New York City Bartenders & Patrons - nycbp.com

Sitting Down with Author Ty Wenzel

By Kevin Fitzpatrick

[COVER] Published August 2003

Several years ago I was at a charity dinner that featured a different baseball legend at each table. Sitting across from me was hall of famer Warren Spahn. He was about 75 at the time. I remember it sure was great to meet him, but how much better it would have been if I could have seen the game's greatest lefthander in 1947 when he won 21 games.

I felt the exact same way when I met Ty Wenzel for a drink and conversation at Doc Holliday's recently. Spahn might have been grandfatherly and retired for 40-some years when I saw him, but Wenzel had only hung up her bartending career two years ago. She still had that gleam in her eye and sexy look that just killed me that I never once got a drink made by her when she was setting them up around town.

The occasion for meeting Wenzel was to talk about her great new book Behind Bars. Its subtitle says it all: "The Straight-Up Tales of a Big-City Bartender" and that's what it's about. And it's the best book of the year on nycbp.com.

We only had time for a couple of beers in a corner booth one afternoon at Doc's, with CCR on the jukebox and Stacy on duty behind the bar. "I can't believe you can't smoke in this place," Wenzel said. "It's insane." When she was working not far away at Marion's Continental the smoking ban wasn't in effect. It would be a tough hour for her to sit, drink, talk and not smoke.

If you are a fan of bars and bartending, Wenzel's book is manna from heaven. It's got insider scoop, tips, hints, stories, yarns, and lots of bartending secrets. I wanted to find out what went into Behind Bars, and it turns out she'd been keeping notes while working for more than 10 years in New York bars, restaurants and nightclubs. I'd already told her that a couple bartenders I'd spoken to at one my favorite dive bars just adored the book.

"It speaks to them; it speaks for them more than anything," she said. "I know a lot of bartenders who always said 'I want to write a book... about all these stories, about tipping, I want to teach people how to tip, how to teach people how to be human beings'. So that's why I did it. I was keeping a journal and I put it all together. I put a proposal together and it's the proposal that sold it, more than anything."

"I think if you're in the service industry, you'll think it's hilarious," Wenzel said. "That's the thing: you'll totally relate to it and recognize yourself on every page. You'll recognize your regulars. We're all the same as bartenders. There are just so many types you can be."

"It's as honest as it gets," she said. "I'm not really a frilly writer... I just tell it as it is. There's no real sugarcoating any of it. If you're a born-again Christian you might not like it, because you don't tip very well. But if you're open-minded you might find we don't make salaries and why we should get tips."

I guessed that her story of going from Lower East Side bartending to writer & new mom on Long Island would induce a certain reaction when she went back into a tavern. I was right.

"Oh gosh!" Wenzel exclaimed. "When I went back to Marion's to (photograph) the cover for the book, it was the first time I'd been back behind a bar. I swear to God, it took all of me not to set up that bar. In fact when the bartender showed up, I said to her, 'I have to help you; I'm dying to scrub this bar.' And I started cutting lemons, making twists, wedging limes. I brought some glasses up. I thought I never wanted to bartend again. I really did, I was so happy to give my last Last Call. And I can't tell you how much I missed it."

[QUOTE]Behind Bars isn't just an exposé of what a bartender is thinking of you as she mixes your drinks. It is all about Wenzel learning, mastering, and ultimately leaving terrific shifts that paid her a boatload of cash. And now she's spilling all.

I thought part of the book was written to put a stop to some of the inaccurate stereotypes people have about bartenders. Wenzel says it happened all the time to her on the job, and now that she's been out promoting the book, she hears it at interviews. It seems radio DJs in particular all have the same question: how can they have sex with a bartender.

"Most of the time they think we're whores, especially females," Wenzel said. "I don't know why that is. I didn't know any bartender that was sleeping around a lot. They've seen too much, probably."

I thought maybe it was because of shows like "Cheers" and movies.

"Maybe," she said. "If you've seen "Cocktail" you think they're getting laid. I think (male bartenders) get laid more than women. Because women (bartenders) are more wary because they've seen so many scary men when they're bartending. I think people think we're very loose. And that's very unusual because I didn't know any loose bartenders."

"Another stereotype is that we're bitchy, and I don't think that's true either," Wenzel said. "I don't think we were bitchy unless there was cause to be bitchy. I was always very nice to my customers until they got mean. I got into it a lot too. I didn't like it when men harassed my female customers... I didn't like being put into the position of being a bouncer, but often you are. I don't think there are many more stereotypes except being bitchy and a whore."

So much of the book is great lists of information, such as tipping and ways to act in a bar. A good few pages are devoted to us - the customers. So I wanted to know what she'd think if I walked in to her old bar and ordered my usual - a Bud Light.

"When I heard "Bud" it was not a good thing!" (BIG laughs) "Usually you'd hear "Bud" and it'd be accompanied by a frat boy," she said. "That's just something you do out of boredom, look for patterns. Like certain types of women will only order certain kinds of drinks, like an apple martini. My gay clientele almost exclusively ordered martinis. Mostly vodka martinis, very few gin martinis. Uptowners were almost always cosmos, writers were almost always bourbon or scotch. Actors were always cosmos."

[QUOTE]"Someone would walk in and you'd guess about it -- what are they drinking? Definitely shots? If it was a bachelorette party, you knew you were going to make a pitcher of lemon drops. It's kind of an accessory now. Instead of a cocktail or an actual drink, it's more, 'What are you wearing, what are you going to have with it?' It's kind of sad."

I wanted some information about staying on the bartenders' good side, to keep those buybacks coming, and to get served faster than the other jokers. Like her book, Wenzel had plenty of advice on the subject.

"One thing is don't ask their names," she advised. "I hated that. They'd scream, 'Ty! Ty! Ty!' Because once you give away your name it's irritating to hear it screeched at the top of their lungs. Another thing is to have your drink order ready when I show up. I mean, you're waving, waving, waving your money at me, I finally show up, and then you don't know what you want? That just drove me insane."

"Tip on the first drink, even if you're running a tab, put a twenty down to show me you're going to tip," Wenzel said. "If you don't tip on the first drink, it can be assumed you're not going to tip, sometimes. It's good to tell (the bartender) you're not going to stiff them, so that when you do tip well on the first drink, every drink will be strong and timely. If somebody hasn't tipped and they've been waiting longer than somebody who has tipped, they will wait longer anyway. I'd just totally forget they exist sometimes."

"Be genuinely nice," she said with a smile. "That's kind of rare. If you don't know the bartender, be really nice to them. I think that they've had it. I think a lot of the 'bitchy bartender' thing you hear about or that New York has such pretentious bartenders, I hear it all the time, and I swear it's not true. I mean, look at Stacy there, she's a sweetheart."

The book goes in-depth into the dynamics of the bartender-customer relationship, and how the two need each other to exist. Wenzel's book makes a strong argument, and no denying it here, that a bartender isn't just serving you a Jack and Coke.

"The thing is, you have to get to know a bartender, because it's all about a relationship," Wenzel told me. "If you really want to get to know that person it's to treat them with a lot of respect and not as just a server. Because deep down we know we are serving. And that's fine, and we know that our entire financial success depends on our relationship with you."

[QUOTE]"(Bartenders) want to be nice," she said. "It's just that people come in that just want to have a bad time. So if you're in a crappy mood, just don't go out. That's a big tip -- a lot of people just want to go out and be mean to servers."

"Flirting is nice," Wenzel admitted. "I always liked it when guys flirted with me. It made the time go faster. It was more interesting. Don't ask them out though, that's always bad."

As I suspected, she confirmed my passing of cocktail napkins/business cards theory - all those numbers and email addresses end up in the garbage.

"Every time," Wenzel said. "I never kept a phone number. I did in the beginning just because it was such a hoot, but after five years, you stop doing that." It almost seemed like it would be easier to get on a bartender's bad side than her good side.

"There are a lot of little things," she began. "A lot of clichés. I always hated when people started making out with each other at the bar. Like kissing is one thing, but heavy petting at the bar used to drive me insane. And don't eat my garnishes! I spent a long time cutting those lemons and limes and filling up the maraschino cherries and olives! My god, it's all coming back now! I'm spewing! I can't stop! Stop me, Kevin! Because you know I have a lot of pet peeves."

A good portion of the book is devoted to how Wenzel coped with the grueling shifts and wacky hours that bartending in Manhattan called for. She suffered panic attacks and depression, and had a series of ups and downs until she hit her stride. Getting married and older seems to have set her on a straighter course, and working on the book as she wrapped up her bartender career at the same time made sense to her. A few weeks after terrorists attacked New York City not very far from her apartment and bar, she'd about had enough.

"I felt closer to New York, because I was really over New York too for awhile," she said. "After 9/11 I started feeling more generous. Especially to the fire department guys who used to come in all the time. I started giving away a lot of free drinks (laughs); they started coming in a lot too. I was just happy to see them. It brought me closer to the people I worked with. Just all being downtown we got really melancholy. It was kind of a dark period."

"My bar went from a really great neighborhood bar to this real corporate kind of place," Wenzel sighed. "And everybody I worked with for 10 years either was fired or left because it turned into a TGIF kind of thing. My regulars weren't coming in as much anymore, we had hardcore regulars for a long time, and when we got a less-experienced crew we got less-cool customers... it was no longer fun."

[QUOTE]Wenzel said she loved working on her book, and now she's undertaking a new one. But looking over at Stacy and her five hardcore customers, you could see the envy was there.

"I'd love to work in a dive bar again," she said. "That would be awesome. These regulars drink, you know? They drink beer, they do shots, and they have scotch, whiskey and gin... I love her crowd, this is my old crowd. This is who I used to serve. I love this -- totally local. Completely downtown, local, unpretentious. They are serious about drinking -- there's nobody drinking an apple martini over there."

Our time was running out, Wenzel had to rush out for another appointment. But after writing Behind Bars, I wanted to ask, if she missed being behind the bar, what it was.

"Mostly the camaraderie of the other bartenders," she said. "I miss other bartenders desperately; they're amazing personalities, they really listen well, very loyal... and my regulars -- some who I couldn't stand the last two years -- I miss them terribly. I don't miss being behind the bar and making cocktails."

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