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 Aprés 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 Aprés 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 Aprés 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…
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