Who: Dan, Lisa, Jeff, Pat ‘mom’ Kalik
Where: 33rd and 2nd—NYC
What: Eggwhite omelet with onion, mushrooms and avocado (fries instead of home fries), diet coke

Unless you regularly frequent a particular part of the city, picking a spot for brunch in Manhattan is pretty much a crap shoot. With a restaurant every five feet, all serving a full menu, some sort of brunch special and a drink deal, nine times out of ten the place you select is simply based on what’s standing in front of you when someone in your group finally stops walking, throws a mini tantrum and says ‘That places looks FINE! Can’t we just sit down somewhere already!?!?’

There are of course destination places, local go-to’s and new hot spots that everyone is raving about, but in the absence of one of those, it’s where you happen to be at the particular moment that usually wins the spin the bottle game of where to go to brunch. Sometimes it’s a hit, and you put it in your memory banks for ‘Next time I’m down here on a Sunday, I should really remember to come back here again!’ And sometimes it’s a miss, but you probably still go back next time you’re in that neighborhood because who can really remember if a place was good or not.

It makes you wonder how anyone in New York ever really knows where to go. Lisa, who suggested this place, had been to Benjamin a couple times before because it was right near her office. It was good enough, nothing special, and would probably accommodate a bigger party. But what differentiates Benjamin from the other 16,000 identical restaurants on either side of it? Why hasn’t she been to any of those? Is it that Benjamin really is the best option around?  Or because New Yorkers have so many overwhelming choices when it comes to finding a good omelet, that it’s easier to go back to the same meh place, than to accidentally end up somewhere that falls even lower on the barometer?

No need to complain, though. In New York, there is often something more important than searching far and wide for the most awesome breakfast sandwich around—convenience, comfort and company. You may not get the best iced coffee in the world, but you can get it by deviating exactly two steps off your path and with a 30 second lag-time. You just can’t get that kind of action anywhere else.