MacGowan’s big tip for ‘proper’ pints was more than a day’s pay
A BARTENDER at the Joiners’ Arms in London, whom Shane McGowan once praised for his notable Guinness-pouring skills, told the Irish Mail on Sunday how he was tipped £100 by the music legend.
American Matt Kolsky recalled the time he worked as a bartender there in 2004 and served the Pogues frontman.
He said he’d no idea who he was, and was surprised given his appearance that he could even afford to buy a few pints.
The barman had just finished college when he got the huge tip which was more than he earned in a day at the time.
‘A guy who just looked obviously pretty rough to me, as an American not knowing who this person was, a guy with like three jackets and two teeth came and sat at the bar,’ remembered Kolsky this week.
‘He quietly ordered a Guinness and when I poured it he made a really brief comment about an American who pours a Guinness properly.’
He went on to serve him around four pints of Guinness before the singer left, and recalls ‘that was more or less the extent of our discussion’.
‘He was just quietly sitting there, I think he may have read a newspaper or something at some point but nobody really bothered him.
‘He was just, to me, a guy who I was surprised could afford four Guinnesses and was sitting at the end of the bar drinking and just spending some time with himself,’ he said.
‘I was serving other people and eventually I noticed he had left and there was a bill under his empty glass – I went over and saw that it’s a £100 note.’
Kolsky was 22 years old at the time and admitted he was shocked because he wasn’t used to receiving tips in the UK. Matt said: ‘I had gotten five tips in two months at that point and a guy I would’ve guessed was going to stay at a homeless shelter, not knowing who he was, had just left a £100 note at the bar and just walked out quietly.
‘At that moment my boss walked in and walked over to me and was like, “Do you know who that was? That’s Shane MacGowan, he’s the lead singer of The Pogues.”’
The American didn’t see Shane in the pub again and said he spent the tip money when he was travelling around Europe shortly after the encounter.