New York City Bartenders & Patrons

Because Coyote Ugly was on cable again, it reminded me of the feature story on nycbp.com that I put together when the movie debuted in 2000. I put it back online here, along with the original 1997 GQ story that inspired the movie.

This story was one of the most fun things I've ever done with the site. What happened was the day the movie opened, I went with Valerie, Joanna, and Stacy to see a matinee at the Union Square theater; at the time the three of them were working at Doc Holliday's, and everyone was eager to see the movie.

We got to the theater, and it was a hot, muggy day. I remember Val riding up on Rollerblades. The four of us saw it together, and then decamped to a nearby tapas bar to hash it over. I placed a tape recorder between us all (and then I had the fun of trying to transcribe a 90-minute cassette). They not only talked about the movie, but about the life of the bartender in general in a cowboy bar. This is one of my favorite bits:

Do you girls do bottle tricks behind the bar?

Valerie: That stuff's great, but nobody does that. At a country bar? Come on. We don't have the time to do that. You're in a shitty, divey, honky tonk fucking bar where the chicks don't have any money to buy bigger clothing to actually cover themselves. They don't have the time to give you any more than a shot of Jack Daniels. Who cares about the bottles? They're giving you this (experience) because you're here for nothin' and you're gonna get nothin'. You could get tricks, but that's going overboard.

Joanna: I don't do the water thing, if someone asks me for water, have some water.

Valerie: Granted when you get a group of people who come in and are only drinking water because they've been drinking all night and are so drunk, get the fuck out of here. But if you've got one guy drinking water because he's the designated driver and has to get all his friends back to Jersey, I'm going to give you every glass of water you want, and with a smile.

Joanna: That's right on.

Read the whole review and have a laugh!

And because I cannot get enough of Youtube clips, here is a fun one from the movie. This was cut out of the version I saw in theaters, but I think this is on the "uncut" version of the DVD. And again, another unreal moment, how good is the Coyote Ugly softball team? But this is hilarious that they are playing against P.J. Clarke's!!!



Whatever happened to Izabella Miko?

Labels: bartenders