The Mast-Head: Hamptons Breakfast

It was Lisa’s idea on a day that the kids were able to go to school late that I get them up at the usual time and take them out to breakfast someplace. That was fine with me, since feeding them in the morning almost simultaneously with reminding them to put on their shoes and brush their hair and teeth is often a challenge. Thing is, I had no idea how much it would cost.

Ever since Bucket’s Deli closed, it has been hard for me to go out for a workweek sandwich. Instead, I stock up on groceries to keep in the office fridge, marking my stash with my first initial to keep the, well, mayonnaise sneaks at bay. 

Since I might spend $20 a week on supplies compared to $10 that a lunch out might run, I come out ahead. Over time, the money saved might, at least mentally, be earmarked for a new surfboard or a plane ticket somewhere warm. Maybe it’s the Yankee thrift in me, but I like to be able to justify these things.

As a salad-eating co-worker said this week, once you have slipped the habit of stepping out for lunch, you find that you have healthier meals and gain back the time you would have spent walking or driving and standing on line while someone slaps cold cuts onto bread.

Breakfast went well. The kids were behaved and finished most of what they ordered, which was a good thing since it lightened my wallet by about $50 with tip. Hamptons prices, I guess, but hey, it was December.

The place was all but empty the whole time we were there, and I wondered if the $9 oatmeal and $12 pancakes had something to do withthat. Then again, I know next to nothing about the restaurant business, so I should not be the one to give advice. But I’m not taking the kids back there, either. They can eat what I make for them, and we can put the cash into the Christmas present fund.