President's Day Weekend

Holiday weekends are fun, as long as you don't work in the industry. If all of you have off, all of us have to work that much harder!

The phenomenon of President's Day weekend began during my days at the Studio Six. The formerly sleepy little holiday began turning into a mid-winter party holiday that rivaled New Year's Eve and quickly became the better one, at least for nightclub staff. Where New Year's Eve is derisively known as 'amateur night', at least President's Day was full of your more regular club kids (meaning night club regulars, not the eighties definition) who knew how to handle their drugs and alcohol. Now it seems to have spilled over to day drinkers, at least as evidenced by this past weekend. Friday was not very busy but it gave us a chance to discuss plans for the following day, since we had ninety-six people on our reservations, a very high number for a place like the Distillery. That also meant that the walk-ins were going to be massive as well. 

Saturday didn't disappoint.

Right out of the gate, we were busy, with two large tour groups coming in and many other four-tops, around forty people sat in a matter of minutes. The tours give me a small window to breathe, since most of the people are there for the actual tour and I only have to make a handful of drinks right away, it's the end of the tour that I start getting slammed and once that happened, most of the rest of the day was a blur. Thankfully, my roommate (and ex) was there acting as my barback. I told everyone, he was there for me and me alone, I needed to know that all the other stuff was being done behind me so I can pump out the cocktails as quickly as possible. He kept the glasses clean, my bottles full, and general clean-up and it lowered my stress levels considerably. I don't think I could have done it without him there. Emily, our diva server and bartender in training, was also a godsend, she keeps a lid on things and everyone is a little afraid of her, which is (generally) good. Towards the end of the day, I did get to sit for a minute with some friends and chat, it was nice to take a little break right before we shut and started getting the bar ready for the next day. As you can see, I don't have much to say about the day as a whole, my total focus all day long was on making drinks, about two hundred and forty in all over the shift. On a side note, I giggled a little when our Little Water Distillery social media page shared all the people's Instagram photos of their drinks when they were there and I realized that I had made every single one of them. 

And they all looked perfect, if I do say so myself. It's nice to see the positive feedback, though, after such an intense but fun day. 
Sunday came and, although not as busy as the day before, it was far busier than most Sundays there. Without the extra staff on hand, and still a little exhausted from the day before, I was getting a little harried with having to clean glasses and do the set-ups, our drinks can get quite complicated so every little bit of help makes my job easier and more efficient. We strive to make sure each drink is handcrafted and fresh, no pre-made watered-down cocktails. I prefer it that way but it's unavoidably time consuming. Our regular guests know that going in, and we do remind everyone when we seat them, but the pressure is on me to make sure it's done as quickly as possible. Thankfully, all my decades of training at the Studio Six and elsewhere prepared me for high-volume bartending. We made it through and I was home before seven o'clock, which was a happy surprise.
And nothing makes the day fly by like being mad busy! 
I think I was dead asleep by eight thirty. 

All in all, it was a great weekend for the Distillery. The next big event is our fifth anniversary which, if it's anything like last year, will be a record breaking day! 

The Memorial Day (More Holiday/Less Patriotism Version)

Because of the pandemic, I have been hibernating on the weekends to avoid the crowds of shoobies flooding down to the area like our own little Biblical plague. Especially this past weekend, since the Memorial Day holiday is usually the unofficial opening of the summer season. The weekend was a bit of a washout, weather-wise, and most people stayed away. The fact that there was parking in my neighborhood all through the weekend was a shocking sight to see! So when it came to Memorial Day Monday, I readily accepted the offer to go bike riding with my friend Charity. The skies were overcast, the winds were negligible, I thought it would be advantageous to get a quick eight miles in and then go home to do... well... nothing. I was supposed to meet her on the Boardwalk about halfway so I got ready and ventured out, quickly making my way to the Atlantic City border to hop on the Boardwalk there, since the Ventnor boardwalk is still prohibiting bicycles until next weekend (editor's note: The Boardwalk in Atlantic City is considered an official thoroughfare so it gets capitalized like a street name). To my surprise, it was far busier than I had anticipated. I had expected most of the tourists to go home by Monday and I was wrong. There were people everywhere, families, groups, bicycles, strollers, skateboarders (more on that later), and those just enjoying the benches watching everyone stroll or ride by. 

I wound my way through the crowds, slowing here and there to let people pass, and then picking up the pace whenever I found a break. I'm a bit of a speed demon on my bike, as I've discussed before in this blog, and being hampered by all the shoobies was annoying me. Especially since I wasn't expecting so many of them to hang on through the holiday. But once I hit Albany Avenue, where the AC Boardwalk doubles in width, I was able to weave through the throngs of people with relative ease. As I was going along, I kept a lookout for Charity's distinctive blue bike color but, as it always happens, you realize how popular her bike color actually is when you're looking for that particular hue and I was staring down everyone that came towards me thinking it might be her. Before I knew it, I was already at the other end of the Island of Love and I hopped off the boards at the Ocean Casino and down the two blocks to her complex, texting her the usual Where are you? messages. I rested outside waiting for her to get ready, doing the usual content uploads to my social media pages, the obligatory photos of me and my bike with hashtags and shares. She eventually arrived and off we went, without any coherent idea where the day would take us.
We decided to go straight up to the end of the island to the Boardwalk above New Hampshire Ave, and hop on from there. This end of the boards is usually less populated, the housing density in that area and the lack of boardwalk-centric businesses are the biggest reasons. It's a great place to fish from, though, with the jetties all along the Inlet and the fact that the water comes right under the Boardwalk in a lot of places along there. We made our way past the sparse crowds and took the bend around, where the Boardwalk meets the first set of casinos and that's where the crowds really picked up. For the most part, we were able to ride side-by-side and keep up conversation, it was really rather lovely out despite the overcast skies and the extra tourists.
Once we got to Stockton's campus, we turned around and started our way back, the narrower part of the boards beyond that point was a little too crowded. Now that did a circuit, I figured I'd go back for one more and the return trip was much like the first and we chatted and rode in leisure all the way back to the Showboat, turning around once again. Of course, we noticed that a few of the 'watering holes' had opened along the world famous boards and, since we are who we are, we decided to take a break at the Steel Pier bar and get an adult canned beverage, since that's all they were selling under the new pandemic guidelines. We found some empty benches along the ocean and sat there enjoying our surprisingly refreshing beverages, safely six feet away from anyone else. We people-watched, since that's what you do, and mulled over where our next stop would be. Hopping on our bikes, we moseyed along and before we knew it, we were all the way down by the Ocean Club condos (Hi, Roland and Cathy!). We saw that the Celebrity Bar was open and, since we are celebrities, we decided to get another libation, claiming one of the nearby benches again as our base of operations. I watched with great curiosity as to how they were preparing cocktails, with the new rules and the laws against open containers (I kept saying 'open carry' and Charity had to constantly remind me that was about guns), mixed drinks had to be served in sealed containers. It absolved the bar of serving an open container, and it solved the issue of making money by selling the very thing they make money from. Win/Win in my book. But I was also gathering intelligence, so to speak, since we're probably going to be opening my bar, the VÜE, sooner rather than later. This end of the boards seem to have an unlimited supply of people to watch and we set up camp and talked massive shit on everyone that came into view! After a few rounds, we decided we were hungry and ordered some overpriced boardwalk food and I noticed that the sun had come out and I knew in the back of my reasonable mind that I would be regretting my decision to stay outside instead of pedaling home to safety from the lethal rays of the sun.
The alcohol helped. We had a brilliant time there and the hours flew by but we were getting restless and decided to see what our friend Michelle Tomko was up to, since she's always out and about doing something in the city. We found out she was on Tennessee Ave. hosting an outdoor car-concert, yet another of the 'new normal' situations that have been invented during these pandemic times. Back on our bikes, we (more) carefully made our way back uptown. Of course, we quickly found that Rhythm & Spirits was open for business (serving sealed cocktails to go) so we ordered two and made our way back to chat with Michelle. Selfies, gossip, pandemic talk ensued and then Charity and I found yet our third spot on the boards to sit and enjoy the late afternoon. We commenced the people watching/judging immediately.
But by now, the full sunshine and the beverages had gotten the better of me and I was itching to go home. We bid our farewells and each pedaled off in opposite directions, although now I was regretting coming this far back uptown, it meant a much longer ride home, and not a full-capacity.
Although I had my misgivings, the ride home was really rather nice, the crowds had thinned out considerable, it was by now dinnertime after all, so I was able to pick up some good speed here and there, as my exercise app kept reminding me, 'Your current speed is 17.4 mph. Your average speed is 9.8 mph. You have reached 14 miles in distance. You have reached your original goal.' I remember this because this is where my excellent day took bit of a bad turn.
The app was telling me this as I was speeding down past the shuttered Atlantic Club building and quickly entering that area of the Boardwalk I previously alluded to above, where it goes down to two 'lanes' so to speak. Directly in front of me, on the wrong side, was a skateboarder who, for some unknown reason (stupidity? brain damage? shoobie?) wasn't veering out of my way and I was going way too fast to stop in enough time. He jumped off his skateboard which proceeded to slam into my front tire and I skidded to a stop. The young man (20's I guess) asked if I was okay, I said 'Yes' and added an 'Asshole' for good measure and then continued on my way home. I got two blocks before I realized he had popped my front tire with his skateboard and I now was forced to walk the remaining ten blocks home to Ventnor, all of my day-long good feelings quickly evaporated during my humble stroll with a wounded bicycle. 
Truth be told, I was planning to replace that tire anyway, constant use had worn away the tread. That's  why I knew I was in for an accident at that moment on the boards, there was no way I could have stopped in time. And that's why I didn't pound the crap out of that kid.
Once home, I cleaned up, got changed and assessed the damage, both to my bike and my skin. It didn't take long to determine I had gotten quite a bit of sunburn and was going to have to get my bike fixed in the morning. After a quick dinner of leftovers, I attended to my burns and turned in early.
Even though it wasn't how I preferred the day to end, was still an rather excellent holiday!