Bartending is a classic, noble profession. You have to be everyone in one day to all strangers, you have to make everyone feel at home, welcoming and attentive, and knowledgeable and smart and fast. So says Louis Mustillo in his revelatory opus on the minds and hearts of bartenders he's known and loved.
Do you think you know your bartender? Trust him? Know what he really thinks of you? You will learn a lot about barkeeps by watching and listening to the remarkable scenarios based upon six different bartenders, some even currently working here in NYC . The first bartender heard from, Bobby Carling, imparts an insider's rules to a novice: Mixed drinks "they're not really drinks. Anyone who is not from Hawaii and orders a Pina Colada is not a drinker. Just float a little liquor on the top. Basically, they'll feel better and thank you the next day." "People drink what they think they're drinking... its all psychological." His first day, he made whisky sours with soap suds by mistake instead of powdered sugar, but the place had a reputation for the best sours nobody sent them back.
"We work for tips. Foreigners at a table don't tip. You buy your regular drinkers at the bar a round, the foreigners pay for it. They don't notice it .You get a big tip and everyone's happy." But don't ever ask for a free drink! "Once they ask its over. Until the end of the earth, they still pay!"
"You compliment the customer: Yes sir, no sir, how are you today sir, looking good sir, who's the nice lady you have with you? -$20 tips are automatic." Richard Amilito exposes the vulnerable side of a bartender who learns from a patron that his ex-girlfriend is engaged. She left him because she looked down on his job. "I'm not a singer or an actor. I am a bartender and proud of it. Its an art form." On the recent litigious nature of society: "some guys don't show it when they're drunk, but he gets out and smashes his Caddy and says you ruined his car (!)." Or the touching tale of a bartender who got hooked on drugs in the Eighties while working in a club, "where everyone looked like they were eating powdered donuts." Now, addicted and pathetic, he is down and out. A former patron saw him on the street and offered him a one-night-a- week gig. "I need the job. Its not the greatest job, but I don't know how to do nuthin' else."
Bartenders connect easily with women because, "he's the safest guy in the place. He knows you, and there's three feet of wood between you. You can find out anything about them from that side, but if a guy sits next to them and offers to buy them a drink, they clam up."
The last and funniest bartender is Eddie Brady (who now works in Buffalo and came in to see the show). He does a riff on the movies where the lead actor never pays. Someone like Pierce Brosnan will saunter over to a bar he's never been in before, order a scotch and then walk away from the bar with it without paying. "No one ever pays for a drink in the movies. Don't try that in New York." His take on the movie "Cocktail" in which Tom Cruise, a brand-new bartender, is suddenly juggling bottles with his co-worker behind the bar, and pouring drinks from every angle, over his shoulder, behind his back: "Not only would an owner have a fit, throwing bottles around, but real customers won't tolerate you putting on a show when they're waiting to be served."
Louis Mustillo, a loveable guy, gets his material from his bartender father and his friends and from doing it himself between jobs. He is a brilliant actor whose body language alone is explicit in his tales. Janis Powell's direction keeps the interest active in this engrossing series of vignettes.
Want to do your favorite bartender a favor? Invite him to this show. Maybe you'll get a free round!
