A Thing or Two About Bartending

I once heard Anthony Bourdain say, in an interview, that working in the kitchen was all about avoiding a disaster. Everything you do in one way or another is preventing chaos or a disaster of some sort and he couldn't be more right. This applies to the kitchen at a restaurant, it applies to the servers out on the floor and it definitely applies to the bar. From the minute you're in to the minute you clock out your job is to ensure that your table has no complaints, the drinks are done right, the food comes out on time and when the food comes it better be correct, hot and taste great. Spoon? Fork? Refill? ….from beginning to end, avoiding disaster.

In the close to 6 years I've worked behind a bar I have seen many, many a things and I have had many a crazy nights. Sure everyone has a busy night, or a night that doesn't go as smoothly as we wish but I am taking about those really bad ones. The deep in the weeds, knee deep in shit, oh-my-god-when-will-I-get-the-fuck-out-off-here kind of nights. They are few and far between but when they come they come with a fury. Bartending is not easy, nothing in this industry is of course, but for some reason people tend to think bartending is all fun and games. It is fun to make drinks of course and it is easier for us to have off the cuff or informal conversations with our customers but the fun stops there. Everything else is a balancing act and in the end we have a job to perform just like everybody else. Good bartenders will be fully aware of this fact and live by it. The terrible ones still think they became bartenders so they can pick up chicks and will spend their whole night talking to the girl at the end of the bar while you wait for another drink for 20 or 30 minutes.

So Saturday rolls around and it was one of those nights. Busy as all hell and all at once too. The tables adjacent to the bar, the bar, the entire restaurant, everything....at once. Bartenders sometimes get put in crazy situations and that is fine because we can usually handle it. I'm pretty proud of the guys I work with because when the deck is stacked against us, no one complains no matter how screwed we are. We just get to work. So when the doors opened and drink tickets started flooding in we get to work. When the bar filled up, three people deep, we kept on working and when an adjacent cocktail area becomes our responsibility, we kept on working . It was a perfect storm. A storm that rolled into town in the blink of an eye.

In the middle of it, it is all too easy to get tunnel vision. You have a hundred things to do, twenty different people vying for your attention all at once and your mind wants to ignore every single one of them. It has happened to me and I have seen it happen to others. I have seen bartenders lose their cool, lose their focus and in this business if you can't stay focused you might as well pack up and go home because you are screwed the minute you set foot behind the bar. Focus is key. At the busiest moment, when I felt myself starting to lose control of the situation I stopped and remembered something Greg Maddux once said. When asked how he worked himself out of a jam Maddux said that his old baseball coach taught him to slow everything down. Your basic instinct is to speed up, get out of the situation as fast as possible. While this makes perfect sense it makes you less efficient and works against you. So I stopped and I slowed it down. I took a deep breath and slowed the situation down in my head...and got back to work.

I once asked a friend of mine who is a chef and has worked in some very busy kitchens why he chose to work in this industry. “Martin, I was in the Navy” he said “I used to land fighter planes on an aircraft carrier...I would miss the adrenaline rush if I ever got a desk job”. That stuck with me because in a way I too have become a victim of that addiction. Nights like Saturday will kick your ass. They will break you down, chew you up and spit you out but in the end it's a rush, the thrill of knowing you beat it. It goes farther than just counting tips at the end of the night. For us of those who take pride in it, it is a personal victory, the adrenaline rush is the trophy you get to take home.

Hi my name is Martin and I'm a Nyquil-holic!

I've got a fever, and the only prescription is copious amounts of Thera-flu, Nyquil and sleep! It's that pesky flu bug that seems to be going around lately. My co-workers have come down with it, I have come down with it (and I rarely get sick) and even my brother has come down with it. So today I get home after a really long and painful day at work, made myself some tea and crawled right into bed. Every single limb in my body hurts and feels weak, my head is burning and I've got that nagging cough. Good times all around.

I was suppose to write this last night and the idea is to have a new entry on Tuesdays but alas my health at the moment was not going to allow that. Tuesdays work for me since they are at the end of what is effectively my weekend. It seems like a good way to close out/begin the week. So there it is, expect a new entry on Tuesday nights.

So last night my buddy from high school, Ryan, and I grabbed some coffee at the Gypsy Den, an old hang out of ours located in the Artist Village in downtown Santa Ana. Ryan and I have been going there since we where in school and its a nice place to just sit down, enjoy a cup of coffee and just clear your head. I was telling him how I've felt this enormous amount of focus in the last few months. So about 5 years back I went through something that I suppose you can say knocked me off my axis. I came out of it feeling completely different and really hating myself for it. I wasn't motivated to do anything and it was as if someone had just shut off the lights inside and closed for business. I was fully aware of this of course and became increasingly angry because of it. I didn't feel anything and it bothered me to the core. A lot of time has passed since then and through a very slow and painful process I think I have healed. So what I mean by “focus” is that I feel I have faced my demons and become stronger for it. For the first time in a very long time I feel motivated to get back out there and fight for something, to take risks, to feel passionate about something/someone. I know what I want and I am willing to be aggressive and fight for it.

Like I was telling him and it has become my battle cry the last week, that I have realized that all those things that would make me happy, all of those things I want in life, I deserve and I am no less worthy of acquiring than anyone else. That, I believe, is our biggest obstacle. Sometimes without even thinking about it we stand in our own way. We feel like we don't deserve something. Why does John Doe have a good job, a nice car, a great relationship but I don't? Sure sometimes there are things we can't control but if you find yourself in this situation you have to ask yourself if you've done everything in your power to try and achieve what you want in your life?

I for one would like to get back to writing. I would like to pick up my guitar again and jam with old friends. I would like to play sports again. I would like to have my own place. All these things are achievable and I don't see why, with a little effort and hard work, I can't achieve them.

So that is it for today. Sorry to cut it short but I am going to crawl back into bed and watch some more episodes of Dexter which thanks to my brother Jorge I am now hooked on. If you haven't checked it out do yourself a favor and watch it. It is brilliant and really well written.