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xiphiasYesterday, I was called for work at 3 pm. As I said to Lis as she drove me there, "The minimum I get paid for is four hours, therefore they tend to like to have people there for at least the four hours for which they are paying, so I'm unlikely to be out before seven. After eight hours, they pay overtime, which they also prefer not to do, so I'm unlikley to be out after 11. Other than that, I have no idea what the function I'm bartending is, or where, or how, so I'll call you when I'm done."
I got to work fifteen minutes early or so. Basically, functions have start times. The bartender is supposed to be up in the function room half an hour before the start time of the function, to set up the bar in the room, and in case people show up a bit early. And call time is half an hour before that, to give the bartender time to set up the bar cart that we take up to the bar.
See, we get all the stuff that we're going to need for the function, and we put it in a cart. We have half an hour to do that -- it usually takes about fifteen minutes if everything goes reasonably close to well, so the extra fifteen minutes is in case anything DOESN'T go well. Then we make sure we're presentable, tie is neatly tied, jacket clean, and so forth, take the cart up to the function room, and take all the stuff OFF the cart, and put it in places around the bar where we can reach it in a hurry and where it looks attractive and appealing, so that people will want to drink it. This normally takes about fifteen minutes, too, but you have extra time in case things go wrong. I usually use the extra time to be REALLY REALLY FANATICAL about EXACTLY how my bar looks.
It really is true: the nicer your bar looks, the more people drink.
So I can blame last night on the ivy bunting with glass grapes that someone draped around my bar before I got there. It really looked sharp, and allowed me to display the wine to good advantage. I bet it was Nelson's fault. He's competent.
Nelson, as I've mentioned before, is a co-worker. He was hired as a barback a while back, but he's now a function captain. This means that, first, he gets to wear an ACTUAL sport jacket and straight tie instead of a maroon jacket and black bowtie. Second, it means that he's in overall charge of making sure that everything works out, and the function runs smoothly.
Anyway, when I got to work, fifteen minutes early, Orlando (the head barback) said, "The sooner you can get up to your function, the better -- a few people are there already." I didn't rush myself too badly, but I didn't dawdle, either.
The next paragraph is just technical details about what we put on a bar.
For the function, they had an open bar with house liquors (which, at the Harvard Club, means Gordon's gin, Smirinov vodka, Bicardi rum, Seagrams 7 Canadian whiskey, Johnnie Walker Red scotch, and Jim Beam bourbon, as well as Kaluha, and Martini and Rossi sweet and dry vermouths). On the sheet, they forgot to list beers, so I grabbed a standard assortment (Budweiser, Bud Light, Sam Adams, Heinekin, and Amstel Light), but only 4 of each instead of 5 of each as is usual. And 5 bottles of house red wine, 5 bottles of house white wine. Orange juice, cranberry juice, sour mix, milk, and an eight-ounce can each of pineapple juice and grapefruit juice (we use hardly any of those, so it doesn't make sense to have whole liters of them open.) Four bottles of Saratoga mineral water, two one-liter bottles of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, ginger ale, tonic water, and club soda. And a special request for this function, three bottles of Segura Viudas champaigne. They wanted us to be able to make mimosas.
So the function in question turned out to be a bridal shower. A few of the hosts had shown up already by the time I got there, and they clarified that it was actually a WEDDING shower -- both the bride and groom would be there, and men were invited. I told them that that made ME feel much better about being there, and they laughed.
I don't think I'd ever seen the Estabrooks room look as festive as it did last night. The function was set up for about forty people; when I counted noses later in the evening, I think maybe thirty people or so were there. Which isn't bad for a Saturday afternoon party.
I chatted with a number of the hosts before guests started arriving. One, I think one of the groom's brothers, mentioned that he had a bunch of fun bar tricks to try out for when there was a lull in the party.
Then the guests started arriving. And the possibility of a lull in the party seemed quite remote.
Did they drink?
Okay, sure. I didn't use THAT much liquor -- maybe 10 or 15 drinks worth. And I only sold four beers all night. And I only went through three bottles of the red wine, and two bottles of champaigne. (Remember -- this is for about thirty people. A bottle of wine is about four glasses, a magnum of champaigne, about six. So that's somewhere on the order of 40, 45 drinks. For thirty people.)
How about white wine?
Thirteen bottles. They went through thirteen bottles of white wine.
Now, the white wine we sell is Domaine St George chardonnay. It's . . . drinkable. It's basically a jug wine, frankly. I buy my cooking wine in big gallon jugs with screw tops, and, to my pallate, there's not much to tell between that wine, and DSG. DSG is like six dollars a bottle. We sell it for something like $25/bottle.
Like I said, it's drinkable. We wouldn't serve it if it wasn't. But it does my capitalist little heart good when I see people drinking lots of high-profit-margin items. (Hey, it doesn't reflect directly on my paycheck, but it's the principle of the thing.) And it does my bartending heart good when I see people ENJOYING themselves drinking it.
Anyway, after everyone got there and socialized for about an hour, the fianceé and fiancé sat down and were showered with gifts. One of the hosts asked if he could borrow the knife on my wine opener to help with gifts. I said, "Actually, why not use this?" and pulled out my leatherman, and opened the blade, only to discover that the blade was covered in roofing tar. "Hmm. How about this one, then?" and pulled out my OTHER leatherman, which had a clean blade. Which they used to help open gifts with.
(They also seemed pretty impressed by the pliers, for some reason.)
Another thing to explain a bit about how the crowd drank: among the gifts that they were given was
1. A really silly big-floppy-hat-and-fluffy-slippers set which said GUINESS on them and were Guiness-colored with Guiness-head colored tips.
2. A martini pitcher which I recognized because it's the martini pitcher that Lis and I use.
3. A complete set of bar tools.
4. Several sets of shot glasses.
5. Some nice crystal rocks glasses, which the groom decided HAD to be quality-tested, so, in the interests of making sure that the presents were in usable condition, I filled with ice and a nice double shot of scotch.
And so forth.
Anyway, the party didn't have much of a lull in it at any time. Nelson did come by and we chatted a bit -- his son is three months old now, and really curious -- looks at everything. Apparently, a few days ago, they were out at a children's party, and Danny was tired and cranky, and was just crying. So they tied a helium balloon to his wrist -- and he was fascinated. He spent the next forty-five minutes or more just staring at the balloon and tugging on the string, and trying to figure it out. But, because there was no lull in the party, the host who had prepared the bar tricks didn't get a chance to do them.
So, towards the end of the evening, after some people had started to go home, I encouraged him to show them now, because I wanted to see them. So he had me pour cranberry juice into a shallow dish, get out an olive, two matches, and a book of matches, and a wineglass. He got some folks over, and he said, "Okay, using these things, get the juice into the glass without touching the dish."
The fiancé took a look at it, thought a bit, took a match, lit it, held it under the inverted wine glass, and quickly put the glass, inverted, in the dish. The match used up the air, a lot of the juice got sucked into the glass. Worked pretty well. But the person who had had me get the stuff out made a bit of a modification. He stuck two matches into the olive, with the burny-parts sticking out, put the olive in the middle of the dish, lit both matches with a third match, and stuck the glass inverted over it.
Every last drop of the juice sucked into the glass so fast it looked like it was boiling.
He had a couple other neat tricks, too. Which I'll probably show y'all sometime. Whether you want me to or not.
Officially, the function had an "out time" of 7:00. I was still serving drinks at 7:30, and Nelson told me I could pack up the bar then. He told the hosts that he was sending the staff home, but they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted to.
(I do have to admit one catty thought: if the bartender is walking past you with all the stuff that WAS on the bar packed neatly into a cart which he is bringing onto the elevator, you might be able to answer the question, "Oh. Is the bar closed?" on your own. But, c'mon, he had had like six drinks, and was a really nice guy, so I didn't REALLY think that very hard.)
In general, I have a theory: if, at the first social occasion which really involves both families, every single family member has an absolute blast socializing with each other, and they all get along like a house afire (which is a truly odd expression, but, no matter), the marriage is likely to be a success. So I think this couple is going to do well.
After I did my returns (this means, "put away all the stuff I hadn't used, after measuring it and writing down how much WAS used, so people could be charged for it; thrown away all my trash; and put all my tools in to be washed"), Nelson came down and said that the people had all had a wonderful time, and he showed me a note which the hosts had given him, which thanked all of us who had worked there by name for contributing to a wonderful party. He then handed me two twenty-dollar bills. Which was my cut of the extra money which they'd given him to split among the staff for making everything such a success.
This was the first function for which Nelson was the solo captain. So in his very first outing, he's got a note of commendation. That's not too shabby.
After we finished that function, I helped out with a wine pour on another function, then went home. It was 8:30 when Lis picked me up. And I had plenty of time to do class prep for this morning.
Which, of course, doesn't mean that I DID any. But that's probably worth it's own entry.
I got to work fifteen minutes early or so. Basically, functions have start times. The bartender is supposed to be up in the function room half an hour before the start time of the function, to set up the bar in the room, and in case people show up a bit early. And call time is half an hour before that, to give the bartender time to set up the bar cart that we take up to the bar.
See, we get all the stuff that we're going to need for the function, and we put it in a cart. We have half an hour to do that -- it usually takes about fifteen minutes if everything goes reasonably close to well, so the extra fifteen minutes is in case anything DOESN'T go well. Then we make sure we're presentable, tie is neatly tied, jacket clean, and so forth, take the cart up to the function room, and take all the stuff OFF the cart, and put it in places around the bar where we can reach it in a hurry and where it looks attractive and appealing, so that people will want to drink it. This normally takes about fifteen minutes, too, but you have extra time in case things go wrong. I usually use the extra time to be REALLY REALLY FANATICAL about EXACTLY how my bar looks.
It really is true: the nicer your bar looks, the more people drink.
So I can blame last night on the ivy bunting with glass grapes that someone draped around my bar before I got there. It really looked sharp, and allowed me to display the wine to good advantage. I bet it was Nelson's fault. He's competent.
Nelson, as I've mentioned before, is a co-worker. He was hired as a barback a while back, but he's now a function captain. This means that, first, he gets to wear an ACTUAL sport jacket and straight tie instead of a maroon jacket and black bowtie. Second, it means that he's in overall charge of making sure that everything works out, and the function runs smoothly.
Anyway, when I got to work, fifteen minutes early, Orlando (the head barback) said, "The sooner you can get up to your function, the better -- a few people are there already." I didn't rush myself too badly, but I didn't dawdle, either.
The next paragraph is just technical details about what we put on a bar.
For the function, they had an open bar with house liquors (which, at the Harvard Club, means Gordon's gin, Smirinov vodka, Bicardi rum, Seagrams 7 Canadian whiskey, Johnnie Walker Red scotch, and Jim Beam bourbon, as well as Kaluha, and Martini and Rossi sweet and dry vermouths). On the sheet, they forgot to list beers, so I grabbed a standard assortment (Budweiser, Bud Light, Sam Adams, Heinekin, and Amstel Light), but only 4 of each instead of 5 of each as is usual. And 5 bottles of house red wine, 5 bottles of house white wine. Orange juice, cranberry juice, sour mix, milk, and an eight-ounce can each of pineapple juice and grapefruit juice (we use hardly any of those, so it doesn't make sense to have whole liters of them open.) Four bottles of Saratoga mineral water, two one-liter bottles of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, ginger ale, tonic water, and club soda. And a special request for this function, three bottles of Segura Viudas champaigne. They wanted us to be able to make mimosas.
So the function in question turned out to be a bridal shower. A few of the hosts had shown up already by the time I got there, and they clarified that it was actually a WEDDING shower -- both the bride and groom would be there, and men were invited. I told them that that made ME feel much better about being there, and they laughed.
I don't think I'd ever seen the Estabrooks room look as festive as it did last night. The function was set up for about forty people; when I counted noses later in the evening, I think maybe thirty people or so were there. Which isn't bad for a Saturday afternoon party.
I chatted with a number of the hosts before guests started arriving. One, I think one of the groom's brothers, mentioned that he had a bunch of fun bar tricks to try out for when there was a lull in the party.
Then the guests started arriving. And the possibility of a lull in the party seemed quite remote.
Did they drink?
Okay, sure. I didn't use THAT much liquor -- maybe 10 or 15 drinks worth. And I only sold four beers all night. And I only went through three bottles of the red wine, and two bottles of champaigne. (Remember -- this is for about thirty people. A bottle of wine is about four glasses, a magnum of champaigne, about six. So that's somewhere on the order of 40, 45 drinks. For thirty people.)
How about white wine?
Thirteen bottles. They went through thirteen bottles of white wine.
Now, the white wine we sell is Domaine St George chardonnay. It's . . . drinkable. It's basically a jug wine, frankly. I buy my cooking wine in big gallon jugs with screw tops, and, to my pallate, there's not much to tell between that wine, and DSG. DSG is like six dollars a bottle. We sell it for something like $25/bottle.
Like I said, it's drinkable. We wouldn't serve it if it wasn't. But it does my capitalist little heart good when I see people drinking lots of high-profit-margin items. (Hey, it doesn't reflect directly on my paycheck, but it's the principle of the thing.) And it does my bartending heart good when I see people ENJOYING themselves drinking it.
Anyway, after everyone got there and socialized for about an hour, the fianceé and fiancé sat down and were showered with gifts. One of the hosts asked if he could borrow the knife on my wine opener to help with gifts. I said, "Actually, why not use this?" and pulled out my leatherman, and opened the blade, only to discover that the blade was covered in roofing tar. "Hmm. How about this one, then?" and pulled out my OTHER leatherman, which had a clean blade. Which they used to help open gifts with.
(They also seemed pretty impressed by the pliers, for some reason.)
Another thing to explain a bit about how the crowd drank: among the gifts that they were given was
1. A really silly big-floppy-hat-and-fluffy-slippers set which said GUINESS on them and were Guiness-colored with Guiness-head colored tips.
2. A martini pitcher which I recognized because it's the martini pitcher that Lis and I use.
3. A complete set of bar tools.
4. Several sets of shot glasses.
5. Some nice crystal rocks glasses, which the groom decided HAD to be quality-tested, so, in the interests of making sure that the presents were in usable condition, I filled with ice and a nice double shot of scotch.
And so forth.
Anyway, the party didn't have much of a lull in it at any time. Nelson did come by and we chatted a bit -- his son is three months old now, and really curious -- looks at everything. Apparently, a few days ago, they were out at a children's party, and Danny was tired and cranky, and was just crying. So they tied a helium balloon to his wrist -- and he was fascinated. He spent the next forty-five minutes or more just staring at the balloon and tugging on the string, and trying to figure it out. But, because there was no lull in the party, the host who had prepared the bar tricks didn't get a chance to do them.
So, towards the end of the evening, after some people had started to go home, I encouraged him to show them now, because I wanted to see them. So he had me pour cranberry juice into a shallow dish, get out an olive, two matches, and a book of matches, and a wineglass. He got some folks over, and he said, "Okay, using these things, get the juice into the glass without touching the dish."
The fiancé took a look at it, thought a bit, took a match, lit it, held it under the inverted wine glass, and quickly put the glass, inverted, in the dish. The match used up the air, a lot of the juice got sucked into the glass. Worked pretty well. But the person who had had me get the stuff out made a bit of a modification. He stuck two matches into the olive, with the burny-parts sticking out, put the olive in the middle of the dish, lit both matches with a third match, and stuck the glass inverted over it.
Every last drop of the juice sucked into the glass so fast it looked like it was boiling.
He had a couple other neat tricks, too. Which I'll probably show y'all sometime. Whether you want me to or not.
Officially, the function had an "out time" of 7:00. I was still serving drinks at 7:30, and Nelson told me I could pack up the bar then. He told the hosts that he was sending the staff home, but they were welcome to stay as long as they wanted to.
(I do have to admit one catty thought: if the bartender is walking past you with all the stuff that WAS on the bar packed neatly into a cart which he is bringing onto the elevator, you might be able to answer the question, "Oh. Is the bar closed?" on your own. But, c'mon, he had had like six drinks, and was a really nice guy, so I didn't REALLY think that very hard.)
In general, I have a theory: if, at the first social occasion which really involves both families, every single family member has an absolute blast socializing with each other, and they all get along like a house afire (which is a truly odd expression, but, no matter), the marriage is likely to be a success. So I think this couple is going to do well.
After I did my returns (this means, "put away all the stuff I hadn't used, after measuring it and writing down how much WAS used, so people could be charged for it; thrown away all my trash; and put all my tools in to be washed"), Nelson came down and said that the people had all had a wonderful time, and he showed me a note which the hosts had given him, which thanked all of us who had worked there by name for contributing to a wonderful party. He then handed me two twenty-dollar bills. Which was my cut of the extra money which they'd given him to split among the staff for making everything such a success.
This was the first function for which Nelson was the solo captain. So in his very first outing, he's got a note of commendation. That's not too shabby.
After we finished that function, I helped out with a wine pour on another function, then went home. It was 8:30 when Lis picked me up. And I had plenty of time to do class prep for this morning.
Which, of course, doesn't mean that I DID any. But that's probably worth it's own entry.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-26 05:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-26 08:40 am (UTC)Neat trick with the juice. I'll have to try that out on some friends. :-)