Welcome to The Regulars, where we explore what it means to be a frequent restaurant patron. In this series, we’ll introduce you to everyday Atlantans and colorful local characters who have found a sense of belonging and community at restaurants and bars around town and what keeps these regulars coming back for more week after week.
Traditionally, Monday is the slowest day of the week for restaurants. That’s why you’ll find many restaurants only open for limited hours or closed on Monday because it’s easy to give staff the day off after the weekend rush.
But that’s not the case at Apres Diem at Midtown Promenade, where regulars pack the artsy, European-style cafe, even on a cold and rainy Monday evening in February.
Among the regulars are Atlanta natives and best friends Amy Hightower and Lisa Stroud. They met in elementary school and have shared a post-work meal at the Promenade restaurant’s worn wooden bar almost every Monday for the past eight years.
“I love the ambiance and the people-watching,” says Hightower, an East Atlanta resident who regularly dined at Apres Diem’s previous incarnation, Carpes Diem, a funky coffee shop in Poncey-Highland that shuttered in 2006.
For the duo, the current location at Midtown Promenade is perfectly situated between their two jobs—Hightower’s as a mental health facility director in Morningside and Stroud’s as a law firm administrator in Midtown.
As soon as the 50-something friends step through the threshold adorned with twinkling lights and a faded yellow awning, longtime bartender Carlo Reis starts mixing their cocktails—two dirty martinis with plenty of olives.
“I know all of my regulars and their orders by heart,” says Reis, who has worked at Apres Diem for over 20 years.
About five years ago, he got burned out working late nights and weekends and requested shifts on Monday and Tuesday. There wasn’t much money at first, but Reis says he was happier and able to spend more time with people seated at the bar. He soon had a group of regulars, drawn to the bartender’s magnetic personality and easygoing demeanor.
“You go back to places because people make you feel like you belong and they notice everything about you, from your outfits to what’s going on in your life, and Carlo is excellent at that,” says Jen Bhagia-Lewis.
Reis saves her a corner spot at the bar, then punches in her regular order—a Caesar salad with anchovies and a glass of Malbec—as she arrives.
While she lives in East Atlanta now, Bhagia-Lewis’ daughter attends Monday night classes at a nearby Atlanta ballet studio, which she calls the “perfect excuse” to stop into a nostalgic old haunt.
“I technically could go home to eat dinner and then come back to get her, but with rush-hour traffic, it’s just nicer and easier to relax with a meal at the bar,” says Bhagia-Lewis.
She praises the restaurant for its consistency and “comfy” vibe, noting that Apres Diem is in some ways the same yet completely different from when it first opened years ago. It all comes down to Atlanta’s shifting demographics. Bhagia-Lewis credits the restaurant’s longevity and loyal clientele to its consistent service and affordability in a city where dining out is increasingly unaffordable for families of four like hers.
“There’s always something on the menu that’s at the right price point for everybody,” she says. “One of my favorite things about Apres Diem is that I’ve been going there since I was a kid, and now that I have kids, it’s a place I can take them to experience how special it is.”
This Monday, the crowd at Apres Diem ranges from casually dressed teens from nearby Midtown High School splitting enormous slices of cake, to co-working couples sipping coffee, to elegantly dressed seniors grabbing an early dinner.
During her solo Monday night meals, Bhagia-Lewis has become fast friends with other regulars at the bar, including Hightower and Stroud. The trio spend time chatting about their children. Bhagia-Lewis’s oldest son is deciding where to attend college next year. Stroud’s youngest son recently landed a role in a new adaptation of “Cats” that will debut in New York City this summer. Hightower’s son, an only child, is studying landscape architecture at the University of Georgia. They have also formed bonds with other bar patrons at Apres Diem, like an elderly man and his wife, who has dementia.
“They have probably been going there as long as we have, and it’s a joint effort to take care of them when they are at the bar,” explains Stroud. She and other regulars take turns engaging the woman in conversation so her husband can eat and take a break from caregiving.
Many of the Monday-night patrons at Apres Diem keep in touch outside of the restaurant via group chats and get-togethers. One couple Stroud, Hightower, and Bhagia-Lewis recently befriended at the bar invited them to Sunday dinner at their home. It’s just how the Monday regulars roll at Apres Diem.
Hightower and Stroud speak on the phone every morning and often garden or walk together on the weekends. Their Monday ritual at Apres Diem, however, remains sacred for the friends who’ve seen each other through 50 years of life changes, including their divorces and Stroud battling cancer twice. The meals they share at the Midtown restaurant’s bar on Monday nights are a weekly recharge for Hightower.
“I gain strength from Lisa that I don’t get from anyone else, and our meals together at Apres Diem really fill my tank,” Hightower says of her best friend and fellow restaurant regular.
Want to nominate a restaurant regular for an upcoming story? Send your nomination with a brief description to beth@roughdraftatlanta.com.
RELATED: How widower and author Gil Frank found community at Le Bon Nosh in Buckhead