THE REGULAR : There’s a Place Where They Not Only Know Your Name but How to Customize Your Burritos

I spent my early 20s on the back stools of a smelly Hollywood rock club, nursing soggy paper cups of cheap draft beer, wincing along with my friends when a Valley-bred lead singer barked lyrics in a cockney accent or pummeled yet another heavily miked oil drum with grandpa’s belt sander. We were pathetic punk-rock has-beens, most of us, veterans of a thousand lousy shows, sick of rock ‘n’ roll and of each other. But we were there almost every night the club was open, hoping for a good band against ruinous odds, happy that at least we had somewhere to go. We were regulars, and it felt as if we belonged. It was as close to community as any of us ever got.

You can hang at joints-of-the-hour if you like, though they tend to be populated by dudes who have had something to do with the latest Motley Crue video and by young women just learning how to smoke. You can go to a different coffeehouse every night. But it’s kind of cooler being a regular at a place, having a bartender know that you abhor lemon peel with your espresso, a doorman wave you through, a Sumatran cook remember that you like your shrimp fried rice well done and triple-hot. I secretly envy people in those glossy magazine stories who have eaten lunch in the same restaurant every weekday since 1983. (I’ve never had a sandwich named after me .)

When you’re a regular, you can show up bearing a cantaloupe and be sure that the chef will make you the prosciutto-and-melon pizza he took off the menu last year. A waiter may take the time to translate specials from the Burmese. You can go in every day for a grilled cheese sandwich and irritate the grill guy with your perfectionism: Will the cheese be too liquid today, the toast too crisp, the hot chile paste too sparsely spread? I am still happy when a counterman barks: “Pastrami burrito! No cabbage!” when he sees me walk into a taco stand I haven’t really frequented since college. There may be Snoop Doggy Dogg instead of the Dazz Band on the jukebox now, but the place still feels like home.

I once became obsessed for a while with the idea of becoming a regular at a famous Sunset Strip restaurant, of finding out the number of duck dinners you had to eat before somebody slipped you the telephone number of the restaurant’s private line, how many chopped salads an unconnected guy had to stare down at 10:30 p.m. before he could finally command a reservation between 7 and 9. But to hang at places like this costs money, of which I had very little, and becoming a regular seemed to require more than simply wishing it to be so.

After a couple of evenings spent squeezed against the back wall near the women’s restroom--a long, mournful pizza toss from the window tables occupied by Mariette Hartley and Ed Begley Jr., even given the 10:30 reservation time--I may have felt like a regular, but only in the sense of being not premium . . . it would be years before I’d rate the “Jewish pizza” appetizer that everybody else in the restaurant seemed to regard as their birthright. And, ultimately, I knew that for me, becoming a regular had far less to do with trying to join a community than it did with mastering, for antic reasons, the rudiments of darts or bid whist.

Because in the end, the point of becoming a regular is getting to know the other regulars--the bi-coastal agent who frequents East L.A. tamale stands, the steelworker who croons Western swing, the cinematographer with a trunkful of old Cabernet, the swinging fabric merchant renowned as an upholsterer to the stars. That way, your chances of finding someone to talk to while you work on dismantling a thyme-charred sea bass with artichokes become pretty good.