Regular Status
Thursday, July 30th, 2009Regular status means upon entering a point of service (restaurant, coffee shop) your exact order can be anticipated without any verbal or physical prompting.
My friend Dave Schlafman is the professional at regular status. He has more regular status in the metro Boston-area than anyone I know–probably dozens of restaurants and coffee shops. I’ve known this about him since we were at college together. I believe I have distilled down what exactly are the qualities that make regular status possible using Dave as a test case.
- You need to be memorable to the staff who probably sees hundreds of people each day. Options include being: very friendly, neurotic, funny, eccentric. A consistent visual cue, like wearing the same jacket or hat, certainly would help to make you recognizable.
- You need to be original with your order. Maybe even get something that no one else would order. For instance, at Starbucks Dave’s order goes something like this: “Soy chai latte, five pumps of chai, no water, extra extra extra hot”.
- You need to be consistent and order the same thing each time even if it means settling for monotony. Dave is so habitual that he rarely deviates from the one thing he likes.
If you do these three things time after time, I believe you will be able to attain regular status (but probably not as much as Dave).
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