The Unsung Regular

Best bar and grill in Fremont

The difference between a “bar and grill” and a gastropub is like determining the difference between a pair of trousers from The Gap versus those from Banana Republic. It’s likely that they’re cut from the same cloth, but perhaps the stitching may be a thread or two better. Only the very picky may notice, and mainly it’s the label that counts. The same can be said for designating a burger. The one from a gastropub might feature a harissa-anointed compote of heirloom peppers while the bar-and-grill burger might feature a simple, roasted pepper medley. You can be sure though, just like the trousers, that you’ll pay an extra ten dollars or so for the privilege of a gastropub burger even if, for all intents and purposes,  you’d be just as satisfied with a bar-and-grill burger. Thus a gastropub becomes one more destination restaurant when, really, what every neighborhood needs is a bar and grill. A comfortable place you can go on a whim when you realize that the chicken breasts in your fridge have started to gray. A place that welcomes children, if not begrudgingly, with untruffled french fries, a cupful of crayons, and something to draw on. A place where— to quote the often over-quoted Cheers— everybody knows your name. You can keep your gastropubs. I’ll take sassy waitresses, sports television, Jaeger shots, and drunk regulars over harassed servers, ambient lighting, and an annoyance of microbrews. Gastropubs don’t make good second homes. Bars with grills do. 

        I worked in a bar and grill—self-designated as an “Eatery and Ale House”—for years in the capacity of both bartender and sassy waitress, and I look back on that mildly hung-over time in my life with fondness. The establishment in question, Norm’s, is still located in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle. It may be that the drizzle of Seattle drives up the need for warm, amiable watering holes that feature comfort food. My old neighborhood had at least three such places. What distinguishes Norm’s—named after the owner’s golden retriever—from the other burger and beer joints is its dedication to all creatures canine. While Sunday brunch behind the bar turned me into a Bloody Mary-making automaton, Sunday brunch on the floor meant that I avoided the tangle of Flexi-leads like a jewelry thief avoids the laser-grid alarm in every hackneyed heist movie. The peerless Thursday night trivia, dimly lit red booths, quality of televisions, and stiffly poured cocktails are all selling points at Norm’s, but the dog art pinned to the walls and the fact that you can bring your Great Dane into the restaurant with you while you watch the World Cup finals is unprecedented. 

        And while bartending on weekend nights featured a distinguishable type known for their skewed ball-caps and taste for Jaeger Bombs chased by jumbo PBRs in paper bags, the rest of the week saw more subdued regulars lining the bar. The weekday shmoes— the ones who stood out as customers who crossed the friend barrier— were more interested in eating a quiet meal while bending the bartender’s ear. One such regular that easily pops into my mind is Chris Sypolt. When we moved back to Seattle for a second time, he was the first person at our house, and he bore the gift of The Macallan. It may have even been the 18-year. I don’t know now. The bottle is long gone. 

        I like to just call him “Sypolt” because although it is informal and friendly to call someone by their first name, it’s even more familiar to call someone by their last, so long as you drop the “mister.” Sypolt was reliably seated on his stool at least half my shifts, and although some evenings passed with not much more than light banter and the exchange of Visa for scotch, it was always comforting to have him there noodling around on his iPhone. His company elicited a kind of nostalgia associated with ready landmarks, although I’m not sure how he would feel if I equated his presence with that of the enormous Lenin statue that postures in all of its non-sequitur glory in front of the Fremont gelato place. 

Lenin and Gelato

Every restaurant operation is an orchestration. Sometimes it’s a small-town philharmonic, sometimes it’s a community production of “Annie,” sometimes it’s Sondheim, and sometimes it’s a bit of absurdist theater a la Beckett. In terms of the front-of-house players, at the very least you need enough bartenders and barbacks (producers) to handle the necessary flow of beverages; enough servers (actors) to manage “the weeds” because if they’re too dense, it’s guaranteed poor service; and a host (director) if customers must wait for turned tables. I would argue, too, that every neighborhood bar and grill needs its regulars as much as a symphony needs the kettle drum guy or the theatre of the absurd needs that character whose primary role is to randomly shout “Death to Napoleon!” while lying on the stage. 

        If I were to carry this metaphor a little further, I would say that although the regulars that frequent restaurants aren’t part of the crew in the strictest sense, they do function like audience plants who are a part of the production while being apart from the production. The role of “regular” is a coveted one. Though they don’t work for the restaurant, they do cross the fourth wall, and their functions are varied. For example, they act as extras on a set. Sypolt’s role as the extra would read something like “Pittsburgh Steelers fan who always wears black and gold during football season” and “guy who makes friendly wagers where losing means drinking a well-gin shot.” They also function like promoters who bring in friends and who talk at length with their outside associates about restaurant-specific anecdotes. Like the time Bradley puked on the bar during Solstice Festival. And I’m sure Sypolt has told many an acquaintance about our friend Alyona, a bartender from my era who was known for her enormous, natural breasts; taste for vodka with pickles; and prickly Russian demeanor. They ensure quality control, too. Although we’ll never let Sypolt forget that one time he lost his shit because his burger wasn’t prepared correctly, you can be sure that those line cooks were more careful with temperature and seasoning after that. And, finally, they also can assume the role of security. Though I wouldn’t have relied on Sypolt to defend the cash register, if necessary, I’m sure he would have defended my honor. At the very least he would have dialed 911 from his iPhone. 

        When I asked Sypolt about his place at Norm’s, he went round-about to offer an answer: “There is an unspoken understanding between customer and server at a bar or restaurant that goes something like ‘At the end of the night, you will be full, drunk, happy, or nauseous, or some combination of these things: just remember who helped you get there when you decide on a tip.’ The staff have to trust their efforts will not go unrewarded. Too many times they are, which starts the spiraling descent into service apathy, and the entire experience suffers. Every so often the server is having a bad day, and I will pull that person aside and try to help them see where they went wrong. I've effectively become an ad hoc quality manager to help ensure that other customers are being treated as well as I have been over the years. Part of this is enlightened self-interest. If people are treated well, they will come back, and one of my favorite places will continue to be there when I stop by.” 

        I think this is reductive, and that he doesn’t value the many roles he plays when he takes his place at the bar— eight seats down, I think— and empties buckets of cheap scotch. I will say, however, that he’s gotten more philosophical ever since he left his internet job. When I knew him— that is, saw him in-person all the time— he worked for the online company he created and then sold. Ever since I left Seattle, he’s been cultivating a keen, and successful, interest in writing. This interest was fueled by his departure from the corporate world, but also from a need to offer consolation to his best friend who died last year of cancer. 

        I asked Sypolt if Norm’s played any part in helping him compose his letters to Carla, which he assembled into an e-book called Letters to the Big C. He said that he didn’t set out to write a book. “I set out, quite simply, to try to inspire my friend, to give her things that she could hold on to late at night, when fear and anxiety were her constant companions. The book is the compilation of all of the email and text messages that I sent to her over the course of 2012, plus some ancillary stuff, including emails to friends and family that help to advance the story. With the rules of interaction, so to speak, firmly in place at Norm's, I knew that I could go in and do the things that I needed to do, and that people would understand that I wasn't really going to interact for a while. After I had all of the emails in one place, and started stitching things together into what became Letters To The Big C, Norm's was a place where I could go, be mildly social, and work through the editing and typography details. It helped that virtually everyone knew the basics of the story and they could understand me being hyper-focused on what I eventually started calling “The Thing.” And, of course, these same people were the first ones who started reading it and helped me to spread the word.” What Sypolt says only reinforces my theories about the complex role of the regular customer in the life on a restaurant. It was not merely that he went to Norm’s and an exchange of products for money occurred. A whole story emerges that belies the cold transactional nature of commerce. 

This is Norman

I may be over-thinking this as I tend to do, but no one can deny that the regular customer plays an integral role in the restaurant “show.” Necessary not just in terms of their roles as QA experts and PR reps, but also as part of the décor, flavor, and overall gestalt of the dining and drinking experience. It’s no accident that whenever we think about the show Cheers, it’s almost always Norm and Cliff that pop into our heads. Without them, the show would have been nothing. So, too, is it with a neighborhood place: without your regulars, you’re nothing but a place that serves eats and ale. I had to ask Sypolt whether he thought he was more of a Cliff or a Norm. It’s an annoying question, and he kind of shrugged me off by saying that “as amalgamations of people you meet in bars, they are probably representative of the people you see in any place that has regulars, but I'd need to sit down and think about the archetypes to try to figure out where I sit. It is, after all, a sitcom where character depth takes a back seat to funny possibilities.” But then he did admit that he has Cliff’s brain for trivia and Norm's iron-clad liver for drinking.        

        The final thing I had to ask was what he thought of me as a bartender. It’s been long enough now since I’ve slung booze, and I didn’t think I could be hurt by an answer. His response? “What you lacked in speed and execution you more than made up for in humanity. It was always a pleasure to walk in and see that you were behind the bar.” Hey, there was nothing wrong with my execution! But thanks for the humanity part.

        Eh, you’re a good egg, Sypolt. You made the experience more human, too.

Sypolt and my boy

Undead(ish)

After Nathan’s knife-twisting schemer of a wife out-maneuvered him via court settlement to hand over the better car, primary custody of their kids, the house he penned a large check for every month, and a significant chunk of his earnings as a urologist, it felt like a real kick in the pants to come to his senses shambling down Melrose as a flesh-eating zombie.
        Well this is a real, fine how-do-you-do, he thought with the better part of his brain still intact thanks in no small part to Mensa and the Friday crossword. One minute I’m in the neighbors' garage checking to see if they have any moving boxes left, the next thing I know their three-year-old gnashes a hole in my knee like some kind of rat dog. "God, what a little fucker," he grumbled as the sudden urge to consume gobs of stringy flesh grabbed him by the throat and walked him to the corner Bistro where well-heeled trophies jockeyed for sidewalk spots fully unaware that the local Viagra doctor yearned to unzip their soft bellies like Saint Laurent purses bursting with strands of gleaming entrails.
        "Hi Shirley," he exhaled a little shakily, "haven’t seen Teddy in a while."

        "Hey Doctor Nate," said Shirley, "You’re looking a little under-the-weather." 
        "Yeah, well, I think the neighbor’s preschooler turned me into a zombie," he offered with an unsure chuckle. "Plus, I've been dealing with a messy divorce." 
        "Wow, that’s adding insult to injury," she said. "Maybe Frites has something on the menu you can eat?" 
        "I guess I could check," he shrugged as he got a grip on his appetite and steadied his breathing in the perfect half-mast light of a dying Los Angeles Saturday. 
        "I hear the tartare is very good." 
        "Great," said Nate. "I guess I could get a few orders."
        "Would you like to sit? I don’t think Ted’s coming." 
        "Sure. So much for twelve solid years of veganism."

         Barely able to control his fork, Nathan tucked into the mounds of glistening raw beef made sophisticated with dijon and capers while Shirley nibbled on the little, round toasts like a bright-eyed squirrel. So much for so little to show in the end, he thought at the quaint outside table as the palm fronds waved their shadows around in the Santa Anas like frantic women vying for attention. So much for all those dicks I’ve cradled in my hands with a sympathetic wrinkle on my brow. So much for the organized office of brown leather and perfectly feathered files. So much for the wife’s little peach-fuzz mustache. For my beloved ex-Porsche in custom orange fleck, for the two-room dog house I built on weekends for my ex-beagle. 

         "So much for all of it. I’d eat it if I could. Stuff it right down my throat," he said as the bloodlust of hunger cleared a little from his eyes. He smiled with a head tilt, "Let’s toast to being undead," he said with a toss back of Vueve. Then he leaned in and bit Shirley’s ear. Too hard.

This is Not About the Apple Pan

I thought, given my trip to the Apple Pan, that I would be writing something I'll call hamburger porn, which is more drippy and muscular than your average food porn and what you might find in the pages of Esquire adjacent to a homo-eroticized torso selling cologne. I thought I would be disparaging the fussy little burgers from Umami and all the other burgers resting on beds of laurels organically grown from trend-setting gardens. I thought I would be extolling the tang of an Apple Pan burger, a tang derived from a dill relish and catsup sauce (hardly secret as sauces go). Figured I would describe how the Apple Pan’s inch-thick wedge of iceberg trumps, on any given day, the stingy helping of greens most fashionable burgers wilt on contact. Reckoned, in general, I would be focusing on how a good burger is one that knows how to make juicy what should be juicy, and how to keep dry that which should stay dry.

Then, of course, in the interest of countering myself, I figured I would have had to veer off to discuss my general problem with eating for nostalgia’s sake, which often chooses to overlook the inherent issues with a place and its food. For example, if I were to have been able to write a straightforward hamburger piece, I would have complained about the Apple Pan’s modes of delivery: The way the burger is half-wrapped in paper— with no accompanying utensils, and just the tiniest institutional napkins— means that you pretty much have to eat it all without setting it down. No savoring in that. But since I couldn’t write that, I also couldn’t complain about the perfunctory service, the stifling heat of the so-called quaint (read: un-air-conditioned) space, or the amount of trash the Apple Pan must produce given the cardboard trays that the fries and accompanying catsup are delivered on as well as the paper cone (cute or stupid?) from which I drank my Diet Coke. I simply won’t write about how the smell of an Apple Pan burger lingers for hours on your hands even after you wash them.

Nope. I can’t write any of that. Instead I have to write a human interest piece. Why? because I forgot that the Apple Pan is cash only, which is one more way that old-fashioned gives way to frustration. Luckily for the cash-poor diner there is a Bank of America right next door. Oh, but wait… I had forgotten my ATM card in my parenting backpack and I was carrying, instead, my teaching backpack. The morning had been frantic, with my son wailing about having to go to preschool and with me hustling to get a lesson plan together for my composition class, which I taught prior to burgertime. Not to mention that I had a lot on my mind: the reality that my son needs to be assessed for learning disabilities, for example, or the never-ending to-do list for our new home, or the large stack of papers that needed to be graded over the weekend. Why wasn’t I carrying cash? Because I wasn’t, so lay off. How could I stick my ATM card into the parenting backpack without replacing it in my wallet? Because my mind was trying to hold on to a million thoughts at once, so I can’t really write about the white, wrap-around counter, which is the only seating, or the metal behemoth of a cash register, which must be a relic from the Apple Pan’s founding in 1947. 

Above all, I have to write about Deke, a gentleman dressed in casual pinstriped broadcloth and khaki who sat down next to me and proceeded to tuck into his newspaper in a way that said closed for conversation. Of course, I felt bad interrupting his lunchtime reading with the question, meekly asked, Is the Apple Pan cash only? Yet I had to ask as a glimmer of memory made me panic three bites in to the burger (with all the snap and juice of lettuce and beef, the Tillamook added a smooth creaminess to the composition) I really can’t write about. His reply was something like, “I don’t know, but don’t worry about it. Enjoy your food first and talk to the man later.” I’m sure he saw the sheer dread in my eyes as I pawed through my backpack looking for my ATM card. I nervously dipped my golden, medium cut fries in the huge mound of Heinz hastily poured for me by the server as I imagined myself wearing a paper hat and peeling potatoes in the back while the rest of the restaurant workers made fun of me in Spanish. Gringa estúpida no tiene dinero.

When my check was delivered, so was Deke’s. He settled my tab as well with no prompting. Just a shrug and I’ll get this one, too to the man behind the counter. Deke must have had a good nose for desperation, which, I’m sure, was fairly leaking from my pores. We chatted then about USC and writing and real estate. I had a stack of student papers in front of me that I was trying to read and keep free of catsup smears. The point is, I can’t write about a burger joint, not when the number of texts devoted to hamburger porn grossly outnumber the burgers worth lusting for. Moreover, I especially can’t dedicate the words of this essay to the task of deconstructing the Apple Pan eating experience when what is really important is that a man I didn’t even know bought me lunch because I showed up at a cash-only restaurant with no cash. There are burgers and kindness out there that defy expectations. Thanks, Deke. I’ll do what I can to pay the karma forward.