A battle often fought between friends and family is deciding what to eat for dinner. One might have the taste for Chinese food, another Mexican and another might want a hamburger. In some cases, an agreement can mean compromise on the part of many.

But William White, co-owner of the Travelers Club International Restaurant & Tuba Museum, 2138 Hamilton Road in Okemos, said that doesn't have to be the case.

Each month, the restaurant's 22-page menu features cuisine from a different region around the globe, White said.

"The traveling menu goes around the world," White said, adding that the cuisine for this month is from the Mediterranean region. "You can send your taste buds around without leaving Lansing."

White said the idea to open the restaurant came after he and his partner and co-owner of the restaurant, Jennifer Brooke Byrom, took a trip to New York in 1981. Before the trip, White said the idea of opening a restaurant had been brewing between him and Byrom - and dining in New York was one trip that helped inspire White to open the restaurant. The Detroit native said he and Byrom both enjoyed cooking ethnic foods but not always similar dishes at the same time, and opening the Travelers Club helped alleviate this conflict.

About two years ago, Byrom, who is in charge of creating the menu, moved to California to take care of her parents, White said. Because of technology, she is still able to create the menu for each month via e-mail.

White said the restaurant found its home in what was once a hardware store in the early 1950s. In 1959, the hardware store was transformed into Miller's Ice Cream Parlor. The building was changed into its current state in 1982, and it still features the original soda fountain and continues to sell about eight flavors of Miller's Ice Cream.

White added that when the restaurant opened its doors in 1982, there was a lack of restaurants in the Lansing area serving ethnic foods. With MSU only miles away, White said it's always important to remember those in the area with diverse backgrounds.

"We fulfilled a need of expectation that was missing 20 years ago," he said.

White said he is happy to see a bigger selection of restaurants in Lansing serving ethnic foods for residents, but he added that some of the places don't have a liquor license.

"(The Travelers Club is) the only place you can go where everybody can get what they want," White said.

Sitting at a table decorated with a red tablecloth, customer Mary Harris agreed with White but said the variety of dishes on the menu isn't the only thing that keeps her returning.

"It's such a unique place," Harris said, looking at nearly 50 tubas lining the ceiling. "When you go to chain restaurants, they do the same spiel. When you come here they are not trying push you into buying the special of the day, nor do they have their lines rehearsed."

Harris and her friends with her said they appreciate the personal atmosphere the restaurant has and said the restaurant's name alone attracted them.

"It just seemed like an odd combination: Travelers Club International Restaurant & Tuba Museum," the MSU graduate said. "I checked it out one day, and now I always come, especially for the beer."

Employee Ana Viera said the restaurant's slogan, "Where friends and continents meet," is true in more ways than one for her. Viera added that two of her best friends were once customers she served.

"The customers and the people who work here create this intellectually engaging, wonderful environment," the Brazil native said. "The idea of a gathering place where you can eat and meet people is great.

"The word 'travelers' means more than people seeking different trips in life."

Viera said she began working at the restaurant as a dishwasher about a year after it opened. She's a waitress and said it's the only job title she's ever had.

"Here, we get to know everybody's job, so we don't create an elite behavior," Viera said. "There is no star behavior. Workers will do everything from cooking to dishwashing."

As for White, he said he hopes his restaurant will be more than a food venue.

"I want to help people realize we're all the same underneath," White said. "If everybody ate together and played music together we wouldn't have wars."