The wonderful world of bartending

So, last night I bartended for a full night at the club. It was a pretty good night. I mad $134 in tips plus $10/hour for 12 hours. There were several highlights of the evening. Sorry, this is ended up being a long post, so I won't fault you if you don't want to read all the way throuhg it.

The wedding reception started at 3:30 which is about an hour and a half earlier than they usually start, but whatever. They bought the cheap bar package of a 4 hour open bar, which means that since the party is over at 10:00, the bar has to be closed for 2.5 hours somewhere in that time period. Everyone hates that. So, the bride's mom decided that they would have cocktails for an hour and a half then close the bar for an hour and a half then reopen it and close it again at 9:00 while the DJ plays till 10. She was told that she had the option of keeping the bar open and have us charge by consumption, which most people end up doing, cause who wants to close the bar down with an hour left in the party?

Usually for 150ish people, we have two bars set up right next to each other which would have been good for me, an "apprentice" bartender in cause I had any questions. But the higher ups decided that they would have two bars across the room from each other to "spread out the crowd of people". I could have told them that it would be a bad idea for them to do that. My bar was right by the entrance and the experienced bartender's was all the way on the other side. Guess who's going to be swamped?

So, the cocktail hour (and a half) starts and I'm feeling a little nervous having a bar all to myself in an area that is going to get all the people. The first people begin to show up and I get the usual requests for Chardonnay, Cabernet, Gin and tonic, you know, the usual stuff. Then along comes this old woman and asks for a Manhattan, straight up. Damn, she's a champ. This is my first complicated drink of the night. She wants it with blended whisky, too. So, I pour out about a shot and a half to two shots of Dewars and then add the sweet vermouth and 3 cherries. And bam, there's my first Manhattan. That apparently opened up the floodgates, cause then I got requests for Margaritas, Tequila Sunrises, and Whisky Sours. I tasted the leftover Margarita from the shaker, and it tasted pretty good (much better than the ones at Calico Jack's, ugh), I can only assume that the Tequila Sunrises tasted good because the same 3 people kept coming back asking for more stating how delicious it was, and the Whisky Sour may have been too sour, cause I think the guy made a face...but whatever. All in all, I got through the cocktail hour but only got $11 in tips. What the hell people! I realize it's an open bar, but that still means you should tip! Damn cheapskates!

The bar closes, I restock my glasses and put a cloth over my liquor which is supposed to tell people that the bar is closed, cause we've had problems in the past where people just go up and pour their own liquor. About 15 minutes till the bar opens back up again, I see these 3 guys standing close to the bar. Obviously they want a drink. I recognize one of the guys, cause he likes to order his Gin and Tonic with a lime and a lemon and he's had about 5 so far. So I figure I'll get them drinks and get a tip for being such a nice guy. So yeah, they want drinks and I give it to them, and the Gin and Tonic guy asks me what my name is (it's on my nametag) and I tell him and he says it, pronouncing it Camilio (which happens A LOT) and then gives me $2. The other guys don't tip...whatever. So, I close it back up and wait till the bar opens for real.

Now is where the fun starts. The bar opens at 7:00. People are still on their main course, so I don't expect very many people to come up and gets drinks just yet. I get the occasional person come up for a glass of wine or a beer, nothing special. Then the main course is over, the dancing starts, and I get swamped. Remember the fact that there are two bars? Yeah...no one goes to the other bar, so it's all me. Now we get the characters.

There's Crown and Coke guy, who has had, during cocktail hour, at least 7 Crown Royal and Cokes...oh yeah, and he didn't tip during that whole time. He shows up at least another 7 times, but at least he tips a fiver or two. I think he might have single handedly drank a whole 1/5th to himself.

Gin and Tonic guy keeps coming back for more, throwing $2 at me almost every time (there's a tip jar buddy, you don't have to toss the money at me), we'll come back to him later.

There's the father of the bride who saw "That blue bottle back there" and stayed hooked on it. Couldn't even remember what it was called every time he came back. Though, he's a champ, he took it (Bombay Sapphire Gin) on the rocks. Yuck, gin.

There's the couple people who ordered Fuzzy Navels (including the groom!).

Jack and Coke guy and his girlfriend Rum and Diet. He gave me a $20 the second time the bar opened and told me to "take care of them", so I proceeded to pour him half a glass of Jack, and he was like "Whoah, whoah, I still want to taste it!" but he took it anyway. As the night went on, and he kept coming back, the amount of Jack in the glass got higher and higher. By the end of the night it was basically Jack on the rocks with a splash of coke. He tossed me another $20 later in the night, so I kept on pouring it like he wanted it. He probably finished the bottle by himself.

Sister of the bride (I think) who ordered as she but it DC and V. Diet Coke and Vodka. The first time I heard it, I did a double take. Diet Coke and what? Vodka. OK...so I made it. And was curious, and made myself one as well, though with regular coke. Ugh, what a horrible combination. I think if I took more than one sip of that, I would puke.

A guy and this girl came up to the bar and the guy asked if we had Tequila, and I said yes. He was obviously Hispanic. He asked if he could have a shot of it, and I told him that we had a policy not to give out shots. The girl then said, "He's Mexican, give him his Tequila!!" I told him he could have Tequila on the rocks, so that's what he ended up having. The girl then tried it, and made a funny face and then ordered something girly.

I did screw up kinda big time once, but it was just the photographer, so it doesn't count. So, since we're a bit ghetto here at the Pittsburgh Golf Club, we didn't have a proper container for the Sours. So, I got my sours in a Sprite bottle(can you guess what happened?). When I closed down my bar for the first time, I moved a bunch of the bottles around, so when I opened it back up, things were out of place. The photographer comes up and asks for a Sprite, so I look for a Sprite bottle, accidentaly pick up the Sours Sprite bottle, and pour him a glass. About 10 seconds later, he comes back and says "This sprite tastes a little lemony, can I have another one. Better yet, can I have a coke?" It is then that I realize I had just poured him a glass of Sours. Oops, guess I'll be keeping that bottle at the other side of the bar, away from the sodas.

Ok, back to Gin and Tonic guy. At this point he is definitely pretty drunk. Every time he comes back he goes "Camilio!!" and I get him his Gin and Tonic with Lemon and Lime. He then proceeds to tell everyone that is around the bar that I'm his man. I laugh it up and tell him that he's the man. He throws me a couple of bucks. Rinse and repeat. Towards the end of the night, we start charging by consumption, so another server, Stephanie, comes up and starts marking down drinks. He comes by for another round and sees Stephanie there and proceeds to start talking to her, obviously hitting on her. Now, he's probably in his mid to late 30s and she's 20. Can you say creeper? The first thing he asks is, how old are you? Then, where do you go to school, what are you studying, etc. This goes on for a bit. At the end of the night as the bar is about to close, he comes back and says his goodbyes. I get a hug, cause I'm the man and have been hooking him up. He goes over to her as if to shake her hand and then proceeds to kiss her hand instead. And then he says goodbye. Weird.

At the end of the night 4 people gave me $20s, I got an assortment of $5s and the rest were $1s totalling up to $134, all for me, cause the other bartender closed up his bar early and told me to keep all I made since I obviously worked for it. I also was asked if I wanted to be a partime bartender there, since they were gonna hire one, and it's always better to hire from within than have to deal with someone new. So, I agreed. We'll see if it pans out and if I end up working a ridiculous amount since I already have a fulltime day job. Yeesh.