“Cops at the donut shop” is true to a degree, but what about real, square meals? Where do your local police, paramedics and firefighters enjoy going to eat?
The police around here seem to favor IHOP, or an independent eatery that features Greek food among other offerings. The fire/paramedics guys tend to show up at a family-owned Mexican restaurant, and when they go grocery shopping it’s always at Albertson’s.
In Brooklyn, NY there are always police at Tre Fratelli, an Italian grocery that I think stands for “three brothers”.
My husband is and EMT/Firefighter. He and his guys eat at the station most of the time. I see the guys from the local station at the grocery store at about the samer time every day, so, I’d guess they eat at the station too.
The private ambulance guys often don’t have a place to hang between calls, but I see them at the grocery store too.
I’d echo picunurse. The local firemen and ambos must eat at their stations because I see them all the time in the local Woolworths buying supplies.
When I waited tables, we had a group of firemen and a group of police officers that would come about once or twice a week. Every now and then, they’d have to get up in the middle of dinner to answer a call, but then they’d come back afterwards to pay the check.
Back home in southern New Brunswick, all of our policemen and emergency teams ate at a local gas station/greasy spoon that we locals all call the “Milk Mart” (harking back to the 50s or 60s, when it had a sign out front proclaiming the place name to be the “Merry Milk Mart”), but is just an Irving station with a restaurant. It’s on the main highway, so it was convenient to get to. Everyone went there.
Here in Seattle, well. You’d have to ask the locals of each area - to be quite honest, I’ve never even seen a police car here in Ballard. It’s these Norwegians, man. They… they intimidate the policemen. Yeah. That’s it. Don’t come to Ballard, if you know what’s good for ya! Uff, da! I’ll throw my lefse at you! Wait, no I won’t, it’s too tasty to throw. Go away.
Steak 'n Shake is constantly crawling with cops at 1 AM -onwards. Everyone there is either drunk and high, or a cop.
Lots of cops at my taqueria.
The paramedics seem to like Starbucks.
In my neighborhood, I often see fire fighters and paramedics getting food to go at Baja Fresh. I often see cops sitting and eating at my local El Pollo Loco.
We do what we can. We’re on the streets for 12-hours at a stretch. I try to bring food, but it’s tough to find things I don’t get sick of fast. Depending on where we’re posted, we’re partial to a local Mexican place and a local deli. Otherwise, we’ll usually end up at someplace like Qdoba or Noodles & Company. Lots of people like Starbucks, but I can’t stand the coffee (neither can my partner), so you won’t find us there.
St. Urho
Paramedic
In my area, they usually hang at Kosta’s (the gyros place), one of three “family” restaurants in the area (think your typical “greek restaurant” - I can’t remember their names) and Hot Dog Richies.
Every wednesday at 10pm, the entire shift for our area ( 3 cop cruisers) is at the local shell station.
Our cops seem to like anywhere convenient: Burger King, Wendy’s, McD’s, etc. The firefighers must eat all their meals in their respective stations becuase I’ve never seen one in uniform at a restaurant but I have seen them grocery shopping at Giant and only Giant, never at Safeway, Harris Teeter, or anywhere else.
I think my 7 yo is watching too much TV. We were sitting in the local sushi place, and a officer came in to pick up carry-out. DS announced (way too loudly) that policemen (this was a woman) get their food free in restaurants.
I go to my mother’s.
Those that live in town usually go home. Our day shift eats alone since there is no overlap with another shift. They have to stagger their meals. The afternoon and overnight shifts overlap so each shift goes on break together. Most who eat out go to either of a couple of Italian resturants or the diner in town. For the overnight shift the diner is the only thing still open. I used to eat with the shift when I was on afternoons but now I am on the overnight and I eat dinner before I come into work. I go to my mother’s and watch TV for my break.
When you see us sitting in a resturant please come up and say “I guess it’s a good time to be a criminal.” It never gets old. We work 11 hour shifts, you don’t think we need a meal break? There is still an entire shift out on the road so the town is covered. If anything big happens out the door we go.
We have volunteer fire and rescue so that is not an issue.
Local cops go down the street to the 7-11, and completely jam up the traffic flow in and around the parking lot. 
Would sometimes make me late for school.
Also, they go to a local diner, and I bet the management loves that - nothing like an entire parking lot crawling cops to entice people to stop by for some waffles…
Yep, around here they eat at the station. When I did my ride-alongs with the paid crews, they went out or stopped at Safeway or Giant on the way back from calls to pick up food and fixed it at the station.
If the medics are out, they stop wherever they feel like eating. When I was with them, they seemed to favor Panera (yum!) because they got a discount.
At my volunteer station, it’s pretty much everyone for themself. If it’s a stormy night, or a bunch of people are going to be hanging out, they’ll order in pizza or subs.
Back home I work at a pizza joint, and there is a police station (small substation) right around the corner. They get free food from us pretty often.
Where I live, it’s a local coffee shop. If you want to see the Chief of Police or the mayor, stop in on any Saturday morning.
Why would that stop anyone from getting waffles? Except for criminals of course. If anything it will only keep out the late night drunks who might cause disruptions. The management of these establishments always do everything they can to make cops feel at home so they will show up night after night. It’s like getting free security guards. I have never seen how it hurts business.