How did I become literate at bartending? I made mistakes....I made a lot of mistakes. And not just small mistakes like what the difference between soda water and tonic was...I mean big, massive and embarrassing mistakes. I've served drunk people only to have to dump their drinks and kicked them out a minute later. I've forgotten how to make a French Martini and ran into the back to look it up on my phone. I've lied about what's in a drink or what's not just because I'm so busy that I don't have time to remake it. I've left an entire cooler completely open overnight in August. In case you don't know, that equals twenty bottles of skunked white wine the next day. I've messed up food orders, poured red wine down someone's crisp white button down shirt, gave my number to a complete stranger in hopes he'd leave me a better tip and absolutely forgotten to lock the door when I left for the night.
But let me start by how I even became a bartender. I've been working in restaurants since I hit puberty, if there is one thing I know better than myself, its restaurants. They have raised me, made me angry and showed me that food is something to be coveted. However, in all the restaurants I've worked in, I've always been a server. Now I knew how to pour wine, make a Cosmo and fill in for the bartender while he was out on a smoke break but I have never...I mean never, stood behind a bar for ten hours, four nights a week.
So I was hiking in Utah about two and a half years ago when I got an email from an old colleague at a previous restaurant. She had built up a place with herself, the owner and a small staff. They were looking to fill a bartending/ waiting position and she wanted to know if I knew anyone? Well I did. Me, of course. Since she knew I was a good server and fast she hired me...on the spot. For my first few weeks I couldn't stop shaking. I had to keep saying to myself: I love to be challenged, I love to reinvent myself, I can do this, this is just pouring drinking and talking to people.
Well they didn't tell me about how hard service bar was? That is, making drinks for an entire restaurant while simultaneously serving a full bar. And they didn't tell me I'd have to memorize prices of every drink and tally them in my head for faster service. And no one, I mean no one told me that it wasn't just pouring drinks and talking to people. The first year was hard. Most of the big mistakes I made were made then, in those desperate minutes between putting the ice in a drink, talking to a regular, adding the liquor and shaking.
But then one day I became literate. I realized that as long as you keep talking to everyone, they don't care how long it takes for you to get their drinks. I realized that most people come to a bar to feel connected to something. They want attention and affection and they want to tell you their boring stories because no one else they know would in their right mind listen. It was like an epiphany. I just had to make eye contact, keep communication open and they'd let me make service bar drinks, or tell me, “no rush,” or simply just wait until I came back. By using this technique, I was able to redistribute myself into all different areas where I was needed; my time management flourished. And my relationships with those I served solidified.
I still go into the weeds. I still forget how to make drinks and have to run into the back and look it up on my phone, but it’s okay. The relationships I've built and the careful dance I do between glass, ice, liquor, shake gives me time to think. Shake, think, shake....okay, breathe Emily. And...go!
Whether I stay a bartender for much longer or leave when I begin teaching, I know this skill will follow me wherever I go. Bartending has showed me that the key to mastery is making a million mistakes beforehand. And most importantly, bartending has shown me that although the odds are not probable the task must be completed. Make ten martinis, put so and so’s food order in and change a keg….and do this all right now. Impossible! But what better preparation for life could there be? Or for adversity? A how else better can I serve a community than by preparing to beat seemingly impossible odds?
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