What Makes a Good Bartender and Why Bartenders Matter

I probably should be writing about the 49ers problems: Christian McCaffrey’s mysterious tendinitis for which he’s seeking a solution in Germany – doesn’t sound good. Or Brock Purdy’s no-big-deal back soreness that somehow required an MRI. Or Kyle Shanahan’s continual tendency to blow fourth-quarter leads. But I’m not going to write about those things. If you want to hear about them, go to my son Grant’s YouTube channel where we talk about (or will have talked about them) at 11:00 today.

Instead, I want to discuss bartenders, as in what makes a good bartender?

For me this is a question of ultimate importance.

Since my wife died more than two years ago, I have gone to a restaurant/bar in the Oakland hills every Friday night where I meet with a group of friends, one who also lost his wife. We spend the evening together, sometimes my son Grant joins us, and it makes me feel whole. Although I’m never entirely happy, to be with dear friends who care about me is essential for me staying alive.

Part of the wholeness comes from the bartender, Kevin, whom I’ve known for years and is a wine sommelier and knows everything there is to know about French wine.

When I enter the restaurant, before I’ve even crossed the threshold, Kevin waves to me, calls out my name, and grabs a wine glass. (If this sounds like Cheers it should. I now understand what Norm and the others got from hanging at that bar.)

When I sit down, Kevin suggests a French white because he knows I start with a white. He asks how my week has gone, if I’ve done anything noteworthy. I recently visited Montreal with Ira Miller and Kevin, who is descended from French Canadians, knows the city well and asked all the right questions.

Kevin makes me feel at home, although there’s no home any longer, really, in which I feel at home.

I usually go to another restaurant/bar one other night a week. I like to sit at bars, get the feeling of the bar under my elbows and observe the other drinkers and sometimes talk to them. Too often, the bartender does not enrich my experience. I’m talking about some of the best restaurants in Oakland and, believe me, Oakland has one hell of a restaurant scene.

In these places the bartender does not make eye contact, does not ask my name, does not ask what kind of wine I prefer. The bartender says something like what will it be, and when he/she sets down the glass in front of me, walks away without a backward glance. These bartenders are doing a job but not providing a service. The service of a bartender is to make the customer feel welcome and even special, but many bartenders don’t understand this or don’t care.

A bartender falls into the category of a barber, hairdresser, psychologist or psychiatrist, someone who listens and appears to care, someone who makes me feel like a person of value.

Maybe my requirements in a bartender are unrealistic and unfair, and maybe I’m too needy – I admit all that. But I always leave Kevin a whopping big tip because he earns it.