If you come to Butter Cream Bakery for breakfast, be sure to take a seat along the counter or the middle aisle, because tables along the glass windows are reserved for a rowdy bunch of seniors who have had dibs on their seats for nearly 40 years. In fact, some remember the diner as a donut shop only.

“I’m on a 60-year contract,” says Dewayne Rebing, a longtime contractor who has found plenty of business from diners. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I spend $300-400 a month eating here!”

But Caroline Wilson, and her daughter, Emma Jane Knigge, 5, just made a pact to each other.

“We have a standing Thursday date,” for “the cake store,” said Wilson, watching Emma Jane take a big bite out of a donut with pink sprinkles. “It’s our treat before preschool.”

The history of Butter Cream Bakery isn’t much to write home about. Most Napans have already been there — almost all of their lives. They’ve lived its history.

On most days, Ruth Barr, who meets a group of ladies every Thursday at “The Bakery,” will have the “standard”: One poached egg and a side muffin toast.

“I just have to raise my eyebrows and they know,” she said about her usual order.

Rebing, a seasoned hunter, comes here seven days a week, unless he’s on vacation.

“I see a lotta come and go,” he said. “All the ladies come here. They’ve lost all their husbands now.”

Even when they’ve moved away, people come back because they’ll always see someone they know.