Five Hundred Forty-Six Salads

“I’ve had this salad for three years.”

Neil, thin gray curls spinning from his temples, pushed dressing-slicked cubes of ham and chopped romaine around on his plate with a plastic fork. His hastily folded Philadelphia Inquirer edged off the square table in the Bellevue Eatery food court.

He purchased his lunch from Bellevue salad for $7.29: a chef’s salad, with nuts instead of croutons. I asked what kind of nuts. “You know?” he said. “I don’t even know. I can’t remember. Maybe you could tell me.” We inspect one of the last morsels on the thanksgiving-themed paper plate. Definitely walnuts.

Neil doesn’t like to think about what he’s eating at lunchtime. He estimated he’s been eating the chef’s salad three to four times per week for three years. “I walk up there, they know exactly what I want, I have my little interaction, and then I come back here,” he said. He wants his half hour break to be a true break. “Lunchtime is a moment of quiet,” he said, and then smiled. “Until I’m interrupted by people like you.”

If he’s not on the lower level of the hotel in his business-casual button up, jacket and jeans, Neil might be upstairs for a lunch meeting at Bliss. There, he also sticks with pretty much the same meal; for the first two years it was the Bliss Burger (cheddar fondue, caramelized onions, remoulade, lettuce and tomato with fries or a salad for $14), and he has since moved on to the omelet of the day. “I want to turn off part of my brain that requires me to make decisions,” he said.

Neil is a professor of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of the Arts. He’s also the director of the Corzo Center for the Creative Economy (“Formed to keep art where it belongs, central to society and an economy that requires ideas and imagination,” see website for more). His days fill up with meetings like a snack bowl anticipating a movie.

“Meetings are like popcorn. I have so many that are so similar,” he said. “You keep eating the same thing, you forget what you’re eating, but you keep eating it.”

The movie plays on.

“But I like popcorn. I like talking to people about innovation and entrepreneurship all the time.”

At lunch Neil drinks water, though to keep up with the daily schedule he consumes two to three extra-large cups of coffee (with extra milk) everyday. His coffee habits are a tad eccentric. “I treat my coffee like a fine wine,” he said, meaning he sometimes waits a day to drink a cup, leaving it on his desk to ‘aerate’. He’s a diehard Dunkin Donut patron (“I don’t like Starbucks.”), though a dilemma has arisen with the recent Wawa opening near his office. Same price, just as good, more convenient location. “It’s one of these decisions,” he said. “Will I continue with Dunkin Donuts, or will I switch over to Wawa?”

Whatever he decides, I’m sure he’ll be drinking it – before and after the chef’s salad – for  years.