10 Bartending Stories & Thoughts
It was like the Wild Wild West and I wouldn't have it any other way (now that I'm retired).
I retired from the neighborhood dive bar earlier this week. Here are 10 stories and thoughts off the top of my dome about my six months tending bar at the oldest bar in the oldest neighborhood in Columbus.
[Lucas Sullivant: The founder of Franklinton, which he named after his idol, that syphilitic freak Benjamin Franklin.]
10. YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT KIND OF OFFER IS WALKING THROUGH THAT DOOR
My boss told me when he hired me that he liked hiring people who had never bartended before because they don’t now how to steal, which promptly led me to google, “How do bartenders steal?” Not that I planned to steal, but knowledge is power as the old saying goes.
Anyway, the boss asked if I was ready to tend the bar by myself after exactly one shift of training. “Uh, sure,” I felt I had no choice but to respond. It’s not like I would be serving fancy $12 cocktails to the Short North Elite or the Downtown Cocktail Crowd. This bar is more of a shot and a beer bar. The fanciest drink you can get is a Bloody Mary.
I’m sitting in an empty bar at 11 a.m. because our owner thinks we should be open at 10 a.m. in the middle of a pandemic since that’s how he has operated since 1997 when he bought the bar.
This woman with electric blue hair walks in. She was clearly under the trance of some sort of opiate. Not that I’m judging; I’d serve Satan himself as long as the money was right.
“What can I do for you, ma’am?” I asked.
I’ll give her this. She cut right to the chase: “How much will you let me drink for free if I suck your dick in the back?”
Thank God she she caught me entirely sober at 33 years-old rather than a decade ago during my cocaine years at 2:30 a.m. on the westside of Marion during my cocaine years or I may have made a poor decision that led to me contracting an incurable STD.
9. THE LEGEND OF THE MEAT MAN
One day I was working and Bub — the kindest soul in the world who looks exactly like you’re picturing a Bub from the Bottoms to look like — came in and said he wanted me to come outside and meet the Meat Man.
“Hold up, Bub,” I said. “I thought they called you the Meat Man? After all, you’re the one out here selling $12 handjobs on Sullivant.” Our humor usually revolved around who had the most famous handjob available to the suburban freaks that come down to our neighborhood and troll for sex with pocket change they saved up throughout the week to avoid detection from their wives.
“No, motherfucker. The Meat Man, he’s out on Sullivant right now.”
Sullivant Avenue is named after Franklinton’s founder, Lucas Sullivant. It doubles as the biggest black market corridor in the city of Columbus. I once got offered a rocket-propelled grenade. It’s where I learned that a woman asking you if you have the time is not asking for the time of day. My answer has always been to say, “Nah,” while being sure to keep my legs moving. It has worked for me so far.
That was until I met the Meat Man. Look, the pandemic has skyrocketed meat prices. I could counter this by turning vegetarian like I swear I’ve been planning to do for the last five years.
The Meat Man turned out to be a Somalian immigrant who worked in a meatpacking plant and, uh, apparently had some surplus sales on the side for 50 cents on the dollar. He had an ice chest full of Ribeyes, New York Strips, Tomahawks, and Filets. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t immediately buy enough meat to fill my landlord’s spare freezer for $50.
8. RESPECT IS A TWO-WAY STREET
The Bottoms is a rough-and-tumble neighborhood by the outside eye. I would definitely feel different if I were a 5’8” woman living by myself but as a 6-2” man I have never felt unsafe walking the streets at night except one time (more on that in a minute).
I wouldn’t say most of my customers have done extended tours in prison. I would say a large plurality of them have. Some for mind-numbingly dumb shit — I had one guy who had just ripped a double shot of Crown Apple tell me that he had just gotten out of prison on his 9th DUI —while some went to prison and became a super criminal that came to prefer life “on the inside” and are counting down their days until their next “vacation.”
I never had a problem with any of them, other than that time I cussed out “Fresh” for asking why I gave him a thimble shot when he had never once tipped me. He thought I was on a salary. After I explained to him the source of income for bartenders, he began tipping.
There are certain people in the Bottoms, or rather certain families, that you just don’t fuck with. They are capable of summoning an army of West Side Warriors against anyone that hassles them.
Given that I direct my war efforts against the political elite, staying out of there way was never a problem. It’s crazy how far basic human decency will go with people that cops and prosecutors would have no problem maligning as a “violent criminal” because they got caught with a gun and some drugs.
7. KEEP YOUR EYE ON TEENS
The last time the Mayor set foot in the Bottoms, a neighborhood 1.5 miles from his office at City Hall, he remarked that it wasn’t a place where he would want his kids to grow up.
I guess he never pondered about the fates of the kids that did grow up down here. Most of them are decent kids trying to do their best in decrepit schools. There are others who are growing up with parents who use and/or deal drugs and as such that’s all the come to know.
The only time I had a problem with anyone down here was when my co-worker and I were closing the bar at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. We were drunk and laughing and had talking about how the neighborhood was changing.
This SUV came swinging around the corner and these shirtless tattooed teens hop out. My first thought is we’re about to get robbed in which case I will show them where the safe is because my boss is insured and it ain’t my money.
They claim to be looking for Steve. Phew, I think. I explain that I’m D.J. and this is Mike and there is no Steve here. Next thing I know this knockoff Machine Gun Kelly with a man-bun sucker punches me directly in the jaw that had been shattered a month prior.
He didn’t knock me out though it’s not like I was coming back for seconds. Thankfully my coworker pulled his knife and asked which one of them wanted four inches of steel in their neck. They went from jump-out gang to apologists real quick.
We learned later they weren’t looking for Steve. They were hopped up on meth and driving around looking to jump people. Thank God my coworker had that knife or I would have been right back in Grant Trauma Bay.
6. “LET’S GO OUTSIDE”
I had a rule about any confrontation within the bar: Take it outside, motherfuckers. I am only responsible what happens in our little alcoholic box of ours. Outside? It’s like international waters and everybody here knows my opinion on calling the cops short of a dead body.
Please, please, please: Never utter this phrase in the Bottoms. First of all, that little dude might not look like he can fight but I promise he will have no problem stomping a hole in your ass.
Secondly, we don’t fight fair on the West Side. You are not only challenging that one person to a fight. You are challenging his entire crew. Do you know that motherfucker is related to literally two-thirds of the customers present? No. You don’t. But you will as soon as you get the upper hand in the parking lot and his family comes in like calvary.
5. “THAT’S OUR GUN NOW, MOTHERFUCKER!”
The most vivid memory I have of the aforementioned lesson is this one random Saturday night a couple weeks ago when this obviously intoxicated patron kept incessantly talking shit to members of a gang we’ll call NWO.
NWO is a group of young men with traumatic childhoods that made their membership almost a guarantee. They sell meth and carry guns to protect themselves. They are also still young to the point they drink things like Vodka Cranberries. I like when they come in because you know no wild card off the street if fucking with the place.
Anyway, this joker kept running his mouth. I went up to him and was like, hey, man, some word of advice: You don’t want to fuck with those guys. They are not the ones. Please finish your drink and go somewhere else.”
The guy looked at me that made me think he was about to swing. A hatred I have never seen in my life. “Fuck you, bitch!” he yelled.
It takes more than words to upset me. I laughed and went back to my job. If this man wanted to play stupid games, then he was more than entitled to a stupid prize.
Unsurprisingly he kept talking shit. I think the breaking point came when he made fun of the leader’s gold chain, which was dedicated to their friend, the smartest one of them all and the one destined to make it out of the hood, who was gunned down in an unsolved murder two years ago.
“Alright, bitch, you and me outside right now.”
I’ll give the joker this much: He got out and walked outside. When NWO followed him outside, he made the fateful error of trying to draw his .38 revolver out of the pocket of his athletic shorts.
The gun got snagged in his shorts and he dropped it on the ground. The leader of NWO kicked it away and “beat the fuck out of the guy” is the only way I can accurately describe it. When the joker was completely disabled, the leader grabbed the revolver off the street, cocked it, and put it in the joker’s face.
“This is NWO’s gun now,” he said before walking away. We asked the Joker if he needed an ambulance, which he denied. He eventually got to his feet and staggered south on Hawkes Avenue, never to be seen again.
4. DO NOT BET ON POOL, LIKE EVER
We do not allow betting on pool at the Patio. The reason is neither party ever actually has the money to pay which leads to predictable altercations.
One bar down the street made the mistake of not banning the practice. One of my patrons, Josh, is an affable guy who likes to have multiple girlfriends and might have done multiple stints in prison.
I have zero problem and find him hilarious. But he came in one day absolutely dejected and said, “My dumb-ass is going back to prison for one to twelve years.”
I’m like, “Jesus, Josh, what happened?”
Apparently Josh had bought a gun a couple hours earlier, which the government tends to frown upon felons possessing but can’t stop because our country also lets weapons flood the streets.
Josh went to Charley’s Bar and bet on a pool game, which he won. Of course the other guy welshed and then next thing you know both of them are heading outside. But, again, it’s the West Side, so of course four other dudes are following him.
Josh pulls the gun, which would be called self-defense in this country if, you know, he weren’t a felon. The gun does its job without needing to fire and the dudes duck and cover and run the other way, allowing Josh to escape.
At this point, he should have wiped the gun clean and thrown it in the sewer. Hell, he could have dropped it on the ground; there would have been no way to trace it back to him. That’s how mafia hitmen do it (not that I’d know anything about that).
But he spent a lot of money on the gun. He’s only had it a couple hours and he’d grown partial to it. So he drops the bullets in the parking lot and runs to another bar. He plans to go into the bathroom and lift up a ceiling panel and hide it that way. One snafu in his plan: There is no liftable tile.
He leaves the bar and there are Columbus’ finest with their guns already drawn on him.
The lesson? Never bet on pool.
3. THAT MISERABLE DUDE AT THE END OF THE BAR? HE’S HAD A TOUGH LIFE.
There was one old guy, Floyd, who my boss employed as a gopher for supplies. I swear to God if I am as horny as this guy at his age, I will have no choice but to get into heroin.
I never really cared for Floyd. He always had some weird request about how he wanted his coffee or couldn’t stop making lewd comments about the brave women officers on Chicago PD.
One day our owner found him at 6 a.m. at the bar on the ground, with a puddle of puke beside him. He was rushed to the hospital and recovered a couple weeks later.
What I only learned about two weeks before I retired, while Floyd was incapacitated, his son came into the hospital with some forms for his father to sign so he could “rent an apartment.”
Floyd, in his haze, signed the papers. What he didn’t know was that he had just signed away his power of attorney to his son.
His son used that power to liquidate $22,000 from the old man’s bank account, part of the settlement Floyd had earned when he was robbed and shot in the head with a shotgun.
Floyd was quickly evicted when he returned home and is now sleeping on the boss’ couch until he can find permanent housing.
2. THE GREATEST RETIREMENT PRESENT EVER
I had a customer named Hooch, a retired Navy veteran who sold weed on the side and would come in during the day to play Keno and drink Crown Royal, which he called “hooch” because as everyone knows “hooch can’t get you drunk.”
Then he started bringing his unruly and slovenly, uh, “niece” into the bar with her children, who would chant for numbers to appear on the screen in what was the most depressing thing I saw while bartending.
Hooch’s “niece,” was rude and condescending even before she accused me of stealing $4 from her winning Keno ticket and told me she has had “people shot for less.” I told her I’ll be there until six. She has been my arch-nemesis ever since.
I should have barred her. Everybody hated her. I figured she would never be back but she would come in with Hooch and bring her kids, who broke glasses and crumbled chips all over the table and floor before leaving in a plume of smoke.
I started giving her “get the fuck out” Vegas Bombs, which were one-third a shot and 96% Red Bull. She would complain but they would keep coming back. That was until she threatened Sister Mary Bush, an elderly legend at the Patio who has worked in bars her whole life and has no problem grabbing your ear and tossing you into the street.
During my last shift, with a half hour to go, Hooch and his “niece” walk into the bar with their gremlin children. I suddenly wish I could put a gun to my skull. As a bartender, you’re supposed to enforce bans placed by other bartenders, otherwise they won’t respect your bans. But it’s my last shift and I do not feel like confronting a woman who sucks dick in the Bottoms for a living. Couldn’t risk getting my ass whipped on the last day before retirement.
Then God whispers into my ear that one of his most fiercest fighters is right over there on that bowling machine: Sister Mary Bush, the legend of East Parsons.
I walk over to her and say, “Sister Mary, I need a prayer.”
“What is it, baby?”
“Hooch’s girl walked in. It’s my last day, and the optics of a man confronting a woman — I just don’t want to deal with it; it’s busy right now.”
Mary’s eyes narrowed when she locked her eyes on the target. Eventually it ended with Hooch saying she wasn’t even working and that she was lying.
“I like you, Hooch. But as far as I’m concerned, Sister Mary’s word is divine under this roof.”
He claimed he would never be back, which was no longer my problem. I did get to see my arch nemesis slink out of the bar on my last day of work. I’ll cherish that for the rest of my life.
1. MY GOD, CLOSE THE BARS IMMEDIATELY
I had to behave like the pandemic didn’t exist otherwise I would have been driven even more insane than I currently am.
In a functioning society, the government would close bars and pay bartenders and owners to sit their asses at home through the pandemic. Instead we live in Ohio.
Big Business Tyrants went crying to the governor, so he re-opened bars and ordered bartenders back to work. Then he cut our most profitable hours.
There are no such things as safe social distance protocols in bars. The risk comes from spending 15 minutes or more in crowded indoor spaces. Wearing a mask until you sit down at the bar or when you walk to the bathroom literally does nothing. It is simply performative pandemic theater.
Not to mention, you can’t expect bartenders to yell and harass their customers for standing and congregating in some distant corner. At least I never could, but then again I live in a neighborhood awash in weapons and people who have no problem putting them to use.
The 10 p.m. cutoff is an absolute joke, too. All it does is make everybody rush the bar and then get mad at people served before them. Bartenders literally depend on customers to survive, and the government gets shocked when some of them are willing to leave the bar open past curfew and make money?
If I get caught not wearing a mask, my boss would make me split the fine. But I can turn on the TV and see Republican hobgoblins in the Statehouse doing the same crime on television with zero consequences? I’m tired of one set of rules for the rulers and one for the ruled.
COVID rates are spiking. I assume the Governor will have no choice but to close the bars once again when infections get worse as it gets colder. I’ll probably regret not sticking it out until then and getting some of that sweet, sweet unemployment money since it’s about time somebody paid me to live in this godforsaken state.
I was resigned to catching COVID and letting the chips fall where they do. But too many of my customers failed to understand there are more options than “death” or “full recovery.”
No, the virus isn’t sneaking and cunning. It doesn’t have a mind of its own! This kind of language is used to deflect the historic failure by our state and federal government. Cuba, roughly the population of Ohio, has 123 deaths. We have 5,033.
I would say I’m thankful I never caught COVID while working there. The truth is I may have contracted it and been asymptomatic. There is zero way to prove that I didn’t get it and infect one of my customers. Eventually, that grim thought coupled with my general drunkenness were enough to let them hang my jersey among the cosmic legends that worked over the years at The Patio.