On December 21, 2002, the day I turned thirty, I started
keeping a blog that I called "Ohm
Eats". I eat out a lot, and I wanted to see just how
much.
I knew that the more information I tried to track, the less
likely I would keep up with it. So, I decided to track just
four simple things about my meals out: the name of the
restaurant, the location of the restaurant (city and state), the
date and (approximate) time of the meal, and the
meal-of-the-day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert or other).
Lunch at Famous Dave's Bar-B-Q in Laurel was the first meal I
logged.
I diligently recorded every meal out for months. Some
friends stumbled upon the site, and the warped few among them
even claimed to read the blog regularly. Some people thought
the entire project strange. The project even caused me a little
stress from time to time, as it became yet another "chore"
that I had to do. My wife and some of my friends had to put
up with interrogation as I tried to recreate "where I ate
last week."
What I soon learned was that when you eat out as often as do
I, the list of restaurants you have visited can tell the story
of your life in pretty good detail: where you have visited, with
whom you have met, etc. The project has become a useful diary
of the year.
As I approached my thirty-first birthday, I decided that this
wasn't to be a lifelong project. I ended Ohm Eats exactly one
year after it began, on December 21, 2003, with an entry of
Dinner at Bahn Thai in Seattle. Faced with a year of data, I
decided to poke, prod, and mull over the stats from the year.
This document is the result of that poking, proding, and mulling
over: a small collection of statistics from the year that was.
Enjoy this summary; enjoy what "Ohm Ate."
Number of Days Blog Kept:
| 366 |
Number of Meals Ate Out
| 542 |
Average Meals Per Day
| 1.48 |
Number of Breakfasts/Brunches
| 59 |
Number of Lunches
| 254 |
Number of Dinners
| 186 |
Number of Desserts
| 20 |
Number of "Other" Meals
| 23 |
|
|
|
|
Number of Days With Meals Out
| 324 |
Number of Days Without Meals Out
| 42 |
Longest Gap Without a Meal Out
| 4 (twice) |
(1/21/03-1/25/03 and 2/15/03-2/19/03) |
Longest Streak of Consecutive Days Eating Out
| 41 |
(10/12/03-11/21/03) |
Most Meals in a Single Day
| 6 |
(August 1, 2003) |
|
|
|
|
Number of Different Restaurants
| 320 |
Number of Restaurants Visited More Than Once:
| 68 |
Number of States
| 14 |
Number of Countries
| 2 |
|
|
|
|
1. Potbelly (49) |
2t. Savory Cafe (13) |
2t. Chicken Out (13) |
4. Kosta's Cafe (12) |
5t. Baja Fresh (9) |
5t. Cafe Phillips (9) |
7. Costco (8) |
8t. Pho 75 (6) |
8t. Mark's Kitchen (6) |
8t. Lotte Food Court (6) |
8t. Skyline Cafe (6) |
8t. Soho (6) |
|
|
1. United States (500) |
|
2. South Korea (42) |
|
|
1. Washington, DC (210) |
|
2. Maryland (119) |
3. Virginia (40) |
|
4. California (39) |
5. Hawaii (24) |
|
6. Florida (21) |
7. South Carolina (15) |
|
8. Louisiana (9) |
9t. Massachusetts (6) |
|
9t. Washington (6) |
11. Nevada (4) |
|
12. Pennsylvania (4) |
13. New Jersey (2) |
|
14. Illinois (1) |
|
|
A graph of number of meals eaten out per month, with different colors representing the states in which the meals were eaten. Some colors represent more than one state.
|
1. Potbelly (49) |
2t. Chicken Out (12) |
2t. Kosta's Cafe (12) |
4. Cafe Phillips (9) |
5. Beaujolies (7) |
6t. Soho (6) |
6t. Skyline Cafe (6) |
7t. Jonathan's (5) |
7t. Julia's Empanadas (5) |
10t. Au Bon Pain (4) |
10t. Breadline (4) |
10t. Chef Geoff's Downtown (4) |
10t. Corona Deli (4) |
14t. Cosi (3) |
14t. Haad Thai (3) |
16t. Ten Tied at 2 Visits (2) |
26t. Fifty-Seven Tied at 1 Visit (1) |
|
|
1. Savory Cafe (13) |
2. Costco (7) |
3t. Baja Fresh (6) |
3t. Mark's Kitchen (6) |
3t. Pho 75 (6) |
6t. Taliano's (5) |
6t. Udupi Palace (5) |
8t. Eight Tied at 2 Visits (2) |
16t. Fifty-Five at 1 Visit (1) |
|
|
1. La Piazza (3) |
|
2t. Baja Fresh (2) |
2t. Cheese Shop (2) |
|
2t. China Chef (2) |
2t. El Pollo Rico (2) |
|
2t. Vie de France (2) |
|
2t. Italian Store (2) |
7t. Twenty-Six Tied at 1 Each (1) |
|
|
|
Restaurants / Repeat Visits
(Other States) |
|
FL Barefoots Grill (3) |
FL Picnix Deli (3) |
FL Back Porch (2) |
FL Jim 'N Nicks Bar-B-Q (2) |
CA Diddy Reese (3) |
CA Cafe 222 (2) |
CA DW's Cafe (2) |
CA In-N-Out Burger (2) |
HI ABC Store (2) |
HI Island Lava Java Cafe (2) |
HI The Colony (2) |
SC Beezer's (2) |
LA Mother's (2) |
|
|
|
Chains Visited in Multiple States |
|
Baja Fresh (MD/DC/VA) |
Costco (MD and VA) |
Chipotle (MD and VA) |
Chicken Out (DC and MD) |
Au Bon Pain (DC and PA) |
Cafe Deluxe (DC and MD) |
Quizno's (DC and MD) |
Bertucci's (VA and NJ) |
Corner Bakery (DC and MD) |
Wendy's (MD and SC) |
KFC (MD and South Korea) |
|
|
|
Number of Meals by Day of Week |
|
Sunday: 74 |
Monday: 73 |
Tuesday: 66 |
Wednesday: 76 |
Thursday: 74 |
Friday: 94 |
Saturday: 85 |
|
|
A graph of number of meals eaten out as a function of week number. Week 1
is the week beginning 12/22/02.
|
A very similar graph, but mapping meals eaten per day for the entire year.
|
|
Meals Per Day Distribution |
|
One-Meal Days: 165 |
|
Two-Meal Days: 115 |
Three-Meal Days: 32 |
|
Four-Meal Days: 10 |
Five-Meal Days: 1
(9/24/03 in Busan, Korea) |
|
Six-Meal Days: 1
(8/1/03 in Los Angeles) |
|
|
|
The Six Meals of
August 1, 2003 |
|
Some Unnamed Bakery
(Breakfast in Downtown LA) |
California Pizza Kitchen
(Lunch 1 in Downtown LA) |
Jax
(Lunch 2 in Brentwood, LA) |
Noodle Planet
(Snack in Westwood, LA) |
Stan's Donuts
(Dessert in Westwood, LA) |
Bonavista Lounge
(Dinner in Downtown LA) |
|
|
|
The Five Meals of
September 24, 2003 |
|
Tiffany Coffee Shop
(Breakfast at Haeundae Hotel) |
Lotte Food Court
(Lunch in Dongnae Section of Busan) |
Street Vendor Near Lotte
(Snack in Dongnae) |
Japanese Restaurant
(Dinner in Nampo-Dong Section) |
Deli Shop
(Dessert at Haeundae Hotel) |
|
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Starting with week 1, the week beginning 12/22/02, this graph depicts how many potbelly subs I ate each week during the year.
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Copyright 2003, Paul Ohm. Look and feel of this page,
as well as some of the html, copied from Google's zeitgeist
2002. Thanks to Google for making that page "free for . . .
use." Send comments to ohmate@breadboard.com
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