Happy hour is a wonderful period of the day where you can go to your local pub or lounge and sip on your favorite drink for a little less money than usual. It is that blissful time right after work before you have to head home where you can escape for a couple hours. A time to meet with fellow members of the M-F world and share conversations over a mutual love of drinking. Happy hour is a wonderful time. That is, unless you are the bartender.
The best hours of the day
Two things I don’t enjoy about the happy hour period:
Happy hour to a bartender = more drinks + less money
Happy hour to a bartender = more people and less conversations
I’m not saying this is the worst part of a shift but it certainly isn’t the best. If you are a quantity bartender, then you may enjoy the happy hour time. A quantity bartender is someone who enjoys slinging drink after drink with no pause for conversation. I enjoy quantity bartending from time to time, but I also enjoy the quality bartending, where you get to know your clients.
There is one place where I worked that I thought happy hour was the best time of the shift.
The Beach House.
This was my first working/bartending experience. It was a magical place to learn. Happy hour was my favorite part of the shift and something I looked forward to every day. It was mainly because of the clientele. I would have the same 20 or so people come in every single day M-F and get their usual drinks. It wasn’t overwhelmingly busy so I was able to have conversations with them and they always tipped very well.
I loved the Beach House. I worked there for eight years through high school and college. I had to quit when I moved away, so I haven’t worked there in almost three years. I could still tell you to this day what everyone drank though. That is an ideal happy hour.
A not so ideal happy hour? One where the bar gets jammed pack with penny-pinching, rude, robust customers who just want a cheap drink. A happy hour should be a time to relax after work with a cheaper drink reward for your hard day. Not a time to load up on cheap drinks before going out on the town. Patrons who come to have one or two drinks after work are the perfect customers to have at happy hour.
Here is what you get when you come to happy hour with Alexis Patron:
*You will get your drink within one minute of sitting down, less if you are a regular and I already know what you want
*Once all of the drinks are served, you will get quality “therapist” time with your bartender, where you can discuss your hard day at work and how you don’t want to go home quite yet to the family
*You will get a refill before your drink is finished
*You will get some mild form of entertainment: a.k.a. bar tricks or trivia
This is the perfect happy hour and I do not understand why some places have yet to master this quality time of day. It seems more and more that happy hours have just become a time to get shitfaced for less money. Not to enjoy a slightly cheaper reward for a hard days work.
One day I will open my own bar and then the world will be able to enjoy happy hour Alexis Patron style.
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, alexis, bar, bartending, flirt, liquor, new york city, shots
As I have previously discussed being a bartender isn’t just about pouring the drinks. It’s a complex dance of flirting, strong will and oftentimes loose morals. You have to have the power and control to take over any situation that may arise at your bar. A weak personality will never survive in a good bar. Sure, weak personalities could survive in a convention hall bar where they serve beer and wine, but they will never survive a NYC club or Montana pub.
Leave it to the professionals. Bartending for seven years now, I have seen a lot, done a lot, heard way too much and experienced crap beyond belief. So it is time to share some trade secrets on how to be a good female bartender! Of course the main thing is to know your drinks and be quick and efficient, but everyone knows that, so here are the tips that not everyone knows:
- Be tougher than any bitch or bastard who enters your bar. You need to be able to throw someone out without the help of a bouncer. You need to be stern enough to scare the pants off any drunkard and smart enough to avoid being shot in the process. I have worked at bars where gunshots were fired outside, where knives were pulled inside… you have to be prepared for it all.
- You must be the biggest flirt without giving it all away. Can’t have that shit for free. You need to be able to lure the men without them following you home and make the woman feel flattered to be hit on by a woman without them thinking you want them. I have been followed home once… not a good time. I can’t tell you how many numbers, business cards and men willing to cheat on their wives that I’ve encountered. In my experience, however, don’t mess with the ones who are married… they tend to come with baggage.
- Know at least one bar trick to entertain your customers. At the bar in NYC that I worked at, I was able to draw the attention of the entire bar with my bar trick. My boss would bring in friends and demand that I show them the bar trick. I had customers bring their coworkers to see it… I was a crowd pleaser. The trick you ask? Well I can’t give away all my secrets, but it involves drinking a beer with no hands.
- Provide entertainment for the annoying ones who want to chat with you constantly. Mind games are the best. Lay out a straw puzzle in order to keep their mind occupied. The annoying ones are hard to shake and you’ll never make it as a bartender if you have to sit and talk to one person the entire time.
- Know how to make a bar towel into a penis. That is a great quality to have in a bartender. If you have a penis towel you can attract the females or use it as a weapon against the males. Threatening to dick slap someone can help you control the crazies.
- Handle your liquor. This one is EXTREMELY important. Your patrons want to drink with you; they want to buy you shots. So unless you live in a ridiculous state like Washington, where you can’t drink behind the bar, you best be able to handle those shots. I’m not talking about 3 or 4 shots. I’m talking about 9 or 10 over a 6 hour shift. One night I took 15 shots and was still able to count my till at the end of the night. Granted I can’t do that anymore, I max out around 8, but that is because I work at a lame bar now. If you can drink with your patrons, you will make a great bartender. I remember the shifts after I worked a 12-shot shift and I told the patrons that I wouldn’t be able to drink that night – I completely lost their respect. I learned quickly from that. You need to be able to function on a shitload of alcohol. If you can’t, then might I suggest becoming a shoe salesperson as opposed to a bartender.
Martini at a NYC bar
- As a female bartender you have to know when to say no. It is never smart to sleep with your customers, bosses, bouncers or other bartenders. I have done all of the above and learn from my mistakes… not good. Everyone knows it isn’t smart to sleep with people you work with for obvious reasons so I’ll move on to the customers. Sleeping with your drunk customers can just prove to be difficult. You may lose their business, which will piss your boss off, they may fall in love with you, which will make it awkward for you, or since they are frequent bar goers you may wind up with a disease… and well… you just don’t want that. Also if a man offers you $10,000 to sleep with him – just say no. That is just never a good idea. I said no, my coworker did not. People haven’t seen her since then, apparently she moved to Denver.
- Be physically fit. I’m not saying that you have to be a body builder, but in the instance that you need to drag a 300lb Alabama construction worker out of the bar after he passes out in the girl’s bathroom, it’d be nice if you were strong enough to do so. Plus if you can’t change your own keg then you have no business being behind the bar.
- Have no judgment. You can’t judge people if you work in a bar. After all you work in A BAR! You flirt for money, so don’t judge the hooker who hangs on the business man or the chubby chick who takes advantage of the drunk hot guy. You are there for the money and they are there for the drinks.
- Be a good fake listener. Don’t actually listen to all of the tales of heartache, divorce, indiscretion, fantasy, lust, etc. You’ll go crazy. Listen enough to respond with basic answers but don’t listen enough that you’ll have to start drinking to get over their problems. If you fall into that trap, depression can ensue, which results in hitting up the late night bars for two gin martinis before catching the subway. It happens and it’s not pleasant. Patrons look at you as a cheaper version of a therapist, so be just that. Don’t be the full on therapist, you aren’t paid enough. Listen enough to get their money but not enough to send yourself into a drunken spiral.
Now not everyone can be a super rock star bartender such as myself… (*clearly modest) but to be a good female bartender these tricks of the trade should help you out!
- Alexis Patron
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, alexis, cheese, stalker, tubing, wedding, wisconsin
Read part one of Wisconsin shenanigans!
I was insanely hungover on Friday. After the shit show that happened Thursday night, I sure didn’t think I could make it Friday.
Craig picked Shayla and I up at 9am on Friday and took us back to Shayla’s house to get ready for tubing. Tubing Wisconsin-style isn’t just tubing, it’s a massive beer drinking activity. Beer did not sound good.
On the way to the river, it was “morning share time.” Where people recount what you did the night before… I didn’t want to be involved, but I was the center of the stories. Recap: made out with friend’s brother, got punched, scraped up my entire arm, kissed some other stalker dude who now loves me, took my shirt off. Yep I won the morning recap round.
Craig is a super entertaining person and had us laughing all the way to the river. The downfall was… my head was exploding. There was no time for food and Advil, so we had to go straight for the beer. I wish I could recall all of the entertaining things that Craig had told us, but I was so focused on not dying that I can’t remember it all. What I do remember is that I got made fun of mercilessly for making out with David. Yes, David was along on the tubing adventure. Talk about awkward. I usually don’t have to see my “conquests” the next day. Let alone spend the entire weekend with them… so awesome.
Tubing the river took about 4 hours. It was a beautiful day and it was a very good time, except for the wanting to die a little bit part. I was only able to make it through a half of a beer, so that definitely didn’t help.
Floating the river on that hot day really was a fun experience. I only wish I didn’t have the giant hangover that seemed to linger throughout the day.
The rest of Friday was quite boring, I visited old friends and then Shayla and I called it a night kind of early. The next day was our friend’s, Rebecca, wedding. Shayla had to get ready for the wedding as she was a bridesmaid, so I had the morning to go and see more friends. It was a really nice time… then came the wedding.
We headed to the golf course in the afternoon for one of the most unorganized weddings I’ve ever been to. It ended up being quite cute once it was said and done.
Then came the drinking. I had vowed to take it easy since everyone I knew from middle school, plus all of my parents friends were at this wedding. I knew anything I did would end up back to my parents in no time at all. So at the reception I only got mildly drunk. Mildly drunk Wisconsin-style = like a .15 in a breathalyzer… way too drunk to drive.
I didn’t do anything stupid there. It was at the bar after, that, well… lets just say I’m not too proud. I don’t remember a whole lot of the bar, except hanging out with some old friends. I ended up making out with an old friend, who apparently is married (he said separated) and is someone who I never would have kissed given normal circumstances. Woah I just had a flashback… I remember the shots… oh the shots. Yep, that’s what did me in.
David apparently saw me kissing my old friend, was appalled and proceeded to wipe off his tongue. I guess he didn’t realize that I kiss anybody and everybody. [Sidenote: me making out with someone else didn’t stop David from kissing me later!]
After publicly making out with my old friend, I realized my stalker was in the bar as well. He had joined forces with David to talk about how slutty I was. Great. Just great. Shayla decided it was time for me to exit the bar and called her mom to pick us up. Probably was a good idea because I’m sure I was ready to take my shirt off at any point. As I was exiting the bar, stalker grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.
“Why haven’t you returned my texts. Did I mean nothing to you???”
I told him to let go of me and he wouldn’t. He was holding my arms so tightly I am sure I had a bruise the next day. I kept telling him to get away from me. David saw my struggle and he got out of the car to help me, but I took matters into my own hands…
Stalker wouldn’t let go and he was being creepy so I hit him. Straight up in the face. He let go and I ran and jumped into the car. Not sure what it is about Wisconsin drinking that makes you want to hit people, but there sure was a lot of hitting that weekend.
Back at the house Shayla, David and I decide to watch movies and drink beer. I really didn’t need more beer after the copious amounts of shots that I had. Shayla passed out early… so you know what that means!! Take advantage of her brother on the couch, that’s what that means. Well by take advantage I mean he took advantage of me, because I couldn’t have taken advantage of a mouse that night.
From what I hear, my shirt was off at one point. Shayla had the pleasure of witnessing our make out fondle session and proceeded to ridicule me the next day.
I was awoken to “STOP MAKING OUT WITH MY BROTHER!!!” Shayla yelled at me in a playful-I’m-sort-of-serious way. She wasn’t a fan of the boob fondling I guess!
Yeah it was time for me to go. I haven’t had my ass kicked by drinking in a long time. Wisconsin knows how to party, that is for sure.
I left that morning. Once I returned home, the three men, including my stalker added me on facebook. I did not accept the stalker. He creeps me right the fuck out.
I need some time before I go back to the great cheese state.
-Alexis Patron
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, alexis, kissing, reunion, wisconsin
I don’t know what it is about the state of Wisconsin, but damn, everyone I’ve ever met from Wisconsin knows how to drink. These are the big leaguers. If you think you know how to drink, take a little visit to the cheese state and see how you fare.
I wasn’t born in Wisconsin, but I lived there for 10 years growing up. So I have some Wisconsin blood. If I had been born there, it’d be different. Granted my first foods were beer, brats, brandy and cheese and I bleed green and gold, but I can’t drink like a Wisconsinite. I’m like ¾ Wisconsinite – which means I’m still in the Minors.
True Wisconsinites were drinking beer in their baby bottles and sippin’ brandy during the teething phase. So needless to say, even though I spent my formative years in the cheese state, true Wisconsinites will kick my ass when it comes to drinking competitions. So that is why my liver can only handle a trip to Wisconsin every two years. This year I went to Wisconsin twice and the liver is angry.
My first trip to Wisconsin was to my old home town, where I grew up. I hadn’t been “home” in five years, which was a super long time for me. After I moved in high school, I made it back there about every year. It had been so long since I’d seen all my friends from growing up.
I went back in August for a friend’s wedding weekend. It was like I never left, I love that place. And the people, they are just wonderful. I love everyone in Wisconsin. They are my people and I feel at home with them.
But when the drinking starts… it is a freaking shit show.
I have to take a quick second to apologize to Anastasia. She got the unfortunate call that drunkenly told her that I fell down, was bleeding, was out in the country somewhere, didn’t know where I was and just got punched in the face. Then my phone died. So when Anastasia got this call in the morning she panicked, thought I was dead in a ditch somewhere. Her message was panicked. I never have my phone off so she was a little worried. Especially since I couldn’t call her until 4pm the next day! Sorry about that buddy.
I arrived on a Thursday. My best friend growing up picked me up from the airport and drove us to town where we headed straight to the bar. We didn’t even go to her house to drop my stuff off. We started “light” by just drinking beers. We had dinner with her parents and then the hard core shit started.
Shots started flowing around 7pm. As we were sitting at the bar, my best friend’s, let’s call her Shayla, brother showed up. He is two years younger than us and I always kind of found him dorky when we were growing up. Well someone grew up nicely. David strolled into the bar, looking tall and hot. Oh shit. I looked at him and felt defeated. I knew I was going to make out with him and that Shayla would freak out. But I couldn’t help it, he grew up good!
We moved onto another bar after a couple of hours, where I ran into EVERYONE I knew. Love these people. Of course, immense drinking continued.
At one point I end up making out with Shayla’s brother, David, at the bar. Apparently we weren’t sneaky because she walks up, laughs and says “what the fuck!” She was cool with it, but I felt awkward. Not enough to stop making out with the hot baby brother though!
Things sort of went dark after that. The next think I remember is being sprawled out on the sidewalk. Then darkness. Apparently I exited the bar oh-so-gracefully. I tripped coming out of the bar and skidded on my arms across the pavement. I have a nasty scar, but the good news is, I didn’t feel a thing!
I came out of my drunk coma when we arrived at our other friends house. Not sure how we got there, but she lives way out in the country. [Side note: At some point in the evening we agreed to go tubing the next morning at 9am] A bunch of friends came over to the house we were at and we had a semi reunion. We continued the drinking by playing drinking games.
At one point we played truth or dare. I took my shirt off. Yep. Then I had to kiss someone. Couldn’t tell you who it was. Apparently kissing this person angered my friend’s brother and then we had to go outside and “talk.” He punched me. In the face. No joke. I think it was a semi-accident/playful punch, but I had a fat lip the next day. After the hitting incident, we made out some more and then I had to stop because my lip hurt. My drunk reaction time was way slowed down, because it took me a very long time to get angry about the punching. So I stormed off and went to make out with some other friend who had been hitting on me.
BAD IDEA.
The second guy I made out with probably hasn’t ever had a girlfriend. Because he fell IN LOVE with me. I looked at my text messages the next day and they were super creepy stalker type. I had apparently ditched him post-make out and he flipped, called me a bitch, told me I broke his heart and that he couldn’t believe what I had done.
Fuck, I can’t handle Wisconsin.
Stalker then continued to text me that he loved me, he was sorry… blah blah blah. My phone had died and when I finally got to turn my phone on the next day, I had 23 text messages from my stalker friend.
Twenty three.
More blacking out ensued after my second make out and taking off my shirt for the group. I was blessed with two beautiful gifts, sometimes I feel like I have to share them.
I remember the end of the evening quite well. We decided to all watch a movie. I was sitting next to my super hot friend, let’s call him Dan, and we were watching the movie. At some point I must have passed out on Dan’s shoulder, because when I gained consciousness, Stalker had replaced Dan and was laying on me. CREEPY! I immediately got up, looked for Dan and found him on a mattress behind the couch. I asked him if I could sleep next to him, he said yes and then he spooned me for the rest of the night. It was beautiful. Dan is so hot and sweet, man I love him. It was a very sweet cuddling session all night.
WOAH headache. Once again Wisconsin kicked my ass. I thought I was dying when I was woken up at 9am. We were late. Shayla and I were supposed to be meeting her brother (who had left the house and went back to their house sometime that night) and some of her brother’s friends to go tubing. Ooops. Shayla’s brother’s friend, lets call him Craig, showed up at the house to pick us up. I knew Craig from way back when so it was fun seeing him. He was pissed. Apparently David was still awake from the night before and he was shithoused, so Craig had to come pick Shayla and I up for the tubing event.
That was only day one… keep posted for the rest of the Wisconsin shit show event.
-Alexis Patron
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, alexis, anastasia, new york city, rangers, reunion
I just wanted to inform you all that I leave tomorrow to go visit Anastasia. It is going to be epic. It is her 25th birthday weekend and we haven’t seen each other in over a year. Craziness for sure will happen. We probably will be too drunk to post for the rest of the week, but we will share our stories with you next week after the hangover subsides!
A little preview: Thursday will be a Ranger hockey game at MSG = lots of drinking
Friday: Anastasia’s big birthday! = lots of drinking
And well you can guess the rest of the weekend. The weekend will also include the bottle of Bombay Sapphire that she owes me for being celibate for six months. It was a bet we made last February after I had been a little “too slutty” for about a year. So she bet me I couldn’t go six months…. it’s been eleven. Yep, I’m still celibate. Strange for me! Anyways, I’m sure there will be more than one bottle of Sapphire at this reunion.
We will be sure to fill you in next week!
And, Happy Birthday to Anastasia!
-Love, Alexis
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, anastasia, boyfriends, ex-boyfriend, wedding
The last five months have been interesting. The good and bad, highs and lows, sober and…well, okay rarely sober. I did it all. But I haven’t been a good friend to those who don’t live within a mile radius of my apartment. So, to them, and to you all-because we’re all friends now- I apologize.
Ask Alexis, I rarely picked up the phone when she called. When I called her back our conversations usually began with her asking “How many boxes of wine tonight?”
What? How many boxes of wine tonight? I’m not exaggerating, it was an appropriate question.
I cut back on sleeping entirely. My solid eight-hours-of-sleep winter quickly transformed into an eight-hours-of-sleep every three days, if I was lucky. My lungs hate me because I’m now officially a smoker, a fact I make no apologies for. My liver has always hated me, but it’s still kickin’.
But why did I disappear? Well, let’s talk about the ex-boyfriend ship. So, it’s like this: I’m standing at the dock talking to the captain. He tells me if I get on the ship, it could take me to an amazing place. I’m talking tropically warm with no humidity and everything I’d ever need would be right there (because that’s what it felt like when I was wrapped up in ex-boyfriend’s arms). So, I ask of the captain what the deal is with the “could” and “might” and otherwise ambiguous phrases he’s using. But he can’t tell me until I the ship leaves port. It all sounds great until I remember my tendency for seasickness (like the time ex-boyfriend “almost” cheated on me, or when he would get angry when I offered help in any given situation, or how rehearsal was always top priority even if I was visiting him from out of the country: all felt exactly like being seasick).
“Don’t get on board,” I tell myself. There are plenty of modes of transportation to get to the warmth at your disposal.
But what if. It’s the what ifs that always get me. What if this is my one moment for greatness with another human being? What if I’m giving up if I don’t seize the moment and get on the ship. What’s a little seasickness if ultimately I get to that place I dreamed of for so long?
So, at a friend’s wedding this summer, I got on board the ex-boyfriend ship. And let me tell you that ship had sailed but I forced my way on and it sank to the bottom of the fucking ocean. No, it didn’t just sink, it combusted and burned all the way down.
What a metaphor! If only I recognized this earlier. But even armored with this knowledge, when your best friend cries to you, when he weeps in your arms, when the man you would have married tells you he loves you and wants to be part of your life- well, how do you combat that?
The last story I posted is how I hoped the wedding would go down. I wanted everything to be perfect and to avoid all awkward situations with ex-boyfriend. The more I told my friends that ex-boyfriend was a figure of the past who I had moved on from, the more I realized I was only trying to convince myself. But when my planned date couldn’t make it to the wedding, I started to worry. I knew, instantly, things would not go as planned.
Ready for the story?
-Anastasia Beam
Filed under: alcohol | Tags: alcohol, alexis, anastasia, beer, brooklyn, dress, friendship, martini, new york city, tequila, wine, women
Oh how people change. I moved away from Anastasia for a year and she did a 180 on me. Not that it is a bad thing; it’s just entertaining to reminisce about the old days.
I remember the day that she told me that gin martinis were vile and she had no idea how I could drink two of them. Text from last weekend: “I had two martinis and I could drive a car NASCAR style right now.” My, how people change. And only in a year.
I met this girl (Anastasia) who believed that beer was life’s nectar and a pair of clean jeans was acceptable for all occasions, Brooklyn was Timbuktu and going to Manhattan on a Sunday was like giving birth. Soooo painful. Video games were the only acceptable Saturday activity, exploring the wonderfulness of NYC on a weekend was out of the question.
Asking Anastasia to come into the city on a weekend was like asking for her first born. And trust me, she won’t even let me be in her wedding party, so I guarantee she won’t let me meet her first born. Even worse than asking her to come into Manhattan on a weekend was asking her to come visit me in Brooklyn. Queens to Brooklyn was like Germany to Bangladesh. Who would travel that far to visit someplace that wasn’t as cool as Germany and why? Brooklyn to Anastasia was like another world. Brooklyn didn’t exist. Queens was better than Brooklyn, hands down.
One time I went “all the way” from Brooklyn, middle of nowhere to Anastasia, to the Upper East Side-five minutes from her apartment. I asked her to meet me for happy hour. Her response? “Yeah there is no way in hell you are getting me to go to Manhattan on a Saturday.” Wow.
When we did go out, Friday’s only, Anastasia’s drink of choice? Beer. Beer. Beer. Try suggesting a tequila shot and you might get punched. I, of course, was going through my “dark” period, where tequila and gin martinis were necessary for survival, so we had a hard time seeing eye to eye on drinks.
I am not complaining, I loved down to earth Anastasia: the girl who didn’t know what a dress was (even in the brutal heat of a New York summer), thought that a skirt was the Universe’s punishment for women, museums were a waste of a Saturday and drinking wine and hard liquor was for pansies who couldn’t handle beer. I sure do enjoy drinking beer, sitting on the couch in jeans and a hoodie, but I also enjoy a fancy night out sipping wine. So imagine my surprise when I recently started hearing stories about gin martinis, tequila, dresses and Brooklyn. WHAT? Who is this woman?
Anastasia now: wine and gin has replaced beer, an occasional tequila shot isn’t out of the question and Brooklyn not only exists but is even inhabitable occasionally!
A status update about a month ago mentioned Anastasia buying a dress and I almost fell out of my chair. A dress?! One of those things that show legs and boobs? Anastasia? She has legs? Just plain crazy. Anastasia has sported five dresses this year, I’m in shock. Wonderment, if you will. I cannot wait to go sip martinis at a fancy bar with my “new” friend!
Anastasia has ventured to Brooklyn a few times, goes to museums, hangs out in the city no matter what day it is, doesn’t say: “Alexis, you know what day it is,” when I call her on a Saturday. To be blunt: she’s a martini whore now. Love it! I’m sure I have done just as much changing as Anastasia, seeing how we met each other during “dark” phases in our lives, but now that the sky has cleared, we are getting to know new sides of one another. She met me when I was face down in tequila 24/7 and I met her when Brooklyn, to her, was an abomination.
Times, they be a-changin’.
-Alexis Patron
