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How will we ever survive without them?
Background: The Bar opens at 11 am. The opening staff comes in at 10 am to get everything ready.
One day, about a half hour before we opened, a group of four walked in through the front door. The front door was closed, but unlocked, as we had probably had beer vendors or some other delivery coming through it earlier. As they came in, the manager politely told them, “Folks, we’re actually not open yet…we’ll be open at 11 am, in about half an hour.” And they turned around and left. As they were leaving, however, one of them couldn’t resist tossing back this gem: “Your loss!”
Yes, they were right. We should be ashamed of ourselves for not dropping what we were doing and immediately catering to their needs, before we were ready to do so, before the bar or dining room were even fully set up, because THEY are clearly Very Important People. We shall forever rue the day we turned these fine folks away, and wonder wistfully what could have been, had only we been willing to ignore common sense and let them in before we were open. *sigh*
The Minnow it wasn’t.
One day, an elderly woman came into my bar, and asked for a small beer. (We do have two sizes, as some people don’t want a full pint.) I got served her the beer she chose, and as it was slow, we talked for a bit. It seemed she was on a cruise. This in itself was nothing unusual; we have cruise ships in port all the time, sometimes as many as three in a day. But her cruise was different. Not the typical 3, 7, or 10 day cruise, oh no. This woman was on a 74 day cruise. And this was day 2, as they had just departed Fort Lauderdale the day before. So she had over two months ahead of her under sail, going all the way down South America and back, including a trip through the Panama Canal. I was in awe. And then she told me that this was not her first such cruise. And that on a previous one, she had gone to Antarctica.
Wait, there are cruises that go to Antarctica? And this lovely old lady had been there? Well, apparently….yes. I was beyond awe at this point, and realized immediately that her polite and quiet demeanor belied her true nature, and that I was, in fact, in the presence of someone who had truly lived life, and had no intention of stopping any time soon. So when she asked for her bill, I told her she didn’t have one, as the beer was on the house. She began to argue with me, trying to insist that she would pay it. I told her flat out, “Ma’am, if I DIDN’T buy your beer for you today, I would not be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow.” She accepted that, left a tip for the beer, and walked out of my bar, and literally into the wild blue yonder. My hat is off to her, wherever she and her intrepid fellow travelers are now.
Flushed
As I was finishing up my shift one night, my manager asked me to check the men’s room stall. Damn it, I almost got away, too. And now I was probably going to have to deal with something nasty. I HATE when I have to deal with something nasty in the bathroom.
I asked my manager what the issue was.
Well, a male customer had approached my fellow bartender and told him that there was something wrong with the toilet in the men’s room. He didn’t say what was wrong, just that something was wrong. And he asked my coworker if he could use the employees’ restroom, saying, “I know you have one!” My coworker pointed to the men’s room and said, “That’s it, pal.” And he wasn’t lying—we DON’T have a separate bathroom in the back of the house. (If we did, I very highly doubt we would ever let customers use it, for so many reasons. But we don’t.) The guy kept insisting that he had to go, and to let him use the employee restroom; my coworker kept telling him there was no such thing. Finally, my coworker told him he could use the women’s room, once it was clear, and that is exactly what went down.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering, as I was, what precisely was so wrong with the men’s room toilet. Well, I went into the men’s room, into the stall, and say a vaguely unpleasant “deposit” in the toilet, but nothing all that unusual. Someone hadn’t flushed. So I assumed the customer had seen this, tried to flush, the toilet wouldn’t flush, and, well, you can understand why he wouldn’t want to do his business there. There was just one small, tiny, itty bitty problem with this theory. I reached over to flush the toilet…and it flushed. No muss, no fuss, no problem.
I can’t say I blame the guy for raising such a fuss, though. I mean, really….did we actually expect him to risk over-exerting himself by reaching out one hand and flushing the toilet? As if!
Alert the Paparazzi!
Last week I had the pleasure of having at my bar Alyssa Milano. Yep. Alyssa Milano sat at my bar, and I served her, and we talked, and we had a great ole time.
Oh, not the actress! Just a lovely young lady whose name was Alyssa Milano. When she ordered her drink, I carded her, and when I saw her ID, I looked at her, looked at the ID, opened my mouth, and before I could say anything, she said, “Yeah. I know.” Apparently a lot of her customers (she’s a manager at a grocery store) think her nametag (which has her full name on it) is a joke of some sort, but that actually is her name. And while she jokes about blaming her parents for this, it’s really not their fault, as they did not name her after the actress; while she is younger than the actress, it’s only by a few years, and so she was born—and named—before the actress’s name became well known.
Amazing what they can do these days!
So my friend works at a bar specializing in tequila. While many people come in to try different tequilas they are not familiar with or some of the amazing and creative tequila cocktails these folks have come up with, there are still plenty of people who come in for a basic cheap margarita or a shot of an old standby. (When people ask me what is the most popular rum we sell at my bar, I look them dead in the eye and say, “BacardI!”) So the other day, a few idiots walked into her bar…
HEAD IDIOT: “We need some shots of Patron!”
BARTENDER: “Sure thing! Would you like those chilled?”
HEAD IDIOT: “You mean you already have it in the freezer?”
BARTENDER: “Nooo….”
HEAD IDIOT: “So how are you gonna chill it?”
At which point my friend just stared at the guy. Yep, he was absolutely serious. So, being the consummate professional that she is, my friend went about chilling the Patron shots in the standard way, shaking them over ice in a shaker tin. You know, the same thing you’ve seen done in real bars and even in movies for the last several decades. And the entire time she is doing this, the idiots are staring at her as if this is some newly discovered technology, some groundbreaking, state of the art new method for chilling a liquid in a bar.
Which brings up a question many of us Key Westers often ask: How in the flying FUCK do people this fucking stupid afford a Key West vacation?
Meanie!
At my bar, during happy hour, we have a buy one get one free deal on certain drinks. Rather than forcing people to drink too quickly by putting both drinks down in front of them at the same time, we do what many bars do: we give them their first drink, and a token for their second drink. Our tokens happen to be—again, like many bars—little wooden nickels with our bar’s name on them. A couple has ordered and drank two Coors Lights. I have given them their wooden nickels. They have finished their first round.
JESTER: “Would you folks like another round?”
GUY: “Sure.” (hands me his wooden nickel)
JESTER: “And you, ma’am?”
GIRL: “Can I keep the token as a souvenir?”
JESTER: “Of course you can. But if you do, I can’t give you a free drink.”
GIRL: “Why not?”
JESTER: “People have been known to try to scam us, and so we are required to take the tokens in exchange for the free drinks.”
GIRL: “Well, can’t I keep the token as a souvenir, and just have you give me the free drink?”
JESTER: “Um, no.”
GIRL: “Why not?”
JESTER: “As I explained, we have that policy in place. You can either keep the token, or you can exchange it for a free drink. You can’t have it both ways. That is policy.”
GIRL: “I think you’re being mean.”
JESTER: “Mean? I’m sorry, I am just following policy. I kinda like my job.”
GIRL: “No one would know.”
JESTER: “Yes, but we do have security cameras, and even ignoring that for a moment, I am not willing to risk my job by violating the policy that management has set down.”
GIRL: “Policy, huh? I think you need to lighten up.”
JESTER: “They don’t come much lighter than me, darlin’, but I do follow the rules.”
GIRL: “You’re mean!”
She ended up giving me the token for another beer, I was polite and friendly to them the rest of the time and, surprisingly, they tipped me for their drinks.
But seriously? How would she like it if I came to her job and asked her to break some rules because I thought she was “mean” if she didn’t? People like this make me want to scream.
CUE AVRIL LAVIGNE
Not five minutes after I finish with the Mean Girl, a solo guy sits down at the bar.
GUY: “What are your happy hour specials on beer?”
JESTER: “Two for one on domestic non-premium beers.”
GUY: “Okay, I’ll have a Sam Adams Winter Lager.”
JESTER: “Sure, but that’s not part of the twofer.”
GUY: “What? Why not? Didn’t you say domestics? Sam Adams is not imported.”
JESTER: “Yes, I know. But as I said, the twofer is on domestic non-premiums. Sam Adams is a domestic, but it’s also a premium.”
GUY: “This is all too complicated.”
And with that…he got up and left.
You folks would be shocked how often I have the two previous arguments with guests.
Background: The Bar opens at 11 am. The opening staff comes in at 10 am to get everything ready.
One day, about a half hour before we opened, a group of four walked in through the front door. The front door was closed, but unlocked, as we had probably had beer vendors or some other delivery coming through it earlier. As they came in, the manager politely told them, “Folks, we’re actually not open yet…we’ll be open at 11 am, in about half an hour.” And they turned around and left. As they were leaving, however, one of them couldn’t resist tossing back this gem: “Your loss!”
Yes, they were right. We should be ashamed of ourselves for not dropping what we were doing and immediately catering to their needs, before we were ready to do so, before the bar or dining room were even fully set up, because THEY are clearly Very Important People. We shall forever rue the day we turned these fine folks away, and wonder wistfully what could have been, had only we been willing to ignore common sense and let them in before we were open. *sigh*
The Minnow it wasn’t.
One day, an elderly woman came into my bar, and asked for a small beer. (We do have two sizes, as some people don’t want a full pint.) I got served her the beer she chose, and as it was slow, we talked for a bit. It seemed she was on a cruise. This in itself was nothing unusual; we have cruise ships in port all the time, sometimes as many as three in a day. But her cruise was different. Not the typical 3, 7, or 10 day cruise, oh no. This woman was on a 74 day cruise. And this was day 2, as they had just departed Fort Lauderdale the day before. So she had over two months ahead of her under sail, going all the way down South America and back, including a trip through the Panama Canal. I was in awe. And then she told me that this was not her first such cruise. And that on a previous one, she had gone to Antarctica.
Wait, there are cruises that go to Antarctica? And this lovely old lady had been there? Well, apparently….yes. I was beyond awe at this point, and realized immediately that her polite and quiet demeanor belied her true nature, and that I was, in fact, in the presence of someone who had truly lived life, and had no intention of stopping any time soon. So when she asked for her bill, I told her she didn’t have one, as the beer was on the house. She began to argue with me, trying to insist that she would pay it. I told her flat out, “Ma’am, if I DIDN’T buy your beer for you today, I would not be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow.” She accepted that, left a tip for the beer, and walked out of my bar, and literally into the wild blue yonder. My hat is off to her, wherever she and her intrepid fellow travelers are now.
Flushed
As I was finishing up my shift one night, my manager asked me to check the men’s room stall. Damn it, I almost got away, too. And now I was probably going to have to deal with something nasty. I HATE when I have to deal with something nasty in the bathroom.
I asked my manager what the issue was.Well, a male customer had approached my fellow bartender and told him that there was something wrong with the toilet in the men’s room. He didn’t say what was wrong, just that something was wrong. And he asked my coworker if he could use the employees’ restroom, saying, “I know you have one!” My coworker pointed to the men’s room and said, “That’s it, pal.” And he wasn’t lying—we DON’T have a separate bathroom in the back of the house. (If we did, I very highly doubt we would ever let customers use it, for so many reasons. But we don’t.) The guy kept insisting that he had to go, and to let him use the employee restroom; my coworker kept telling him there was no such thing. Finally, my coworker told him he could use the women’s room, once it was clear, and that is exactly what went down.
So, I’m sure you’re wondering, as I was, what precisely was so wrong with the men’s room toilet. Well, I went into the men’s room, into the stall, and say a vaguely unpleasant “deposit” in the toilet, but nothing all that unusual. Someone hadn’t flushed. So I assumed the customer had seen this, tried to flush, the toilet wouldn’t flush, and, well, you can understand why he wouldn’t want to do his business there. There was just one small, tiny, itty bitty problem with this theory. I reached over to flush the toilet…and it flushed. No muss, no fuss, no problem.
I can’t say I blame the guy for raising such a fuss, though. I mean, really….did we actually expect him to risk over-exerting himself by reaching out one hand and flushing the toilet? As if!
Alert the Paparazzi!
Last week I had the pleasure of having at my bar Alyssa Milano. Yep. Alyssa Milano sat at my bar, and I served her, and we talked, and we had a great ole time.
Oh, not the actress! Just a lovely young lady whose name was Alyssa Milano. When she ordered her drink, I carded her, and when I saw her ID, I looked at her, looked at the ID, opened my mouth, and before I could say anything, she said, “Yeah. I know.” Apparently a lot of her customers (she’s a manager at a grocery store) think her nametag (which has her full name on it) is a joke of some sort, but that actually is her name. And while she jokes about blaming her parents for this, it’s really not their fault, as they did not name her after the actress; while she is younger than the actress, it’s only by a few years, and so she was born—and named—before the actress’s name became well known.
Amazing what they can do these days!
So my friend works at a bar specializing in tequila. While many people come in to try different tequilas they are not familiar with or some of the amazing and creative tequila cocktails these folks have come up with, there are still plenty of people who come in for a basic cheap margarita or a shot of an old standby. (When people ask me what is the most popular rum we sell at my bar, I look them dead in the eye and say, “BacardI!”) So the other day, a few idiots walked into her bar…
HEAD IDIOT: “We need some shots of Patron!”
BARTENDER: “Sure thing! Would you like those chilled?”
HEAD IDIOT: “You mean you already have it in the freezer?”
BARTENDER: “Nooo….”
HEAD IDIOT: “So how are you gonna chill it?”
At which point my friend just stared at the guy. Yep, he was absolutely serious. So, being the consummate professional that she is, my friend went about chilling the Patron shots in the standard way, shaking them over ice in a shaker tin. You know, the same thing you’ve seen done in real bars and even in movies for the last several decades. And the entire time she is doing this, the idiots are staring at her as if this is some newly discovered technology, some groundbreaking, state of the art new method for chilling a liquid in a bar.
Which brings up a question many of us Key Westers often ask: How in the flying FUCK do people this fucking stupid afford a Key West vacation?
Meanie!
At my bar, during happy hour, we have a buy one get one free deal on certain drinks. Rather than forcing people to drink too quickly by putting both drinks down in front of them at the same time, we do what many bars do: we give them their first drink, and a token for their second drink. Our tokens happen to be—again, like many bars—little wooden nickels with our bar’s name on them. A couple has ordered and drank two Coors Lights. I have given them their wooden nickels. They have finished their first round.
JESTER: “Would you folks like another round?”
GUY: “Sure.” (hands me his wooden nickel)
JESTER: “And you, ma’am?”
GIRL: “Can I keep the token as a souvenir?”
JESTER: “Of course you can. But if you do, I can’t give you a free drink.”
GIRL: “Why not?”
JESTER: “People have been known to try to scam us, and so we are required to take the tokens in exchange for the free drinks.”
GIRL: “Well, can’t I keep the token as a souvenir, and just have you give me the free drink?”
JESTER: “Um, no.”
GIRL: “Why not?”
JESTER: “As I explained, we have that policy in place. You can either keep the token, or you can exchange it for a free drink. You can’t have it both ways. That is policy.”
GIRL: “I think you’re being mean.”
JESTER: “Mean? I’m sorry, I am just following policy. I kinda like my job.”
GIRL: “No one would know.”
JESTER: “Yes, but we do have security cameras, and even ignoring that for a moment, I am not willing to risk my job by violating the policy that management has set down.”
GIRL: “Policy, huh? I think you need to lighten up.”
JESTER: “They don’t come much lighter than me, darlin’, but I do follow the rules.”
GIRL: “You’re mean!”
She ended up giving me the token for another beer, I was polite and friendly to them the rest of the time and, surprisingly, they tipped me for their drinks.
But seriously? How would she like it if I came to her job and asked her to break some rules because I thought she was “mean” if she didn’t? People like this make me want to scream.
CUE AVRIL LAVIGNE
Not five minutes after I finish with the Mean Girl, a solo guy sits down at the bar.
GUY: “What are your happy hour specials on beer?”
JESTER: “Two for one on domestic non-premium beers.”
GUY: “Okay, I’ll have a Sam Adams Winter Lager.”
JESTER: “Sure, but that’s not part of the twofer.”
GUY: “What? Why not? Didn’t you say domestics? Sam Adams is not imported.”
JESTER: “Yes, I know. But as I said, the twofer is on domestic non-premiums. Sam Adams is a domestic, but it’s also a premium.”
GUY: “This is all too complicated.”
And with that…he got up and left.
You folks would be shocked how often I have the two previous arguments with guests.
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