Coffee chats · Houston

Making friends in Houston is hard.

It’s not just you — it’s the geometry. Everyone you’d like to know lives forty minutes away and is busy this weekend. So we start closer: a 25-minute video coffee chat with someone in Houston you’d actually get along with, booked into a time you’re both free. You pick one, two or three a week, and we do the booking.

Sound familiar?

You’ll recognize at least one of these.

You moved here for the job.
Eight months in, you know your coworkers, your apartment gym and the fastest route to the Med Center. Everyone at work has a fiancé and different priorities. Everyone told you Houston was friendly; nobody said where.
You moved here from another country.
Your family is nine time zones away, your coworkers are kind, and the weekends are long. More than a quarter of Harris County was born in another country — you just haven’t been in the same room with any of them yet.
Your friends got married, moved to Katy, or both.
They went the get-married-and-have-kids route, which is great for them. They’re also forty-five minutes away, in bed by ten, and “busy this weekend — let’s catch up next weekend.”
Everyone you know is from work.
Work friends are just work friends. You got the job, the lease and the gym, and somewhere around 27 the week became home, work, HEB, doomscroll, 10pm — and a group chat that never picks a date.

18–29

It’s not a personality problem, either. Houstonians aged 18 to 29 report more loneliness than any other age group — the people supposedly at the most social stage of their lives. Rice’s Kinder Institute, 2025.

“Friendship needs proximity, repetition and unplanned time. School had all three by accident.”

How it works

We do the scheduling. You do the talking.

You answer ten questions once. After that, the calendar is our problem.

01
Sign up
Your email, then the 6-digit code we send to it. There’s no password to invent.
02
Answer ten questions
Ten questions, not a personality exam. Where you live, when you’re usually free, what you could talk about for an hour, and who you’re happy to have 1:1s with: women, men or anyone.
03
Save a card. Nothing is charged.
$10 a month. You won’t be charged until your first call is booked. Cancel any time.
04
We book your first call
We find someone whose times and choices fit yours, and book the two of you into a slot you both marked free. A Google Calendar invite with a Meet link arrives from Regulars — and that’s when your first $10 is charged.
05
Talk, then 45 seconds of survey
Twenty-five minutes on Google Meet, then a short survey that nobody sees but Regulars. Answer it and the next call gets booked at the pace you picked: one, two or three a week, someone new every time.

minutes a call.

1–3

calls a week. You pick.

until your first call.

The first hello is 25 minutes, from your couch.

One call

What a call looks like.

7:20pm
Your calendar reminds you the way it reminds you about everything else. A coffee chat at 7:30, with someone you haven’t met yet.
7:30pm
You join on Google Meet, straight from the invite. It’s a link for the two of you, and nobody’s phone number changes hands.
7:55pm
The invite says 25 minutes. Meet doesn’t cut anyone off, so if it’s going well, keep talking. If it isn’t, 25 minutes is a perfectly polite amount of time.
After
A 45-second survey. Did it happen, how was it, could you see yourselves being friends. Nobody sees your answers but Regulars — not them, not anyone.

No selling, no pitching, no recording — that’s in the terms. Leave whenever you like.

Friends laughing together on a string-lit patio in the evening

Why this exists

We built it by hand first.

Four years in Houston and I couldn’t have told you how to make a new friend here. A few of us tried one of those dinner-with-strangers apps. It worked — once. Then it dealt us a new table, and another, and another.

So we did the sorting ourselves: went to the dinners, noticed which two or three people were worth keeping, and stitched them into a group chat by hand. It took the better part of a year. That group chat is the best thing that’s happened to me in this city.

Regulars is the argument that it shouldn’t take a year.

Hamza

Founder, Regulars

Why it costs something

Nobody is on the call by accident.

people on every call. If one doesn’t come, there is no call.

$10

a month, from your first booked call.

On a one-on-one call, one person not showing up is the whole call, which is why there is no free door: membership is $10 a month, and that is not a revenue model, it’s a filter. What a price reliably changes is who signs up — whether it makes somebody turn up is a different claim, and the large trials nearest to it measured something narrower, whether paying changed how people used what they had bought, and found that it did not.

What we do about turning up is plainer: the call sits in your calendar with its usual alert, we email you that morning, and anyone who stands someone up gets a strike.

Ten dollars a month

One price, flat, every month. No tiers and no booking fees.

Nothing until your first call

Your card is saved when you sign up and charged when your first call is booked. Nobody pays for an empty room.

Cancel any time

From your dashboard, whenever you like. Before your first call there’s nothing to cancel — you just remove your card.

One city

Houston is an hour from Houston.

In a driving city, “fifteen minutes away” decides whether you actually go. It starts with a video call, but the point is people you could actually meet. So we’re starting in one city, staying until it works, and your part of town counts when we pick who you talk to.

Inner Loop

The HeightsMontroseMidtownDowntownEaDoEast End / Second WardMuseum District / Med CenterRice Village / West URiver Oaks / Upper KirbyWashington Ave / Rice MilitaryGarden Oaks / Oak ForestThird Ward / MacGregor

West & Southwest

Galleria / UptownMemorialEnergy CorridorSpring BranchBellaire / MeyerlandWestchaseSharpstown / GulftonAlief

North

The WoodlandsSpring / KleinCypressTomball / MagnoliaHumble / AtascocitaKingwood

South & East

PearlandClear Lake / NASAFriendswood / League CityPasadena / Deer ParkBaytown

West suburbs

KatySugar LandMissouri CityRichmond / RosenbergFulshear / Cinco Ranch

Tried Timeleft or 222?

Then you’ve tried the group version.

They sit you down at a restaurant with a group of strangers — a lot of people to meet at once, in a room where you know nobody. We start smaller. One person, 25 minutes, on a video call from wherever you are. If it clicks, swap numbers. If it doesn’t, you’ve spent 25 minutes, not an evening.

Dinner apps

Regulars

Who you meet

Dinner apps

A group of strangers at once

Regulars

One person at a time

Where

A restaurant

A Google Meet call

How long

An evening out

25 minutes, or longer if it’s going well

What you pay

A subscription or a per-event fee

$10 a month, from your first call

How Regulars compares to Timeleft and 222 in Houston →

Questions

Before you sign up.

Is this a dating thing?

No. Friends only. There’s no dating question, no dating lane, and nobody swipes on anybody. What two people do after a call is their business, but it isn’t what the call is for.

Do I need my camera on?

Yes. It’s a video call on Google Meet — the point is to actually see who you’re talking to. Meet shows each of you by the name and photo on your Google account, so it’s worth checking what yours says.

Are calls recorded?

No. We don’t record them, and nobody on a call is allowed to: recording a call is against the terms, for everyone.

Who will I talk to?

Other members in Houston who answered the same ten questions you did. You tell us who you’re happy to have 1:1s with — women, men or anyone — and we only pair two people when it fits both of their choices. It’s 18 and up, and it’s never the same person twice.

What if they don’t show?

It never counts against you, and you get first pick of the next slot. The person who didn’t show gets a strike, and two strikes in 30 days pauses their calls. Moving or cancelling your own call is free up to 12 hours before.

Can I choose who I talk to?

You choose when, and who you’re happy to have 1:1s with. You can’t pick or swipe on people, and nobody can pick or swipe on you. If you already know the person we’ve booked you with, say so and we’ll swap them.

When am I charged?

$10 a month, and nothing until your first call is booked — that’s when the first month starts. Cancel any time. Before your first booking there’s nothing to cancel: leaving just means removing your card.

Can I pause?

Yes. Pause for 1, 2 or 4 weeks, any time. Calls already booked stay booked; the pause stops new ones. Your membership carries on while you’re paused — to stop paying, cancel instead.

Houston only

Become a regular.

Ten questions, a saved card, and a coffee chat booked into a time you’re already free. Houston only, 18 and up. $10 a month, and nothing is charged until your first call is booked.