Guest Bartenders
The first time I ever walked in to O’ Brien’s was a Tuesday night. Tuesday’s used to be guest bartender night. That night T.K. and Jimbo were behind the bar. I didn’t know them then, but we have since become good friends. The way it worked is that the bartender that night would let his friends bartend and he would keep the tips. Genius. Saturday night a guy offered us a hundred bucks to bartend for five minutes. He made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. Alas, that’s where the problem started.
I thought that Saturday would be better than Friday, but I had no idea it would be flat out amazing. We had the Santa Monica Rugby team in for their post-game party. Although I was told to expect a hundred, we got about half that. Either way, fifty people in the bar brings in an even bigger crowd. It never got crazy, but it was a great start. It was a relatively subdued rugby party. There was no singing, no boat races, and no shoot the boot. “Shoot the boot” is when a player scores their first try, similar to a touchdown in football, and must drink a beer out of their shoe. I don’t know what’s worse: drinking Bud Light or drinking it out of a sweaty, smelly shoe. At least the latter gives it some flavor. Even though the team gets a free beer for an hour and free food, I still sold three times more than I did the happy hour previous. I’d say it was a win win.
Aoife and Tim came on and I took my dinner break. While I was eating, the bar started to get busy. There were a couple of guys in plastic Viking helmets. One guy’s helmet had a horn pointing down. I don’t know if that means he’s into dudes, or what. But I was sitting with Jan, a regular, wondering why all the Viking helmets. Then a guy walked in and the place went ballistic. They all busted out with a round of “Happy Birthday.” I never found out the meaning of the helmets, but it didn’t seem to matter. I got behind the bar and there was a great crowd. We weren’t packed, but the noise level made it seem that way. My deafness betrayed me many times when I would look for customers’ tabs whose names I misunderstood. It was about ten-thirty when Aoife pointed out the guy who made us the offer we couldn’t refuse. I wanted to put a hundred bucks in the tip jar, but I was a little concerned because it was getting busy and having an extra person behind the bar who doesn’t know what he’s doing could be problematic. A half-hour later and a hundred bucks richer, he and a buddy, which wasn’t part of the deal, jumped behind the bar. They never handled any money and were supervised the whole time. The only problem was when one of them made shots and then proceeded to chug the rest from the shaker. I had to explain to him that he might see that behavior in biker movies, but we want to hang on to our “B” rating.
They were super nice guys and when their fifteen minutes of fame were up, they left quietly. The problem arose when one of the guys in their party closed out his tab and was stunned that it was two hundred and ten dollars. I had served two drinks on the tab and they were both to one of the guest bartenders. It turns out that many in his party were putting drinks on his tab. I ran out and got the guest bartender in question and tried to explain everything to the beyond irate customer. I wouldn’t call him a douche bag, because his anger was justified. Personally, I wouldn’t have gone so ballistic. It’s not like someone took his favorite spinning bike at the gym. The guest bartender copped to putting drinks on his tab and threw down a hundred bucks. I guess there was confusion with the guest bartenders because drinks for their party were put on said tab, and there was an impression that a bunch of guys from this party were together. I solved the problem by removing seventy-eight dollars worth of drinks. That plus the hundred that the guest bartender threw down left the infuriated customer with thirty-two dollars on his tab. It was a far smaller than even the drinks he consumed, but he was still really pissed off. We ended up taking the hundred from the guest bartending fee and put it against the drinks we pulled off. It turned out to be a wash. Oh, well.
After dealing with Captain Angry, all I wanted was a smoke, but we were too busy. I finally got it at the end of the shift. To get an idea of how busy it was is to look at how long Tim and I went without a cigarette. Yes, you guessed it, the entire time. Like I said, it was an amazing night. It was almost an easy hundred bucks, but next time, I’ll think twice about allowing guest bartenders.
