there wasn’t too much else in the area (did you ever go to the one across the street from the MFA? Ugh!)
Did Michel still work there when you went? He used to dance in aisle all the time - he seemed so happy without ever taking a drink.
In Columbus, Ohio I was a regular at Bob’s Bar
Since moving to Texas, I’ve become a regular at Rob’s Sports Bar. Big change, huh?