T Cole Newton at your service
ASK A BARTENDER
with T Cole Newton
Hi! My name is Cole. As a bartender, people ask me things: about their relationships, what they should be drinking, pop culture picks … any and all subjects are fair game. Am I an expert on any of it? Occasionally!
Q: How do you keep up the spark/drive after so many years of bartending?
I’ve been bartending on and off, but mostly on, for almost 20 years now, and I’ll admit there are times when I struggled to find meaning in the craft. It’s something I’m pretty good at, I suppose? I’ve done pretty well in some contests. But making fancy drinks doesn’t make my heart sing.
I told a friend about this crisis of faith a few year’s back, and he reminded me of something that we both learned in training at Commander’s Palace, the legendary temple of haute creole cuisine where I landed my first full-time bartending gig. The work of hospitality, in no small part, is about “making dining memories.”
People often go out when they’ve got something to celebrate: a promotion, a graduation, an engagement. The senses most prone to create a lasting memory are taste and smell, so by providing novel tastes and smells (in the form of well-made food and drinks) to associate with these events, and creating a memorable context for these experiences, we in hospitality deepen the memories that spring from them. People will carry those memories with them for the rest of their lives, and helping forge them can be deeply impactful.
This rang true for me when I was in the world of fine dining, but not so much once I moved over to my little cocktail dive bar. We still host our share of milestones, but the core of our business is built around our regulars: people in the neighborhood who visit four or more times a week. They aren’t visiting my bar for some momentous occasion; in fact, they’re not visiting at all. For all intents and purposes, they live there.
This speaks to a more holistic definition of bartending. As a bartender, my job is a lot more than serving drinks - a robot could do that just as well or better. My job is to tend to the bar: curating an experience with appropriate lighting levels and music, keeping an eye out for problematic behavior and intervening as necessary, and, broadly, creating a space where people feel truly at home. After all, the word “pub” is derived from “public house.” A good neighborhood bar is like a living room that everyone in the community gets to share.
While I still enjoy the mechanical, technical, and creative elements of bartending - I wouldn’t still be doing it after all these years if I didn’t - these are secondary concerns. Creating and cultivating a space where people of all kinds can meet, mingle, and feel as safe and comfortable as they do in their own homes is how I keep finding meaning and spiritual energy tending bar.
Cheers! And keep those questions coming.
ASK COLE ANY QUESTION YOU LIKE: [email protected]
Enjoy Cole's spaces, with great cocktails, wine and events at 12 Mile Limit (500 S Telemachus St) and The Domino (3044 St Claude Ave).
MORE FEATURES
with T Cole Newton
Hi! My name is Cole. As a bartender, people ask me things: about their relationships, what they should be drinking, pop culture picks … any and all subjects are fair game. Am I an expert on any of it? Occasionally!
Q: How do you keep up the spark/drive after so many years of bartending?
I’ve been bartending on and off, but mostly on, for almost 20 years now, and I’ll admit there are times when I struggled to find meaning in the craft. It’s something I’m pretty good at, I suppose? I’ve done pretty well in some contests. But making fancy drinks doesn’t make my heart sing.
I told a friend about this crisis of faith a few year’s back, and he reminded me of something that we both learned in training at Commander’s Palace, the legendary temple of haute creole cuisine where I landed my first full-time bartending gig. The work of hospitality, in no small part, is about “making dining memories.”
People often go out when they’ve got something to celebrate: a promotion, a graduation, an engagement. The senses most prone to create a lasting memory are taste and smell, so by providing novel tastes and smells (in the form of well-made food and drinks) to associate with these events, and creating a memorable context for these experiences, we in hospitality deepen the memories that spring from them. People will carry those memories with them for the rest of their lives, and helping forge them can be deeply impactful.
This rang true for me when I was in the world of fine dining, but not so much once I moved over to my little cocktail dive bar. We still host our share of milestones, but the core of our business is built around our regulars: people in the neighborhood who visit four or more times a week. They aren’t visiting my bar for some momentous occasion; in fact, they’re not visiting at all. For all intents and purposes, they live there.
This speaks to a more holistic definition of bartending. As a bartender, my job is a lot more than serving drinks - a robot could do that just as well or better. My job is to tend to the bar: curating an experience with appropriate lighting levels and music, keeping an eye out for problematic behavior and intervening as necessary, and, broadly, creating a space where people feel truly at home. After all, the word “pub” is derived from “public house.” A good neighborhood bar is like a living room that everyone in the community gets to share.
While I still enjoy the mechanical, technical, and creative elements of bartending - I wouldn’t still be doing it after all these years if I didn’t - these are secondary concerns. Creating and cultivating a space where people of all kinds can meet, mingle, and feel as safe and comfortable as they do in their own homes is how I keep finding meaning and spiritual energy tending bar.
Cheers! And keep those questions coming.
ASK COLE ANY QUESTION YOU LIKE: [email protected]
Enjoy Cole's spaces, with great cocktails, wine and events at 12 Mile Limit (500 S Telemachus St) and The Domino (3044 St Claude Ave).
MORE FEATURES