In New York City, it is customary to order your coffee Black, Light, Extra-Light, or Black-and-Sweet. However, coffee with milk and sugar is a “Regular Coffee.”

After living in New York City for several years, I visited a town out west and ordered “regular coffee”. They handed me, of course, black coffee. I forgot – outside of NYC, there is no such concept as “regular coffee.”

Kind of like egg-creams (known elsewhere as “Italian Sodas” with soda water instead of seltzer!). I still don’t know how coffee with milk and sugar became known as “regular coffee” except that maybe “that’s how REGULUH GUYS drink it.”