San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Closing time:
What bartenders without bars are mixing.
You’d be hard pressed to find a person whose work hasn’t been changed in some way by COVID19. But the pandemic and the resulting shutdown have transformed few professions as dramatically as bartending. In California, bars were among the very first businesses that Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered closed, a day before Bay Area counties instated the nation’s first shelterinplace orders. Suddenly, virtually every bartender in the state — and soon, across much of the country — was unemployed. Restaurants could remain open for takeout food, but it wasn’t until later in March that the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control announced it would temporarily allow the sale of takeout cocktails, too, as long as they were accompanied by a food order. That brought some bartenders back to work, but not everyone, and not full time.
More recently, as the state has inched along in its reopening plan, bartenders have experienced a frustrating game of Red Light, Green Light: Bars in many California counties reopened, only to have Newsom close them again. In San Francisco, city officials announced that bars could reopen in the final days of June, but changed their minds at the last minute.
So what have the last few months been like for the people who make their livelihoods in these stillshuttered businesses? It’s been an adjustment. Many bartenders were used to hectic, latenight shifts, full of social interaction; for them, the shutdown has been almost unsettlingly quiet. Some got other jobs, or developed burgeoning side businesses, or just got really into gardening. They’ve still been mixing drinks — but they’re often simpler drinks than the complex concoctions they’re used to making at work.
We checked in with three Bay Area bartenders to see how they’re coping with the shutdown and to get a glimpse of what they’ve been shaking for themselves at home.
Christian Suzuki, Elda, Wildhawk and the Treasury, San Francisco When the pandemic hit, Christian Suzuki was getting close to burning out. He was working three bartending jobs in San Francisco and competing in Bombay Sapphire’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition, a ninemonth commitment that itself felt like a fulltime job. Then it all came to a sudden halt: First, he lost his jobs at the San Francisco bars Wildhawk and the Treasury, then a few days later, shelterinplace took effect, eliminating his two weekly shifts at Elda, too.
“I had to come up with a game plan,” says Suzuki, who even considered moving back to his native Japan. Luckily, he soon got a call from Avital, a culinary tour company that he had worked with before. Now, Avital was pivoting to virtual tours and wanted him to lead a cocktail class. Suzuki turned out to be a natural and started leading his own private virtual lessons. “Through those classes, I was able to develop my own clientele,” he says. He recently hit his 90th virtual cocktail class since the shutdown began.
Suzuki, who has always been passionate about social justice issues, didn’t expect to be earning an income during the pandemic, let alone a consistent one. But it’s been a privilege to be able to work, he says, and to be able to donate to organizations like the Black Visions Collective and the Okra Project. Watching the world struggle with racism and react to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others has been emotionally taxing, Suzuki says, “but I’m glad it’s happening during quarantine because it gives people the space to think deep.”
At the beginning of shelterinplace, when things felt so uncertain, Suzuki and his roommate were making a lot of martinis. “But we didn’t have any vermouth, so really we were just freezing gin and drinking it ice cold,” he laughs. Over time, however, he’s been drinking less and less — not because he’s trying to, but just because he’s been so focused on the virtual classes. One of the new recipes he’s developed for the lessons is a variation on an Irish coffee, made with scotch and Pedro Ximenez, a sweet, syrupy type of Sherry. Suzuki is lactose intolerant, so instead of whipped cream, he whips coconut cream with a little sugar and some ruby Port.
“Coffee cocktails are so complicated because the coffee is dependent on the temperature, humidity, lighting of the room,” Suzuki says. “I don’t have the time or patience for that at home. I’m just going to pour it in.” After all, he says, “if you go to the Buena Vista I don’t think they’re stressing too much over the coffee.”
Lauren Steele, Ramen Shop, Oak
land Lauren Steele’s job as bar manager at Ramen Shop in Oakland didn’t completely stop under shelterinplace — she’s still been coming in six hours a week to make batch cocktails that customers can order with their takeout meals. To keep it interesting, Steele has been changing the menu every week, but “honestly, batching cocktails isn’t that interesting,” she says. “It’s kind of plug and play — you do some math, bottle it and that’s it.” She misses talking to guests, catching up with coworkers and the rush of being behind the bar on a busy night, having multiple tasks to do all at once.
The rest of the time, Steele has been filling her days with tasks that will sound familiar to many bored quarantiners: painting her apartment. Reading lots of books. Planting a garden. Setting up outdoor movie nights. Joining happy hours over Zoom.
“It’s been a time of reflection,” she says. “But there are some days that are really hard. If I’m being honest, I probably cry every day at some point. I think it’s a healthy reaction to everything that’s happening.”
Steele is the sort of bartender who keeps work at work; she doesn’t own many bar tools and rarely fashions Ramen Shopworthy drinks for herself. Like Suzuki, she’s been drinking less than usual during the shutdown, but when she does drink it’s wine, beer or a very simple mixed drink. “It’s usually something that doesn’t require a tin or even a jigger,” she says. “A Ti’ Punch. Or a really simple Old Fashioned. Or a vermouth and soda, something I can build in a glass.” That blossoming garden comes in handy — she’ll add rosemary or thyme to everything.
One of her favorite quarantine libations is a take on a gin and tonic, made with rhum instead of gin. Steele opts for Barbancourt’s 8year, a Haitian rhum (that extra “h” denotes that the spirit is made from fresh sugarcane, rather than molasses) that’s aged in oak barrels. “It’s got notes of vanilla and is kind of woody, not too sweet, kind of funky,” Steele says of the spirit. “With lime juice and tonic it just makes sense to me.”
Dzu Nguyen, Horsefeather, San
Francisco Horsefeather general manager Dzu Nguyen has gotten so used to working long days that when he and all of his colleagues were furloughed, the week of March 13, he didn’t know what to do with himself. “When you’ve been working eight to nine hours a day, six days a week, you feel like you need to do something, otherwise you’re going to lose your mind,” Nguyen says.
He ended up getting a job at Mollie Stone’s, which proved to be a nice change of pace. He had nights at home for the first time in a long time, until recently returning to Horsefeather, which is selling food and drinks to go. “My partner works regular hours, so we were actually able to see each other, for once,” he says. “That’s one of the things I’m really going to miss.”
And during his two months away from the bar, Nguyen felt healthier than ever. He went for long runs, cooked for himself, went to farmers’ markets all the time, got more sleep. “Before this there was already a very strong push for wellness in our industry, and I think the push is going to be even stronger now,” he says.
Another silver lining: Nguyen and his Horsefeather coworkers attended protests together in the East Bay and San Francisco. That’s something that could never have happened while the bar was open. “When we’re working, nobody ever has the same days off,” he says. “To be able to rally everybody on the team was just a really great bonding experience.” When he wasn’t drinking wine he bought at Mollie Stone’s or ordering cocktails from friends’ bars like Pacific Cocktail Haven, Nguyen spent some time coming up with new recipes for the Horsefeather menu. One of his creations he calls the Ha Long Margarita, named for the scenic coastal area of northern Vietnam. The base recipe is a regular margarita (using Cointreau) but adds tamarind paste for a tangy, fruity, deeply expressive flavor.