Sitting next to John at Bings. First break in six months. He lays this on me:

"You never eat in Chinatown on Sunday during NFL season. It's like seafood restaurants on Sunday."
-John, philipino but understands Chinatown's obsession with gambling.

Good night

Shift is over. Lights are off and we're saying goodbye on the street. Kiss kiss with the girls and slap punch with the guys. I'm going home. I should take the 1 California but I might cheat and take a cab. The bussers are going to see the midnight show at the Metreon - the benefits of working at a cafe and not a bar with a proper 2PM last call. The servers are going out. To the Mission, Castro and the Marina.
A few times a month some of us will rush home to the computers. Deadlines or homework or lesson plans before sleep. Different second jobs but shoehorning the work is shared.
The cooks go straight to bed. They have to open our kitchen or A16 or another joint in a few hours. Are they more focused? Sending money back to rarely seen children would focus most of us. Also, the demographics trend a bit older in our kitchen. Either way the GM never has to speak with the back of the house about being late. Front of the house, what's our excuse?

Jealousy factor

A customer who knows she's on a three drink limit taught the bar a new lesson in self-discipline/policing. She walked into the room last week with, I'm guessing, a four bar head-start. She ordered her first drink and pre-paid for the next two. She then counted out $40 in cash and put her remaining money, credit cards and license into a self-addressed, stamped envelope. While I was mixing the first cocktail she excused herself to post the envelope at the mailbox on the corner. She returned to her waiting drink, smiled and said without irony, "Nothing bad can happen now."

Terroir

A friend from DC and I start our night here. Three winebartenders behind a 12 foot bar. Stools occupied and the tables upstairs and down are half filled. The first bartender is flustered or disgusted by my request for a list. Why? The server to client ratio is 1:4. And pouring wine is quick. What else do you have to do besides talk about the wine?

Fortunately the second bartender is more patient. And the customers are brilliant. A pretty, hipster blonde reaches across two stools with a menu and a smile. I love those places with camaraderie-among-strangers.

We drank upstairs next to a DEA agent with his jacket off and his badge and handgun clearly visible. Typical SF organic winebar. Law enforcement drinking amongst hipsters, vinyl album covers on the wall, tattoos and fixed gear bikes parked inside.

In part because of current events, in part because my friend is Azeri and just to see if we can get a rise out of the agent we talk about Tabriz and his Persian grandmother.

He drinks red, I drink white and both are excellent. I naively expected natural or organic or biodynamic wine to taste not only different but worse than regular wine. Kind of like expecting a hybrid car to rattle at high speeds. After the run-in with the first bartender and the inevitable where-should-we-sit confusion it takes me half a glass before I remembered it was natural. Just outstanding wine.

Hopefully we'll post later about how unnatural normal wine is. From my last few years stumbling around Napa and Sonoma I suspect the industry polices itself quite well. We'll see.

After another glass we walk across the street to the food truck. Good, not great.

Viognier

We serve a beautiful glass of this. I love the grape, and I'm fascinated by the source. The Russian River Valley, sweltering by day, cool to cold at night, protective fog.

Cheers to NBBM's most distant reader for the image. I miss the days of looking out the window to see if it was still light enough to have a glass.

if the horse don't pull you got to carry the load

9 shifts completed in as many days. Tomorrow, actually later today, I finish the streak. I'd complain but my GM is spending her day off opening the newest restaurant in the group up in Napa. No thanks. I'll take our room with my normal busser and normal server. Change is for those working 40 hours a week.

I'm not sure there's much to learn from these marathon work stretches. It's a constant rush from bed to laundry to work to dry cleaning to work to the post office to bed. The email inbox overloads, loved ones are ignored, and you unwittingly earn the approval of the Central Americans in the kitchen. Mucho trabajo, they say as we slap, punch goodnight.

Tonight I went to retrieve a steak for B3 and found Juanito sound asleep on a milk carton. He wasn't slacking, it was his break. But two hours later, as he was leaving and I was closing up, we said our goodbyes:

"Manana?"
No, senor. Hasta el viernes.
"No trabajo manana?"
Si, senor. A16.

And then I remembered, he works two full time jobs, every week. No blog posts for Juanito. Not enough time.

Overheard

"What did you do on Sunday?" NBBM
"I took my shirt off." D sums up his Pride experience and explains his sunburn.

"I can bartend, I can work construction...(no response from the pretty girl to his left), yeah, I can do manual labor." Customer flaming out in front of the previously interested girl. Should have told her he was a producer.

Two shifts into a ten shifts in ten days run. Already tired. Already worried about dry cleaning, sleep, my other job suffering and fitting in time with the girl. Waking up in horror to find I'm already two hours behind schedule.

How did it happen? Co-workers taking vacation and I have a hard time telling my GM no. We're a small crew but almost everyone can fill two roles, DL does three: manages, tends bar and serves. So, unless we figure it out among ourselves the GM runs permutations and slides people from a Monday night managing shift to a Wednesday day server shift and almost always finds people their day off. Not this time. She's willing to endure the phonecall from corporate HQ in Napa asking why NBBM is getting overtime, again. And just now in writing this I remember I'll get OT two weeks in a row. My help isn't entirely altruistic.

It's cliche but true: working weekends and working extra is beating the Yankees. You make more money and don't spend at the usual rate. At the end of this run I'll have restocked the cash happily lost to the girl's birthday weekend. And when I need a week to travel the GM will remember this. If she doesn't I'll remind her.

Ten days also seems unreal. In some ways it's easier than working one or two extra nights. You just give up, submit to the schedule and the room and the customers.

Overheard

"I don't gamble. I'll bet on a horse but I won't gamble." Friday happy hour regular to his bartender who doesn't drink alcohol. He'll have a beer and a glass of bourbon but he won't drink.

"They're talking about moving the 49ers to Santa Clara." TD
"They should move the 49ers to Cuba." PdL in stride. Not sure who he wants to punish, but can't resist the obvious, haven't the Cubans suffered enough?

"It's difficult selling to a whore." Business traveler lamenting the truth.