- 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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Check out the stories you’ve been missing in our Archives (below). And my sincere thanks to all of you who have visited here!
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Author Archives: MikeQ
IN VINO, VERITAS
In wine, truth? Well then, there are some people who probably shouldn’t drink — or at least they should learn when to drink, and when to stay sober. Let me be clear, I know how it feels at the end … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
DOG EATS DOG
I have to change the names and the exact location in this next post. Let’s just say it happened in a very busy bar, in a small town where I was living at the time. I worked at a pub … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
5 Comments
THAT FORMER EMPLOYEE IS WORKING … WHERE?
Johnny D’s has its share of outstanding alumni — people who have worked at the club, and then moved on. One of our doormen worked weekend nights while attending law school. He graduated and is now a Massachusetts State Trooper. … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
BY THE SKIN OF HER TEETH
Here’s something that might amuse those of us who work in restaurants and bars — although it will probably offend just about everyone else. It’s a real-life story about dodging a complaint bullet, and getting away with something when you’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
6 Comments
A TALE OF TWO WORMS
Here’s two stories about my least favorite industry type — the low-living (slimy) restaurant worm. I won’t say where the following incidents took place, but they both happened a long time ago, and definitely not where I work now . … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
4 Comments