I remember at the University of Chicago there was a researcher studying "breakfast physics" - what governs the peak angle of granular piles (like salt piles or grain or sandpiles), what happens at the singularity when a drizzle of honey goes from a hyperboloid of one sheet to a hyperboloid of two sheets. I think he also measured the effect of vacuum on fluid splatters.

These are all quotidian problems in I guess "condensed matter" physics which are 0) largely unsexy and ignored 1) still largely unsolved, 2) liable to watershed huge, life- and money- saving innovations, while exotic HEP and Low Temp Condensed, are still what most physics students study their way into.