The Transient Bartender 2

Look at that dreamer

I remember my first job in a real restaurant. Much like many of the greats - as well as many of our friends associated with L.C.F.L. - it was washing dishes. My first job in the restaurant was dish bitch. I loved it. To me, washing dishes was Zen. I put on my tunes and helped out the restaurant wherever and whenever I could. I got the job because I wanted to go to California really badly to visit some friends. One of the first things I did was hang up a photo of sunny palm-clad beaches on the dishwasher so I wouldn’t forget what the fruits of the labor were. It was in the back of the house that I fell in love with restaurants and the industry. Wet and tired (and often the last one at the restaurant) are the adjectives that described my aura as I fell in love with everything that was happening. I was primed for the back-of-the-house life and (as I mentioned before) I briefly worked on the line. It was at a hell of a steak house and my first real job on the line was what I like to call the “baco-bit station.” I loved it, though. I loved creating and making dishes that people trusted me enough to consume. My life in the BOH was short lived because a cutie server decided that she wanted to see me out front more often. I was hesitant, but departed for the FOH for two reasons. 1.Damn, AC feels nice in the summer and 2. Girls. I made the transition and started hosting. Then serving. Eventually I was serving at the place just north of Boston after just turning 21. It was January 2^nd, 2006 when I was at work serving a lunch shift. The GM just got off the phone and was super pissed. He threw the phone down and told all the FOH staff that the day bartender, “Jackie”, broke her arm in a drunken NYE piggyback ride and he needed a day bartender. I said that I would do it. Since then my life at restaurants (specifically behind the bar) was cemented. I FUCKING LOVE THIS. I’ve been bartending on and off for almost a decade now. I’ve thrown away my blacks (uniform) three times now, but I always come back. I can’t quit you baby.

A motivating factor

When it really comes down to it, my life and career in restaurants has been a series of firsts or new beginnings, if you will. It’s hard to explain the feeling of starting at a new restaurant or starting a new role in one, but I can imagine that anyone in the industry has their own unique stories and observations. When I start at a new bar the first thing is learning where everything is. Whisky here, vodka there, ice everywhere but immediately beyond that is when it gets deeper. What is the patois of the restaurant? How does this place specifically make a Pimm’s cup or a Wedge? How can I fit in or what is my role with the bartenders? What’s the menu? Who are my new customers? Whose ass do I need to kiss? Who is the bitch I can hand off the menial tasks? There's a suite of other questions/thoughts. These questions aren’t immediately answered and we’re forced to live in the sometimes invigorating, sometimes uneasy, malaise of it all.

I’m bringing this up because I have recently moved from Rochester to Brooklyn. The first night I was here I went up onto the roof of my building and thought about a hell of a lot. I missed friends from old places and I was excited about new places. I was anxious and excited about finding my role in a new and dynamic city. I was superficially nervous about the uniform…what should I wear?! I sat on my Brooklyn roof looking at a lit up and brilliant Manhattan skyline while sipping a rocks glass of bourbon and I cried. It is so hard to leave a place that you know well, especially when people appreciate you and want you there. There have been times when I moved before and I just said, “Fuck you all, I’m out” and been done with it, but this time was different. I was on the roof and thought about a place I had worked in Rochester. A small ass place with people that were passionate about food and service. I left because of disagreements with ownership, but I couldn’t shake how much the staff meant to me. I left, missing the best kitchen I have ever worked with and one of the best front of the house staffs that exist in Rochester.

The restaurant is truly a microcosm for life, at least for me and the majority of lifers. New beginnings bring excitement. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t gotten giddy when they start a new phase or experience something new and wonderful. Although so much of that new excitement is tempered by a reverence to the good things that you had going. I want to live in that. Upward and onward, but respect to the kitchens and dining rooms or cities of the past.

I love it down here and I’m excited to expand our LCFL locale.    -Brian-