Middle of the long weekend yesterday, my favorite haunts were closed. So, we went to a bar/restaurant where we'd been before on Long Island because we'd heard it had been renovated and enlarged. The reason we'd gone there to begin with some time ago, was that they had a live entertainer that we enjoyed.
The entertainer backed himself up with a very sophisticated sound system upon which he played the background music and arrangements of some very popular singers (depending on the listener's age) and did an outstanding job of imitation. Thus we'd sit and listen to Frank, Dean, and Neil Diamond, or perhaps Billy Joel and spend an enjoyable evening. When, in time, the singer left the place to go elsewhere, so did we.
Anyway, we trekked back there last night to find that indeed the place had been redone. The bar was now twice the size, a huge rectangle, there were tables and chairs scattered here and there and even a space on the left that could have served as a smaller but adequate dance floor. The carpentry and decoration were impressive as to what had been before.
Now, if one were to stand in front of this establishment and scan the edifice, you'd see a pizza place on the left (looking like any other pizza parlor. Counter, a few tables, ovens in back and a flow of patrons filing in and out with their pizzas, mostly ordered to go.) In the center of the building was the enlarged bar itself spanning considerable space left to right, and next to that on the right was another, once separate space that had been some kind of large wine storage area. That area, still containing floor to ceiling wine racks, was now incorporated into the main space and had tables for diners, privatized by the floor to ceiling racks of wine. Out in front, on the left, there were a couple of umbrella tables for fresh-air type eaters and imbibers.
All in all, the place had the design and resources to be somewhere very nice to go indeed, and lo and behold, even had a live DJ who came on later in the evening.
We arrived early in the evening, just after six o'clock, and met two friends with whom we sat at the bar. And then, the fun began. Because, the way the bar was now built, the left hand side was now very close to both the connected pizza parlor's open door, and to the front door of the establishment itself. Consequently, a continuous flow of people, mostly kids, trooped in through both doors to reach the pizza counter and because of the limited space inside the parlor itself, a considerable number of bodies congregated behind us at the bar.
While that was going on a softball team of some sort or another arrived who also wished to have pizza, spreading another twenty or so folks around the place here and there talking loudly, laughing, joking and pushing each other around as youngsters will do.
While all this was going on, some other folks arrived to sit at the bar, which was now filling up and causing slowdowns of the bartending service, compounded by the fact that the second bartender was also a waitress who left to attend to seated patrons. There was a third person who periodically patrolled the bar, but was apparently a "manager," because if one requested a beverage from him he'd merely pass mention of your desires on to the one's who were actually working.
In time, the bartender himself stopped before us, took an order for beers and a wine, returning some time later with filled glasses. It was at that point that he told us he'd been a bartender before, but that was twenty years ago and this was his first day back. And, due to the span of time that had elapsed between bartending engagements he'd forgotten a few basics of the trade. So, since we were paying cash and he was extracting the cost of each pour as he served them, he asked how much he'd charged us for our drinks before, because he'd forgotten.
When it came to the price of one of the beers ordered by one of our friends, there arose a discussion about where the brew came from. Because, although there were several taps behind this newly enlarged bar, none contained Budweiser our buddies usual brew of choice. So, instead he'd ordered a something or other because, he said, he was familiar with it and it was brewed upstate in Utica, New York. The bartender asked him for six dollars and fifty cents.
"Six dollars and fifty cents for a glass of tap beer's a lot of money" my friend said. Then he asked how much a Bud was, even in a bottle since there was none on tap. "Bud's are four fifty, sir," the bar tender replied. Well then, my friend inquired, "Why the big difference in price?" To that, the bartender answered sincerely and directly, "Because, sir, we charge six-fifty for all our imported beers."
Beer prices and geographical issues aside, by now this place was quickly becoming a zoo. People were standing in groups all over, most of them desiring pizza which they could order by the slice at the restaurant tables or at the bar itself. And then, the DJ started. The pity was that he spun some really good music, but it was hard to hear over the noise of the hungry, restless kids and the dance space was wall to wall standees also waiting for tables or pizza.
As for us, we all decided we'd had enough when the coaches of the softball team linked arms in a row behind the bar for a series of photos requiring considerable conversation as to how to line up, where to stand, and who was smiling or wasn't. Until that session was over the bartenders were naturally precluded from their work, but didn't seem to care.
As we were leaving one of friends asked if we'd ever come to that place on a weekday evening. When we responded that we hadn't he said that was probably a good thing, because apparently the regular bartender was a smart alecky, creepy old guy nobody liked and went out of their way to avoid.
While driving home I thought back about the evening and was really quite sad and disappointed. Because the people who owned that place had reshaped and rebuilt it several times in recent years, trying to improve it. But their problems, I don't think, had anything to do with the size or shape of their establishment. Simply stated, they may know something about construction, but haven't a clue as to how to run or staff a restaurant.
That's it for today folks.
Adios
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