Where do you usually go?
Beau, I could not agree more. I try to do it as much as humanly possible, and alone, because it's the only time I can get an hour (ish) of uninterrupted, mostly undistracted reading time. (And if I get distracted, it at least leads me to pleasant daydreaming instead of watching bad TV.) If I have more than 2 days out of a workweek in which I can't have lunch alone (usually because I'm having a fun lunch with friends) I nonetheless start to bristle a little. I turn down lunch offers if I get up to 3 non-reading lunch hours in a work week.
LAN3- I so relate to that. Both in the general, but also the specific of those CD opener things. I never seem to have them where I need them.
As for lunch, The company does a good job of keeping me in the office for lunch, since they pay for it and have it delivered. Also, I end up feeling vaguely guilty leaving the office during the day. Not for any rational reason of course.
Actually, after a day of cubicling it up, I appreciate a social lunch.
Or maybe it's because I manage to sneak in enough reading time around the edges.
I read on the weekends, mainly over meals in fact, but by meals I mean a period of reading that started with eating. Some of the local restaurants have grown tolerant of my weekend abuse of their free-refills policy. But yeah, during the week, I don't get anything read except at lunch-- too many fun things at home, to say nothing of obligations, take time away from reading. And I can't read in bed unless I'm in the home stretch of a really great book.
There are no better places to go than the local diner/sandwich places. Lately Subway has been a pleasure simply for convenience since it is less than a block away. (It doesn't hurt at all that Subway helps feed my Coke addiction with unlimited refills ... that is where the extra 20 lbs. come from).
Subway staff know the sandwich I am going to order when I belly up to the counter, no discussion necessary ... that is sad.
Putting the belly back into belly up.
It's nice when you're a regular somewhere, and if you happen to always get the same thing and they pick up on that, so much the better. At a subplace near an old job, it was turkey sub, everything but the hots, mustard instead of mayo...