Bartenders witness pickups, breakups from behind the counter
Davison senior Trevor Thomas last spring was working at Wayside Central when a drunk man was hitting on one of the bartenders.
The man eventually vomited into his beer, which overflowed and spilled all over the bar. Thomas had to clean it up and kick the man out of the bar, he said.
“That was one of the biggest fails I've ever seen," Thomas said.
Thomas’ story is just one of many for Mount Pleasant bar employees. Central Michigan Life visited some Mount Pleasant bars to see what personal stories they have involving bar patrons as well as interesting couples’ stories.
At Wayside, Romeo senior Jenna Schultz once saw a couple on a date going through a rough patch. They broke up for a short period and got back together — until the girlfriend saw him making out with another woman at Wayside. They broke up.
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“We honestly laugh a lot because we see so much crazy stuff," Schultz said. "You can tell (people) to stop as much as you want — they don’t care, they’ll do it anyway. It makes for (good) stories."
Sometimes a man will pick up a woman's entire tab if they're dating, Schultz said, which usually surprises her at the end of the night.
Some couples, Schultz said, should skip the bar and "get a room."
"Don’t make the bar or the dance floor your bedroom for the night," Schultz said.
These are not stripper dollars
Kaitlyn Koss has been a bartender at the Blue Gator Sports Pub & Grill for just about a month and a half. She already has seen her share of stories.
On Thursday, Koss also saw a guy and girl "sucking each other's faces" at length while she tried to give the man his card back.
A customer asked to order food and then immediately asked for her phone number. She also saw a girl make out with six different guys in one night.
A few weeks ago a man from Texas tipped the Mid-Michigan Community College student $200 for a Bud Light.
Koss works with Macomb County sophomore Madeline Solomon at the Blue Gator, which is connected to the Encore, The Nightclub.
Solomon said a drunk man once asked a bartender to marry him. People have written notes on receipts that say, "I love you" and "Here's my number."
Another time, two girls on a date left her dollar bills and promised they were not stripper dollars with a winky face, they wrote.
Solomon advises couples who come to the Blue Gator or Encore not to fight.
“Don’t get mad when your boyfriend is ordering drinks from me," she said. "Sometimes they’ll (say), ‘Why are you looking at her like that?’ That’s annoying. I’m just trying to give him a drink, that’s it.”
One crazy date
Ben Breidenstein, manager of the Bird Bar & Grill recalled a good date gone wrong during an afternoon two summers ago.
A man was on a date with a younger woman and they enjoyed themselves for about two hours. Before Breidenstein knew it, a minivan pulled up front and a woman burst through the door. She slapped the customer and he said, “How dare you.” She dragged him through the front and into the minivan with children in the car and they peeled out.
“I’ve never seen that before," Breidenstein said. "There was only eight-to-10 people at the bar at the time too so everybody just went to a dead stop.”
Breidenstein called the police for the sake of the children who may have been in danger. He never found out what happened.
“That’s definitely the craziest thing I’ve seen with a couple in here," he said.
Despite the occasional drama, Breidenstein said relationships start at the Bird all the time.
“I can’t tell you how many couples have come back here 20 years later. (They say), ‘I remember when we met here for the first time and we sat in that booth,” he said. “I’ve heard billions of stories like that. They come back and they want to reminisce about the first time they met or the first date they went on.”
