The Classroom and the Meal

The Classroom and the Meal


My first career happened in my Dad’s family restaurant.  It’s an Italian-American place, opened on the site of an old Irish bar & grill on Binghamton’s East Side after the Big War.  It’s a hub of the community, and it was a great place to learn how to work—and how to work with people.

The first time I ever had to really work with people was the day after Dad fired the best bartender the place had ever known.  Dad told me I was going to replace the guy.  I didn’t even know how to pour a draft beer.  I could drink; I could drink really well.  But there’s no way that could be a bona fide to tend bar there.
Dad told me that he needed family behind the bar.  That, he said, was the nerve—and money—center of the whole operation.  If he had a son running the bar, the bottom line would improve dramatically.

But Dad!  I don’t know the difference between a martini and a Manhattan!  I can’t tell Bombay gin from sloe gin!  The old regulars—the drunken country clubbers—will eat me alive!

No problem, Joseph: Windy will train you.

Windy Cornell was old.  He was about 83 when I went behind the stick with him.  Windy was so old, he had tended bar at speakeasies before FDR repealed Prohibition.  The man was a legend in Binghamton’s drinking community.  I was to learn from the very best.

The problem was, Windy’s bartending was so organic, so much a part of his life, that he couldn’t teach it.  He could as easily have instructed me in breathing or digestion.  I’d try to mix a drink—a whiskey sour, for example—and he’d teach me by slapping the elbow of my pouring arm upward: more!  More!  Okay, STOP!  It got so bad that I was shaking the drinks without even using the metal half.

Windy’s customers were…Windy’s customers.  They’d look at me as if I was the ghetto punk eyeballing them as they finished using the ATM (although neither existed in Binghamton in 1980).  With both Windy and me behind the bar, I might as well have called myself the bar back—the old fellow’s caddy.

Finally, Dad told me to go to work with Tony.  Tony was a gentle walrus of a man, a jowly, jolly Italianish guy with eyes like Santa Claus.  Everyone loved Tony—he had that really special talent for making people relax.
I prayed that it’d work with me when I climbed back there.

My first statement to Tony was “Tone—I don’t know any of the drinks!”  He immediately replied, “Drinks are bullshit.” 
Sacrilege!  How could this charlatan have fooled my Dad?  He must not be a real bartender! 

Tony being Tony, though, read my face at once.  “Drinks are bullshit,” he repeated.  Bartending is people.”  I frowned in lack of comprehension—I was terrified and disoriented.  “Bartending is getting people to relate to you, the bartender.  If you can’t get them to relax and accept you fast, you can know every drink, be the fastest pour in town, and nobody’ll want to sit at your bar.  But if you do get them to let their guard down, they’ll love you—and they’ll drink more with you.”

Having had absolutely no luck with the old-school method, I decided to try Tony’s way.  If I didn’t know a drink, I learned to ask the guy who ordered it how to mix it.  Of course, I got some barbs from the regulars.  But I shrugged, smiled, and took ‘em.  I learned, they drank good drinks, and we started to get along fine.  We became real friends, and looked forward to seeing one another—they at the end of their day, me at the beginning of mine.

So now you’re wondering about the title of this story.  “The classroom and the meal”—what does that have to do with learning how to tend bar?  Or teaching?  Okay, here it is:

As newbie teachers, we tend to think that Knowing and Delivering Content is our paramount responsibility.  I, for one, realized pretty quickly that, with apologies to Tony, “content is bullshit.”  I don’t mean that we can be blissfully ignorant of the stuff we’re supposed to teach about.  Far from it. 

A great bartender is adept at mixology.  He customizes drinks to the tastes of his individual customers—usually without them even thinking about it, because the drinks are always just right.  A great bartender knows when to interject himself into a patron’s personal space, and when to interrupt a conversation—and when not to.  A great bartender knows his priorities: house first, wait staff second, bar customers third, tip jar last.  He knows that taking care of business first—and doing it happily and efficiently—fills his tip jar.  He can’t give the place away; that wins him cheap adulation—and no severance pay.

I built my teaching career around Tony the Bartender’s philosophy.  I thank him every day.

The analogy extends, now that you’re with me, to the whole idea of dining in a restaurant. 

My school day is divided into 42 minute classes.  To me, that chunk of time corresponds roughly to a meal at Friendly’s.  Quick food: fast service, cheap, deep-fried entrees, lots of salt and sugar.  But a good server can make it relaxing and homey.  You just can’t order stuff off the menu, or substitute salad for fries.

Consider: what would a fast food classroom be?  Hectic pace, overcrowded, harried staff, mechanical movements and buzzers and beepers every minute or two.  Personally, I usually suffer some minor indigestion.  And how do you feel twenty minutes later?  Blaahhh...

So what restaurant would serve the ideal lesson?  Think about it for a moment…

Mine would be comfortable—just the right lighting, temperature, and sound level.  Silence and din are turnoffs, as are pitch black and glaring light.  Physically, I’m Goldilocks: I want it just right. 

With those senses satisfied, I’m ready for the order to be taken.  A great waiter (of either gender) must be smart, have a sense of humor, be attuned to the customer, and able to modify and adjust any part of the experience and presentation at the drop of a look.  Accuracy—no olives on my salad, extra sauce on her al dente pasta, halfway between medium-rare and medium on the steak—is critical.  Individualized preferences are must-dos.

You need to be able to savor every morsel, to linger over the perfect cup of coffee after a great meal.  You’ll tell your friends about how good everything was.  You’ll want to go back again, knowing that your order will be cherished and cared for.  You’ll measure other dining experiences against it; most will fall short.  You may try to model your home dinners after this wonderful evening; you really don’t think you’ll be able to pull it off, so maybe you ask for the chef to come out to your table. 

She’s humble, gracious, sweating and grease splattered.  She smells of smoke and herbs.  She’s proud of her work, and is flattered to be honored with the request for a visit.  She tells you just enough about her mushroom soup recipe so that you’ll be able to figure it out—if you work at it really hard. 

She’s the ideal teacher.