The Dogpatch Saloon

This last Saturday, I went to San Francisco with some friends from Davis to go bar hopping. We were staying with Jon Gold who lives by AT&T Park in the Dogpatch, and started the night out at the Dogpatch Saloon, the sole dive bar near his apartment. The bartender was wasted and incapable of doing basic addition (she couldn't add 4 and 10) and seemed unsure about drink prices. We went to a few other bars around the city, but at the end of the night ended up back at the Dogpatch Saloon. There was now a different bartender who seemed more familiar with the bar.

My friends started getting tired and leaving, until just two of us were left in the bar finishing our beers. The bartender and I started chatting and he asked me what I was doing the next day from 4 to 8. I said nothing and he asked if I wanted to come back and tend bar. I agreed, and since I had been drinking was very intent on coming back and tending bar to prove my commitment to this job. I woke up the next morning and remembered that I had agreed to work. My friends left the city and I spent the afternoon shopping downtown to pass time until 4pm.

At 4, I went down to my new job. The man who had hired me was not working but the old African American men greeted me by name when I showed up for work and were insistent that I stick around and meet the owner even though the girl whose shift I was apparently meant to cover had shown up unannounced. They asked me to stick around for 30 minutes, then sent me down into the basement to meet the owner - a man with a large mustache whose office was located amongst tons of normal home basement crap. His main concern wasn't that an employee had essentially hired a drunk girl off the street to come in and work after finding her in the bar around 2am but more that I thought I would be tending bar when he had been looking for more of a cocktail waitress. I know nothing about bartending and the prospect of working at this bar seemed to be quickly disappearing - they seemed interested in someone who could work at least part-time and lived in the city. When asked if I was a bartender elsewhere, I replied, "No, I actually work in the wine industry." As if that explained this entire situation I had gotten myself into. I was asked to speak with the man who hired me the night before via phone to try to fix this mix-up about bartending versus waitressing. He said something along the lines of, "I thought we had discussed your work duties last night - but it's hard to remember because we talked about so much last night. Either way, you deserve to get paid, can you come by tomorrow night between 6 and closing? I'll be working then." Although I live in Petaluma and there is no way I will be in between those hours on a Monday night, I said yes to try to accelerate the process of getting this experience over with. I'm sending Jon Gold in as my representative tonight, and we'll see what happens. To be continued.