The Red Bull Inn in Ambridge had been our favorite dinner spot. Jan and I and Jack and Jeanne would double date a lot, and the Red Bull was the usual destination. The Bull claimed to have been the first restaurant to introduce the salad bar. I'd hate to think about what might have been in some of those salads we had eaten before the Red Bull was also the first to introduce the "sneeze guard" a few years later!
They also made a "lobster pot", chunks of langostino in a little crock with butter, and great French Onion soup. To this day though, my favorite meal when eating out is a Filet Mignon paired with a Lobster Tail with lemon and butter. It doesn't get any better than that.
Well, now the Red Bull wasn't just my favorite dinner spot, it was also my new employer. Don was the manager, and he was happy to have an "experienced" bartender like me apply for the job they had posted in the B. C. Times. I started in the summer of '84.
I still had so much to learn about being a good bartender. At this point the only thing I had going for me was, because of bartending school, I had memorized over a hundred classic old cocktail recipes. I also had the fundamentals of bartending down pat. I could mix a great drink, and I kept, and still do keep, a spotless bar. Whether on slow nights or when as busy as hell, your bar should be kept tidy. To this day nothing bothers me more than working with a sloppy bartender. You should be able to do your job blind, in the dark. It should be routine to reach for something, a bottle, a mixing glass, a bar spoon, or whatever it is you need, and have it be in the same spot everytime. The seconds that it takes to clean as you go saves minutes of aggravation later.
But at this point, those were the only things I knew about being a bartender, and being a great bartender is so much more than that. I would learn, little by little, sometimes two steps forward and one step back, but I would indeed learn in the years to come. My real education started at the Red Bull Inn in Ambridge.
Shirley was the regular daytime bartender and I would be picking up most of the night shifts. Business already had started to slip because of all the mill closings in the area. Unemployed steelworkers just don't spend money like they did when the mills were working 3 shifts a day, 7 days a week. Most of my customers now would be local business men, and car salesmen.
The car salesmen were the most fun. They would come in every night and tell tales of the sales they had made that day. Jim always had the best stories. My favorite was when he had a young couple in looking at for a new car.
He led them to the car they wanted. Believe me, leading is what a good car salesman does. They actually use what is called the "Control" system of customer service. Ever notice that when you go into a car dealership looking for new cars that the first thing they do, or try to do, is to get your car keys from you so that they can get the service department to give you an estimated trade value? That's the first step in controling you. They don't want to give you your car keys back until either the salesman makes the sale, or passes you off to the new car manager who will try to make the sale, and if that fails, his manager will take a crack at you too. Give up those keys and you can expect to spend hours in the dealership, with them hoping to wear you down until you'll do anything, like making a purchase, to get the hell out of there.
So Jim has the young couple in his grasp, he's shown them the car, he's asked the big question, "if I get you the deal you want, will you buy this car TODAY?" but the couple is still hedging. Jim has been selling cars for a long time, and he knows how to read his customers. He begins to show signs of nervousness, shifting in his chair and looking over his shoulder at the managers office. He tells the couple that he's had a really slow month, and that he really needs to make this sale. He tells them that his wife has been ill and that the boss has been giving him a hard time for missing work because of it. He breaks down and actually begs the couple, "please, if I don't make this sale, I'm going to get fired", and, the coup de grace, he begins to cry!!
Believe it or not, the couple buys the car, and here sits Jim, in the Red Bull, having a Chivas on the rocks, with his wife who, with a glass of Cabernet, is toasting him on a job well done!!
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