- ABOUT THIS BLOG
- Everyone has done it – you’re in a bar, looking for a scrap of paper to write a woman's name and phone number on, or just want to make a note to yourself so you don’t forget something. You grab a cocktail napkin.
- (In the TV series The West Wing, a political consultant decides that Jed Bartlet – played by Martin Sheen – should run for President. He takes a cocktail napkin and writes down the slogan, “Bartlet for America.”)
- I work in bars. Over the years, I’ve accumulated enough of my own cocktail-napkin notes to fill six liquor bottle boxes.
- Here are the people and stories that wound up in those notes -- real-life characters like Jackie Rabbit and Maude the Broad, the narcotics cops Paul and Sonny, mafia guys, some shameless tramps and one suicidal young man. You'll meet an old-time boxer who wants to take me into the gym to teach me his trade, and a woman who thinks God is on the stool next to her, urging her to have one more whiskey and ginger. It's life behind the taps.
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- Life on a Cocktail Napkin has over 30,000 page views per month. Check out the stories you've been missing in our Archives (below). And my sincere thanks to all of you who have visited here!
Archives
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Blogroll
- Because we're not all there
- Behind The Stick
- Best Restaurant Blogs
- Hospitality Formula
- I'm your SERVER NOT your SERVANT
- Jeffrey Morgenthaler
- On the Rocks
- Restaurant Laughs
- Same Food For Every Day
- Squirrel Farts Drink Blog
- Tales From a Bar
- The Real Barman
- The Rogue Wino
- The Truth About Bartending
- These American Servers
- Waiters Today
- Wino on a Ramble
Author Archives: MikeQ
A BARTENDER IS LIKE A SHARK
Well, I had to work an extra day this week. One of the bartenders asked me to work for him Thursday because his mother and younger sister had flown in from Venezuela. He hadn’t seen this little sister in over … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
14 Comments
CALLING THE COPS
There was a news story on the internet this week about a man who called 9-1-1 because the prostitute he was in bed with tried to charge him extra money. In the bar business we also have our share of … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
10 Comments
LOOKING BACK . . . personal photos from 9/11
Last year at this time, we talked about the “Quiet Heroes of 9/11” and reprinted a story about the death of Osama Bin Laden — a post titled, “Men with Brass Balls chasing Ghosts”. Like most of us, I watched from … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
8 Comments
“EDDIE C” . . . an old-school guy
(I’ve changed the names and some of the details of the exact location in this . . . don’t want to piss anyone off, if you know what I mean.) I met “Eddie C” (as I’ll call him) at a … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
12 Comments
WHICH IS MORE FUN … office work, or bartending?
August hasn’t been a good month so far. In July, I was set to cut down to two shifts a week at the club . . . so I could spend more time working on the book. It never happened. … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
14 Comments
