Behind the bar, busy and vigilant
New Year’s Eve presents a special challenge for local bartenders
Not a soul sat at the wood-topped bar of El Farol, the famed Canyon Road fixture, early Friday afternoon. Some patrons munched tapas or sipped wine on the porch.
The lackadaisical crowd was a far cry from the full house that bartender and sommelier Andrew Roy expects Sunday night — after food service stops and the dawning of 2018 rolls around.
“For a town that goes to sleep a little early, it
stays awake a little later” on New Year’s Eve, he said.
As might be expected, bartenders at downtown establishments in Santa Fe say New Year’s Eve is one of their busiest nights of the year, for better or worse. Crowds are big, orders come in quick, and revelers who might not go out any other night make it a point to get their party hats on. Which is the fun. And the problem. “From my experience, it’s a lot of people who aren’t as used to drinking, so we have to be extra vigilant of overservice, which is a concern no matter what night of the year,” Roy said.
Bartenders say busy nights like New Year’s Eve are high-pressure and highly lucrative and,
to some extent, a great test of vigilance and teamwork. Most interviewed by
The New Mexican said they don’t have any particular training to prepare them for the crowds of New Year’s Eve. But bouncers at the door check IDs and bartenders check in with one other — and with customers — to guard against serving those who’ve had too many.
Eric Shannon, a bartender at Boxcar, said he doesn’t anticipate the crowds Sunday night will be quite as big as the ones the bar sees during events such as the burning of Zozobra or Spanish Market. It’s Shannon’s first year at Boxcar, but after working “pretty much everywhere” in Santa Fe, he’s acquired a taste for the crowds.
“I hope it’s a high-stress, busy, ballsto-the-wall kind of situation. That’s the reason I do bartending,” Shannon said. “When I feel the pressure, that’s when I know we’re making good cash.”
State law granted New Mexico bartenders a little extra wiggle room with alcohol sales this New Year’s Eve. The holiday falls on a Sunday, when the typical liquor cutoff is midnight. This year, certain licenseholders can keep selling until early Monday morning.
Lu Diaz, a bartender at downtown’s CrowBar, said she expects a number of extra bartenders to work the New Year’s Eve shift on a night that should be flush with tourists. She said she considers the holiday one of the best days of the year in her line of work.
Not just because of the tips — but because people are typically in a good mood.
“New Year’s is kind of a celebration, so I don’t think people get as messy,” she said. “It’s the end of one year and the beginning of the next. I think people’s intentions for going out are completely different than most other holidays that are just about getting drunk.”
Roy, from El Farol, probably has every reason to fear New Year’s Eve.
“Which eye has the scar?” he asked, feeling around his eyebrows for proof of one New Year’s gone wrong.
Last year, when Roy was working behind the bar at Secreto Lounge at the Hotel St. Francis, one of his co-workers behind the bar accidentally smashed him in the face with the thick glass of a bottle of Azuñia Reposado tequila.
The incident left Roy concussed, so, by his own account, he’s “a little bit fuzzy on the details.”
What he does remember is bleeding on the back of the bar and getting stitched up by a waitress who knew first aid. Then he went back to work. Roy didn’t realize he had a concussion until a patron at the bar said something he now remembers as “really nonoffensive,” and he started crying.
“It really hurt my feelings and I started tearing up,” he recalled. “I was like — this is not normal, I really need to get this checked out.”
Nevertheless, Roy still plans on working behind El Farol’s bar New Year’s Eve. He says it’s fun — like hosting a party: “I got hit in the head and I still enjoy it.”