On a Friday, we get busy right at 5:30 and stay steady until we close at 11. Most of my women drinkers are IPA drinkers, too. The peanut butter porter and the hazy IPA are the most popular year-round. A lot depends on the weather during the summer, we’re selling a lot of seltzer and gose, of course. I’ll ask what kind of food they like, whether they’re in the mood for something that packs a punch or more of a session drink. I refuse to make assumptions about who’s going to drink what. A lot of folks will ask for recommendations because it’s their first time here. We serve beer, cider, seltzer, and wine that we make. I’m able to talk to my customers, so they’re tipping well, but I can only make so many drinks in that time. Just being able to be there, and not just be the drink slinger, means better tips. There seems to be a quantifiable amount of money that’s involved doing this sort of thing. It’s not super high volume I get a chance to talk to people and have a stable rail. Never crazy busy, almost soothing: I was just making drinks like a machine, over and over. It was just a steady stream of people, coming in pairs and groups. If that’s the case, we’ll add another bartender or two. So if there’s a show over there, before the show we can have close to 200 people out here. We seat 60-plus, and we’re next to a small concert venue. Even for one bartender, 12 or 15 customers can be a lot to handle. Since it was hot this week, people are just mainlining the Painkillers.We’re the busiest on Saturday nights between 6 and 11 p.m., but Friday happy hour is hopping, too. We do some beers, too, but almost no shots. Shift: Most of what we make is your usual tropical drinks: Painkillers, Palomas, Aqua Velva, Margaritas (and Margaritas and Margaritas…).
that night every year because people start drinking at 7 a.m., and they’re zombies by the time they make it to us. The only time it gets really crazy is on Paczki Day - that’s Fat Tuesday, but instead of king cake, people eat Polish paczki and drink a ton.
My customers are just regular working-class people, all ages, really. I’ve made as little as $150 and as much as $700, but I’d say around $250 to $300 is the norm. McGillicuddy Peppermint from the chilling machine. The person at Jameson who invented that shot, I swear to God, should be a millionaire and probably is. For shots, it’s usually white tea and green tea. When people ask me if I can make them a Manhattan, I usually laugh at them. The drinks I make most are the usual dive bar stuff: vodka soda, Jack and Coke, beer, beer, beer. Around 12:30 or 1, we get another batch of restaurant staff coming in for last call. It’s steady and pretty busy until 12 a.m. and then it dips down for a little bit and starts picking back up at 8 or 9. It’s usually a pretty solid happy-hour group from 5 to 7 p.m. There’s no “typical” night, but there is a pattern, I’d say. I’m by myself until 7 p.m., so I get decent tips from the regulars who all show up almost every day. We talked to four bartenders from different spots all over the city, from downtown’s hopping cocktail bars to the North End’s dives, about their Friday night gigs. They also happily hang out at dive bars, craft cocktail joints, and breweries, no matter the season. During the summer months, Detroiters flock to outdoor bars to take advantage of the precious and rare sunshine. In this installment of VinePair’s Shift Diaries series, we traveled to the Motor City - home to hard-working, hard-partying folks.
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