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 local characters who have found a sense of belonging and community at restaurants and bars around town and what keeps these regulars coming back week after week.
For restaurant regular Andre Blanchard, dining out is about more than the food.
“I go back to the same restaurants over and over again because of relationships I have with the people who work there,” he says while sipping a glass of champagne at the corner barstool he always occupies at Lucian. The Buckhead wine bar, owned by friends and neighbors Katie Barringer and Jordan Smelt, also features a small bookshop.
Blanchard visits the restaurant several times a month, sometimes for a meal or a glass of Cabernet Franc or Chenin Blanc. He peruses Barringer’s curated selection of books by some of his favorite authors, like chef and food activist Bryant Terry. Lunch might include briny oysters, whipped ricotta with chestnuts and bright citrus fruits, and a confit-style duck leg with borlotti beans and sugarloaf endive.
For Blanchard, Lucian operates as a third space because it’s open for lunch and dinner. It’s calm and bathed in natural light. Large windows frame the dining room at the corner of Peachtree and Pharr, with accents of dusty pink and plum and a 14-foot walnut bookshelf lining the back wall aglow with custom lighting.
On a sunny, 70-degree day in March, Blanchard sits at the bar dressed casually in a short-sleeved yellow button-up, olive shorts, sandals, and a well-worn, Lucian-branded baseball cap. He took the bus from his home in Peachtree Hills and walked the additional six blocks to the restaurant, something he frequently does after long days working remotely from home in the utilities industry.
“We live in a city, and people forget so many of our best restaurants are easily accessible via public transportation, like Bread and Butterfly and BoccaLupo and all of those great spots in Inman Park,” says Blanchard.
He’s been a regular at Lucian since the friends and family night before the restaurant officially opened to the public in June 2021, but his friendship with Smelt spans more than a decade.
“I had just gone through a difficult breakup and walked into the old location of Holeman and Finch right by my house where Jordan was the general manager,” Blanchard recalls. “We started talking and have been friends ever since. Now we live a block apart, and I see him walking his dog in the neighborhood.”
Blanchard and Barringer cemented their friendship over drinks at the bar at the now-defunct Cakes & Ale in Decatur when Smelt was working there as the beverage manager.
While Blanchard will often dine solo, it’s not unusual to see him surrounded by people—either other regulars or restaurant staff. That’s the way he likes it, too.
“Andre is primarily a bar patron and loves the seat closest to the kitchen,” says Barringer. “Because he is friends with both the service and kitchen teams, this seat puts him at the center of everything and everyone.”
When she and Smelt showed Blanchard renderings of Lucian before it opened, they pointed to his now-favorite corner stool telling him, “That’s where you’ll be sitting.”
But there’s another reason Blanchard posts up at the bar at Lucian and some of his other favorite Atlanta restaurants. It simply comes down to visibility.
“You don’t see a lot of Black men in these spaces, and people dining out are often looking for validation that they chose the right place, and seeing people who look like you can be a form of validation,” he says.
Blanchard has become an icebreaker at Lucian and other restaurants around Atlanta that he frequents, introducing newcomers to staff, recommending his favorite dishes, and striking up conversations with strangers. People want to connect after feeling so isolated during the pandemic. He considers himself the “man on the street” when it comes to Atlanta’s restaurant scene, quick to recommend his favorite spots, foods, and dining hacks to family and friends.
He wants to remind people that many times those hot and hard-to-get-into Atlanta restaurants have open bar seats and are great for lunch or an early dinner right around the 5 o’clock hour.
People will likely spy Blanchard having a weekend lunch at Staplehouse on Edgewood, drinks in the evening at Whoopsie’s on Moreland, and enjoying an early dinner or dining at the weekly pop-up at Aria in Buckhead, often with Barringer as his dining companion.
Rather than restaurant-hopping, dropping half a paycheck on a fancy meal, or chasing reservations at the trendiest new places, Blanchard prefers being a regular for its consistency.
“Just pick one place, whether that’s a farmers’ market or a coffee shop or a casual neighborhood restaurant, and keep showing up. It’s not that you’ll get preferential treatment, but you’ll be invested in the restaurant and they’ll be invested in you.”
It’s more important than ever before, Blanchard says, that people dine out and support Atlanta restaurants, especially as beloved spots close or continue to struggle under the weight of rising rents and higher food costs.
In the early days of the pandemic, when restaurants were closed to diners, he did just that.
“It’s easy to complain when one of your favorite restaurants closes, but when was the last time you went there and showed up for them? [During the pandemic,] I was often the first person in line for takeout. These were places I wanted to still be around when we got to the other side of it.”
Nearly every week for months, Blanchard ordered the family meal of catfish, grits, and collard greens from Miller Union to enjoy a socially distanced picnic on a friend’s West End patio.
Barringer says that for small businesses like hers, “patronage is everything.” Blanchard has not only been a regular diner and “gets” what they’re doing at Lucian but he’s been an active supporter of the wine bar and bookshop business since the beginning.
Blanchard revels in his longtime friends and Atlanta hospitality veterans finally fulfilling their dreams with Lucian Books and Wine in Buckhead.
“I’ve known Katie and Jordan for over a decade, and they stayed true to their vision,” he says. “I love that they were able to make this bookstore and wine bar and restaurant combination work and brought something new and raising the dining bar here in Atlanta.”