People are odd.
 

Anyone else here ever work as a bartender? Over the years I have observed how people tend to group up and kind of float from place to place. Groups of alcoholics come to my bar for a while then all of a sudden start going to another place down the street while the next group starts coming back.

I swear it's almost like schools of fish or maybe a flock of birds is a better analogy. One bird takes off for no apparent reason and many follow.

I've seen family members beat the snot out of each other. Brides beat down their brides maids.

People are odd. That is all.

I don't work as a bartender anymore but I was thinking about it today

One of the most important lessons I've learned is that you get to pick and choose the people you let into your life.

I can't imagine I'd last long as a bartender. Gaining enjoyment from distraction.

I put myself through college tending bar. I spent almost 4 years working at a place down the street from the Playboy Hotel & Casino in Atlantic City. We had the reputation as a place where the "bunnies" hung out after their shifts. It was a reputation that we highly encouraged as it brought in so many people that the place was packed all the time (we were open 24 hours). The bunnies enjoyed it too as I often gave them their first round on me to make sure they stayed around. But, they never need to pay for their next rounds of drinks as there were always male tourists falling over each other to buy the girls drinks.

There were many great nights and stories that I could tell. It was a lot of fun and I made a considerable amount of money. It was great for a young guy. But, I could never go back to it.

To the OP's original point, people will wander to try something new. But, if you give people a reason to be at your bar they will always continue to return.

I did for bout a year. It was the town bar, the same people had been going there for years. There was a guy everybody called Hawk who came in and drank Vodka and grapefruit juice. When his soc sec check came in he'd sit and drink until he peed himself. Along about 10:00 someone would call out "Hawk just peed!" and I'd go get the mop. By the end of the month he'd drunk up all his money and we wouldn't see him for several days.

Same here, though it was more than 4 years, cause the fun level was pretty high ;) I worked in a very high end restaurant in La Jolla so the crowd was not that of a neighborhood bar. Money talks and frankly some of the biggest PITA regulars were beyond rich and as decreed by the top management as untouchable. Normal run of the mill drunks are easy to handle - the untouchables not so much. Go there and be ready to lose your job. The last couple years there I hated the job but the money was too good to give up at the time.

<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Sq9oR9x171w?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Sometimes you see a stranger from afar...sometimes they are even stranger up close!

alcoholics + alcohol = bad things. No crystal ball consultation required.

I worked in a bar in Essex, England for a year. There was one guy that used to come in every morning at opening time and stay until the 5pm crowd started coming in.

He was about 40, always well dressed and articulate.

I took him for being a lonely eccentric but as I got to know him the truth was even stranger.

He had been a high powered financial trader in London in the late 80's (this was in the early 90's that I met him). To keep the traders fueled the company had been supplying them with free cocaine. During one long binge he had flipped his 7 series and killed a passenger. He received a suspended sentence for that crash/death (and a lifetime of guilt) and lost his job since the passenger was a fellow employee. He took his employer to court and won a very large settlement which he used to buy property and a boat on the island of Nevis in the Carribean.

His daily visits to my bar were just to pass the time until the suspended sentence expired and he could leave the country to start a new life.

He used to talk about his plans for Nevis and urged me to come and visit him there. I haven't had the opportunity yet but I often think of him there.

When I was about 30 I worked in a bar called Mexican Cantina and a gorgeous 18 year old blonde girl used to come in every Friday and or Saturday. She made it very clear she had a major crush on me. At 30 years old I had too much pride to date an 18 year old. Argh, now I'm 56 and have zero pride, I would be all over her in a heartbeat.

Big mistake. I never chased after the "young ones", but never ran too fast if they came after me. Great memories :)

Similar story with a couple characters in our bar as well. Once was an American in his 50's who posed as an Englishman. He showed up every weekday early evening and would sit at the end of the bar making love (*Billy Joel) to his well gin martini up. That would go on for a couple hours and ~ 5th drink his fake accent would deteriorate. The guy was pretty funny when sober but didn't care for the ribbing he got as the night went on. This would go on for 6-8 months and then he would be gone for a while. Turns out he funded this lifestyle by staging accidents in businesses and/or jumping in front of slow moving cars...:mad:

IMHO Title should be "people who hang out in bars are odd", I have (regrettably) wasted many hours holding down a bar stool... have met some very nice people... some very smart people... some very stupid people... some very scary people...
YMMV

It was at an American Legion

Whatever

My gf is a bartender, and that's how I met her. The stories she has to tell!

Long story......
.
Back in the mid '70s, when I was playing tournament tennis it ultimately became a serious venture for me.
I was working part time during the day and wanted more time to work out and practice so I attended Bartending School in SF for 5 days/4 hrs. per day.
I wanted to work at this high-end (high tip) steak house (Equinox) that I would sometimes frequent and pretty much not work any where else.
So I interviewed 3 different steak houses to get over the jitters, etc., prior to my interview at the Equinox.
Landed the job that I wanted.
.
Talk about quite a place...located in Piedmont, CA, an affluent community in the hills above Oakland, CA...it attracted some of the most beautiful professional women on the Peninsula and on Fri. & Sat. nights it was 4 deep at the bar.
.
Lots of stories that I won't bore y'all with.
But in those days I had a Bruce Lee body (5' 11" with a 28 inch waist), well tanned, and polite...however, I was quite shy around women.
The hot cocktail waitresses for the restaurant liked to flirt with and tease me and I quietly enjoyed that until a few became somewhat assertive.
.
Anyway, there was this ONE lady who'd come in alone on a weekend night and sit at the bar. OMG!!!... every swingin' dick in the place fell all over her.
But she tended to more and more fuss over me the more that she came in.
As I said, quite a shy guy, I was...26 yrs. old and not terribly "experienced".
She finally showed her hand one night when she ordered her first Chardonnay and slapped down a $50 bill. After one more Chardonnay she said 'good night' to me and all of her suitors, walked out and left me a tip of the $36+ change on the bar.
.
I was grateful but also nervous...I thought, "Oh no. Now what?"
She was so much more high class and professionally developed than I was (a SF corporate attorney), her subtle overtures & her smiles simply intimidated me.
She came in a couple of other times and then we no longer saw her.
But she was definitively stunning...and everyone in the place knew it.
.
I worked there for 3 months or so...finally quit. I got tired of getting home at 4:00 AM and having my house, bedding, pillow cases smell of cig. smoke just from me being at work for 10 hours.
But oh man, quite a place.
~~~~~~
OK, one more.
They kept the white bar wine filled in carafes in a fridge under the bar. They had the same kind of carafe catching the drips from the condensation pipe inside of the fridge.
You guessed it...I grabbed the wrong carafe and poured a fellow that crappy water instead of white bar wine.
He gagged and spit it all over me as I stood in front of him.
.
But oh man, quite a place.
.
;)

Odd..... that's a polite way of wording it.......




If we weren't all crazy, we would be insane.........

Everyone rushes to the checkout lane at the same time.
10 minutes later the store is empty.
I stroll out in style.

One word: Walmart and a certain thorsday.
(Ok, civil organized traffic jams also)

I bartended in topless bars for nearly 5 years. I'd probably have some really crazy stories and a fair amount of trouble if I hadn't had a steady girl. I have a few stories, but nothing too exciting. There were definitely lots of odd folks and folks with issues.