- 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!
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Category Archives: Life on a Cocktail Napkin
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
“BOOM-BOOM” (Pauline; Part II)
(Click here to read Part I) Pauline and I continued to get together in our irregular way–once a week, then maybe not again for a month. Then back to once a week, or at least every couple of weeks. Once … Continue reading
Posted in Life on a Cocktail Napkin
9 Comments