Keeping Regular, by Anna Van Dyk

There is an old woman, Mrs D, who comes into The Restaurant with her daughter once a week. She likes to sit on Table 8, back against the wall, where the most light gets into the dining room. She is frail and wears large Iris Apfel-esque glasses and soft cotton tunics. She reminds me of my late grandmother. I know that she likes to eat her pasta with a spoon, that she will never finish her plate and always ask for it to be wrapped up for her to take home. I know what wine she likes to drink. She doesn’t need to ask. It’s on the table when she arrives. 

When she leaves to return to her flat in the council block across the way (I wonder how she can afford to eat here so often), I bid her farewell and tell her I will see her next week. I know I will. 

The backbone of this restaurant is its regulars. 

All of them, like Mrs D, are the reason I loved working in hospitality. It is the customers who come back, who invest in you and take notice of our service that make it all worthwhile. Seeing Mrs D return week after week was a small victory for me. A reminder that taking care of people is still a worthy thing to do. 

We take meticulous notes of each and every one of these regular customers: the couple who like their table water with ice and lemon on the side. The gentleman who dines alone and starts with a negroni, and likes us to pair wine to each course. The family who only sit on a particular table, or won’t come at all. We know them all. We love them for their loyalty. 

It makes me think about the role of restaurants in a community. It is something we tend to forget, in London especially, I think. Here the focus is on making money; staying relevant. We forget, as front of house employees, to reflect on the role we and our chosen restaurant can play in other people’s lives. 

We offer a place of belonging. Where being taken care of is a rare beam of light in an otherwise lonely week. A place where people remember your name. A community to come home to.

Restaurants can do that. 

The Restaurant, where I worked, did that. 

Sometimes, we forget what we are really doing, as hospitality staff. Making people, like Mrs D, feel loved. Even if just for a brief moment in time.