May 20th, 2018

Sunday night – rapidly my favorite night to tend bar, because it’s becoming the only night not crowded with a stupid and surplus number of other bartenders.

Shortly after arriving, Charon checked in with me as she is wont to do, making sure I’d noticed that I wasn’t booked for the next couple of Saturdays (greatly appreciated), and also asking me about Thursday night, and which place I preferred to work. This was actually kind of impressive, as I’d mentioned offhandedly the other night that Thursday night in the service bar just isn’t as wonderful as a Friday or Saturday in the service bar.

So at the next opportunity she’s asking if I want to shift to the lounge that night.

I was admittedly tempted, but I opted to stay in the service bar because :

There’s going to be two bartenders down in the Lounge anyway on Thursday nights now, which is going to be horrible from the get-go and tips will suffer all around anyway.
At the service bar, I can at least be by myself.
This second point is particularly important, because the second bartender down in the Lounge is supposed to be Darla, so the service bar means I don’t have to deal with her butt.

The Lounge had a selection of our native regulars behind the bar drinking and playing the bartop poker/slots. I joked around with them a bit whilst I did my thing. We had a steady but casual stream of guests passing through, and Charon gave me my breaks, meaning I didn’t lose anything in tips (‘cuz when the cocktail girls break the bar, they get them – but supervisors can’t accept tips).

We didn’t really have any problems through the night and when I came back from my second break, I actually had a fun surprise waiting for me. A not-really-regular-but-occasionally-returning-guest name of “Gary” was sitting behind the bar next to his traditional partner in crime. He’s a bartender. His buddy is a cook. They always come as a pair. Really nice guys, and they’re always fun to talk shop with as time and guest flow permits. He’d pretty much brought the entire clan along, wife and kids too, which was fun. They didn’t stay but an hour or so, but they’d made a point of hanging around for me to come back off of break, ‘cuz I”m apparently their favorite barkeep.

That’s always fun to hear.

As is often the case on slower nights, the tips later in the evening made up somewhat for the slow dreary start, and I went home sllightly north of what I like to for a Sunday night, in terms of tips. All in all, no complaints.

Closing observations :

Gary’s friend agreed with me that the go-to bottle to grab in the event of a spontaneous bar fight is the big bottle of Galliano. It’s like a two-foot long baseball bat made out of heavy faceted glass.
It’s a shame we don’t stock it anymore.
We do however have excellent security in-house, being a casino, so that’s probably a wash.

Next up : Thursday