Have I mentioned I went to Paris recently?
I kid, I kid: if you hang out around here at all, I hope you’re not completely sick of me talking about our recent family trip to London, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid. This summer I’ve been reminded of how very much travel makes me want to WRITE (even if I’m returning to a domestic destination I’ve been to a dozen times) and how new locales prompt me to consider new ways of being.
It’s funny how sometimes travel not just makes me want to write, but reminds me of things I’ve already written, of experiences I’ve already lived through. I’m sharing one of those with you today.
Since we returned (two weeks ago today), I’ve been asked many times to share my favorite part of our trip. Superlatives are tough, and there are so many things I could share! But the thing that keeps rising to the surface is this: the food culture of France and Spain. My tip-top highlights of a trip PACKED with highlights are largely food-related. We lingered over coffee in cafés in the mornings, and gelato in the evenings. We enjoyed a fabulous food tour in Paris. And we reveled in two-plus hour lunches and three-plus hour dinners in Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid.
We enjoyed experiencing the food culture, of course, but we also enjoyed learning about it. (Example: I couldn’t get over the stories of French master craftsmen, or how inexpensive baguettes and croissants are in Paris!) I was particularly struck by a story our tour guide Olga told us about Parisian café life. To strip her anecdote down to its bare bones (apologies, Olga!), she spoke of how going to the café is an event for Parisians. It’s part of their social life. She spoke of how the retired men and women in her neighborhood don’t stay home because they don’t necessarily have to be anywhere, no, they wake up in the morning and get dressed to go out and visit the café on the corner to enjoy their morning coffee and a croissant, to sit for hours out in the world with their newspaper or book or simply watching the world go by.
I thought that sounded pretty great, and I also thought it sounded familiar. Olga’s stories reminded me of experiences I’ve had here in Kentucky, and encounters I’ve witnessed at a café in my neighborhood.
Today, I’m sharing a little essay I first wrote for my newsletter in August 2018, inspired by a trip to the local café. (I’ve recently stumbled upon several such pieces in my newsletter archives that I think it’s time to bring to the blog: stay tuned.) Our trip to Paris has me thinking of reviving this aspiration that the pandemic snuffed out, and asking myself if there are any changes I want to make to my regular routines, now that I’m home again.
Whether you’re reading again, five years later, or for the first time, I hope you enjoy this reflection, which feels uncannily right for right now. (School starts in just three weeks and I can barely believe it.) And I hope you’ll tell me all about Paris food culture, corner cafés, and being a regular in comments.
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I have a big life goal: I want to be a regular, somewhere.
A year and a half ago, Will and I moved our family to a new-to-us old house in a hundred+-year-old neighborhood, one where we can walk and bike to buy our books and brunch and coffee. We love it here, we feel like we belong, it’s felt like home since Day One.
But we’re still working on that “being a regular” thing. When we go to brunch, they don’t know our order, even if it’s always almost the same. Weirdly, I go to the coffee shop now less than I did when we moved in. (Unsurprisingly, they know me at the bookstore, but it’s cheating to count it.)
Everybody might not know our name at our brunch spot, but there seem to be a lot of regulars there. This summer, we’ve seen the same couple sitting at the same café table with their dog. The same people duck in for coffee on their way to work.
I’m a writer: I know everyone has their story (and it’s an occupational hazard to wonder what, exactly, each person’s story is). But there’s one particular woman at this brunch spot—and she’s clearly a regular—whose story I really want to know.
We see her when we stop in on Thursdays. She’s well-dressed, right down to her reading glasses. She always has a salad in front of her, a half bottle of wine, a little bread. She’s usually reading The New York Times when we arrive, and moves on to a paperback before we leave.
I have so many questions.
Does she eat there every day? How long has she been coming? Do the staff know her by name, do they know her order by heart? How did she establish this routine, and what does it mean to her? And, perhaps most importantly: can I be her when I grow up?
The school year is about to start, where I live. Something that surprised me about becoming an Adult was how much the school calendar dictated the rhythms of my life, even though I didn’t have kids. Now I have kids, and boy, does my life ever change when school starts.
Three months ago, I couldn’t wait for school to let out for the summer. Now, I’m eager for school to begin—and for the new rhythms, and new routines that will bring. And as I think about what I want those rhythms to look like, my thoughts keep returning to this woman, and her rhythms, her routines. They’re not conventional, but they sure seem nice, and they seem to work for her.
As I turn this corner into quasi-fall (so-called because it can’t be real fall when the forecasted high is still in the 90s), I’m hopeful that I will find the rhythms that work for me, even if they’re not exactly conventional. And I hope the same for you, that you will find the server who knows your name and your order, who will deliver your salad and Americano (though not in that order), and happily tell you they’ll see you next Thursday. That those rhythms will suit you, even if they’re not the ones that would work for everyone else.
Do you have experience with or insights about Paris food culture, corner cafés, and being a regular? We would love to hear your stories and insights in comments.
P.S. My favorite Paris photos from our trip, and 15 recommended reads for those who dream of traveling to Paris.
36 comments
I don’t have experience with Parisian cafes, but I do have one with our little French cafe on the island. I live on Pine Island in Southwest Florida (an interior island off the coast of Cape Coral/Fort Myers, just north of Sanibel Island). It is a quaint place with no chain restaurants. My family found a treasure in the Pine Island Getaway Cafe—a little place owned and run by a French trio of brothers and one of their wives that is tucked away off the beaten path. They serve the most delicious croissants, quiches, and French pastries. My daughter and I head there every Friday morning to work, then my husband meets us for lunch. I, too, have always wanted to be a regular somewhere, and now I am. Casey knows us and what we want as soon as we walk in (unless we change it up that week!). We see one particular customer every week when we are there—she comes for lunch on Fridays too. They are closed for a couple of weeks for vacation, so we didn’t get our Friday fix with them last week or this week, and we are missing it! For now, this is the closest I can get to a Parisian cafe experience, and that’s okay. I love being a regular there!
I love this…sounds heavenly! Haven’t been to your island. But, Sanibel Island is one of my favorite places and my husband and I are considering retiring to somewhere in that area. Will have to find that café.
I love it too! That’s a great setup!
I was hoping for a follow-up…that you finally sat down and interviewed her! 🙂 BTW, please never stop blogging. Blogs remind me of a simpler time and I enjoy them immensely!
I love this and I’ve thought about it a lot since you first wrote it. I’ve never really had this same experience in the US, maybe because I don’t have such routines here, but I spent my junior year in college in Spain (and loved it) and had a couple of regular spots there – the bakery I stopped at every morning on my way to class to buy palmeras, and the cafe we went to for lunch all the time. It was lovely to be known there! I was planning a trip back pre-pandemic, and now I’m very eager to revisit the city!
It’s so strange how the rhythm of the school year never left me, even when I had graduated and was single. And I was right back to it after having my kids! I completely relate to the part of your essay about the anticipation of summer and being eager for the routine of the school year. This year my first-born will be leaving for college so I suspect an additional rhythm will be added to our lives. I plan to sit in many cafes with friends this fall who are going through the same phase. Maybe we can choose one special cafe and become regulars. 😊
Not regulars at a cafe, but we go to the same barbeque place every Thursday for Trivia night, and are friendly with the other regular attendees as well as the ‘Trivia Guy’. Our favorite waitress Recently moved behind the bar, where I assume she makes more money, but we’re sad to see her go.
I adore Paris cafes! They are one of my favourite places and I have passed it on to my children. When we were in Paris, one of my daughters’ requests was to sit in a cafe and have croissants.
We spent 5 weeks in Portugal last year and our near daily habit was to walk along the beach to ‘our’ cafe for morning coffees. It was a delight. And it was so fun to observe the people who did the same, coffee at home wasn’t really a thing and so we quickly adapted to the culture.
We would stop at the same cafe for sangria after picking up groceries for a few days, European fridges are small! Another habit I loved while over there.
We live rurally so no coffee shops near us but my husband makes me a latte every morning and it’s a habit I hope we continue for years to come.
I just have wonderful memories of my first time in Paris (first trip to Europe). It was the summer of ‘74 and I was on a school trip. My Mom and little brother came as well. I am from what used to be called a “small town.” So the high school group led by Frau Brown included many familiar faces. We ate escargot for the first time and I remember getting ham & cheese sandwiches on buttered baguettes at a café. The waiter gave us the giggles as he placed bottles between his legs to remove the bottle caps. I had my saved escargot shells & Orangina bottle for years. I have the list of travelers and itinerary that my mother saved for me somewhere. I met my husband to be when I turned 15 and the school year started at the end of that summer. He was an exchange student from Brazil. My mother would return to Europe again the following summer. My sister went in my place, because I did not want to miss the last precious days as my Brazilian boyfriend’s time in the States came to an end.
I lived (and loved living) in New York City for 16 years. (I went for graduate school…and just stayed.) NYC truly is a city of small neighborhoods, and I think that (plus the predominantly walking and public transportation culture, as opposed to car culture) breeds the “being a regular/having your spot” feelings and connections you write about. New Yorkers have their go-to neighborhood markets, hang-out spots (cafes and bars), and parks (because: no backyards). Therefore, like the Sesame Street song says, they really get to know the people in their neighborhood. The people that they meet each day.
For me, I had Bob at the corner bodega who gave me food on credit when I was a poor student saying, “I know you. You’ll pay me back.” And Darren at Marie’s Crisis (the fantastic sing-along showtunes piano bar in Greenwich Village) who would begin playing “my song” when he’d spot me walking through the door. And the guy who worked the coffee cart (I’m not sure we ever exchanged names) who knew just how I liked my coffee and would begin preparing it for me when he saw me getting off the subway on my way to work. Usually, our exchanges were quick: he’d stick his arm out the window with my coffee in hand; I’d grab it and give him the dollar and change that I had ready to pay for it. (New Yorkers are efficient, no-nonsense types.) I loved (and miss) these familiar and tight NYC connections. Perhaps small communities (either neighborhoods in big cities or small towns in general) hold the key to these special feelings of connectednesses……
This makes me want to live in NYC and have my own neighborhood spots 🙂
We just returned from 3 months in Italy, and the one thing we regularly commented on is that they have a cafe CULTURE. Running into Starbucks for a mobile pick up is not a cafe culture! Even those that work always seem to have time in their long, long lunch break, or in the evening, and especially on weekends, to spend time with friends in their neighbourhood cafe. And the price! a local cafe would sell a cappuccino often for less than 2 Euros. (not in the big, touristy cities). But it was still much cheaper than here. We loved that culture
I did a brief stint as a nanny in Paris in the summer of 1997. I didn’t get much time to myself but when I did, I loved to go to Cafe de Flore and Les Deux Magots to drink coffee and write postcards. To think I could have been sitting at the same table where Sartre sat with Simone de Beauvoir or so many other great artists absolutely blew my mind. So not just the culture but the deep, deep history of it is so amazing. I kept a few sugar cubes with the names printed on the wrapper for the longest time!
I love to be recognized the minute I step into a cafe, I love to have a favorite meal or treat, and I like to have a “tradition”. I set up a monthly breakfast get-together with 3 dear friends. My preference was to continue going to the same cafe each month so we would have a lovely tradition to remember. Guess what? One of my friends REALLY prefers to go to a different place every month! Oh, well, it can’t always be my way!
A cafe culture is hard to establish when you live in the suburbs. However, a bookish friend and I meet every Wednesday morning at a local city, county or state park to hike for an hour or two. We mostly talk about what we’ve been reading and then we head to a local coffee shop in the vicinity of where we have hiked that day. We try to stick to small businesses, if we can. I look forward to this ritual every week, even in the winter.
My friend Rosa Jackson grew up in Canada and then moved to Paris and now lives in Nice. Her business Les Petits Farcis is a cooking school in Nice and she also does food tours and itineraries in Paris and Nice. Look up her instagram!
I don’t have this experience here in the US but my parents have a house in Sicily and my mom goes to the bar in the town square *every* morning to drink her caffè espresso. (it’s a cafè but they are called bar in Italy) They all know her and she hangs out just a few minutes to chat with the owner and the barista every day. When I visit them, I also go to the bar with mom for my cappuccino, and because of my mom, I am a “regular” for the 2-3 weeks I’m there. I love it!
I love this so much! #goals
I love this so much. My #1 wish was to see Paris and I finally did in late April. I was just there for 2 days (pre river boat cruise) but it was as beautiful as I had imagine…even more honestly. Unfortunately because it was just 2 days…(in reality prob. closer to 1.5 days) the one thing I did not get to do was sit at a cafe, drink champagne and watch the fashion, the people etc. Maybe I will someday go again. Can everyone please share their favorite books about Paris, both historical fiction and non fiction. Thank you so much.
Here are a few:
My Life in France by Julia Child (memoir)
Code Name Hélène by Ariel Lawhon (historical fiction, which is also great in audiobook)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (fiction)
Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin (fiction)
All The Devils Are Here (a Chief Inspector Gamache novel) by Louise Penny
I loved Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon. I read it a couple of times years ago when I lived in Europe and went to Paris somewhat regularly. I should read it again sometime.
I’m so glad you got to enjoy those two days! I hope everyone shares favorite books; this list will get you started! https://modernmrsdarcy.com/paris-literary-tourism/
Hi Anne! I love this whistful post so much and am glad you are inspired to blog on it today. I dream of a Paris trip some day. Watching the highlights of the Tour de France yesterday as they raced into Paris, including through the Louvre(!) is gorgeous. I have been to Corsica and the Cote d’Azur for a cycling tour, but the food and colors are drawing me particularly to Paris. Plus, I just finished the audiobook of Half Blown Rose; the details of Parisian food, people, seasons, art and language are fabulous!
I didn’t think this applied to me at all, but then I thought of the Farmers’ Market that I’ve gone to for decades. I am a regular there. I am greeted by name, not by all the vendors, but some, and other regulars like me. I love it.
Love this!
My partner and I are big coffee fans. We live in Indianapolis, which has an amazing local coffee scene, and we’re spoiled for choice! Now that we’ve lived here for some years, we have several favorites that we visit over and over. My peak regular moment was visiting one of our usual coffee shops the morning of our wedding. One of the baristas we’re friendly with, who had been privy to the stresses and excitement of planning, had seen us addressing save the dates and envelopes there, gave us our drinks for free to celebrate the day. It felt like a such a special moment with our coffee community!
What a kind barista and fun memory! I didn’t know about Indy’s thriving local coffee scene. I expect to be there more regularly these next few years and look forward to checking some out!
I do have a local, a pub restaurant near our home. We go there so often, when my husband forgot to pay one night they just put a note in the folder next time we were there.
OMG! Thank you! I’d move to Paris in a heartbeat and live my life at cafes and shop and walk! In Paris you stay at your table as long as you want and enjoy all the ambiance. People watching is most interesting! I love to walk by and smell something yummy and go in to eat. Those chairs!!! There is 1 company that makes all of them and they are all over France! So happy you had a good trip!
I have not been to Paris…yet, but the cafe scene sounds perfect. I love the idea of lingering, enjoying my coffee and croissant, and watching the people of Paris.
I don’t have a local cafe, but I do have a favorite Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood, and my sister and I meet there for lunch quite often. As soon as we walk in, they know our order, and they are always so friendly. I also see a lot of neighbors, which is fun.
Love this. I am about to move to a new neighborhood in my city, and I was very excited to see both a Starbucks and a small family-owned restaurant right across the street. My goal is to become a regular at one or both of these places!
We believe in you! ☕️
Now I REALLY want to go to Paris…
My husband and I are “regulars” are a winery near here. We have a date day every Friday afternoon, in which we go to our favorite vineyard, have a bottle of wine, and a bread-cheese-and-sausage basket for a late lunch. The “tasting” supervisor has our basket ready and the wine ready to pour when we walk in the door.
It’s lovely being a regular someplace, where they “know your name.”
That sounds lovely!
My French cafe memory is actually in Tahiti at a small cafe across the street from the port. A woman at another table nearby was a frequent visitor based on the numerous greetings she and her little dog got. Her tiny poodle wore a pleated skirt and sat in her lap and nibbled its’ breakfast along with madame who was somewhere north of 80 with shocking pink hair. She spoke both French and English.
Future goals: I might go deep purple for hair color. But the rest, bilingual, tropical paradise, daily cafe au lait with croissant and books to read, yes.
I’m a regular at a local coffee shop, have been for almost ten years since I started working from home. The Coffee Shop Crew is a group of 15, mostly retired. When I was in grad school a few years ago, I’d be there for an hour each morning. Now it’s ten minutes Mon-Fri before work and a couple of hours on Saturday. The Coffee Shop Crew has become another family to me. It’s wonderful.
If you want to be treated like a regular at a restaurant you’ve been to a few times, you can say things like “I’m having the [xyz] again; it was fantastic last time” or “We’re having the specials; we saw them online before we left the house!” or “I’m finally going to try [xyz] this time”.