One of the restaurants I frequent for casual dinner and music/dancing is a place with picnic tables in the open air, and the owners of the place generally show me to a table with other solo diners or groups where I either know folks or have seen them around.

It's nice to chat with new people now and then. It's interesting how often the subject goes to religion - I guess it's because when asked what I do for a living I reply that I officiate weddings and funerals, so people figure I'm a minister, and they ask me what denomination, so I reply Humanist.

Dinner is a minimum purchase of $20 to listen to the music there for free, so your $3.77 deal sounds pretty good! I always order my meal in a "to go" box, because I know half of it is going home for lunch the next day.

I drove a truck in the 80s and one thing I truly enjoyed was stopping in little roadside diners and sitting at the counter. Sometimes there would be all local people, sometimes from all over the planet , but always interesting, and a fascinating way to learn about all the local cultures, and learn to translate in ones head words and intentions that can have entirely different meanings depending on geography. Somehow I don't think there's much of that kind of understanding these days.