Finding humanity at a post-Trump bar top
Sitting at a bar top is an intensely intimate choice. There you are, face to face with the bottles you’ll be chasing all night and a bartender who, in the best of circumstances, leans forward with eager ears. Your stool, too, lonely without table cloths and the buzz of a dining room. The bar top is an archipelago in the global sense of a restaurant.
At Ste. Ellie in Denver’s LoHi neighborhood, this archipelago leans more Atlantis, downstairs beneath Colt & Gray under gold lightings and a wall of mirrors — reflections of loners and lovers sitting next to one another.
It is here, behind cocktails and a plate of oysters, that we all sit on this fateful Wednesday night, the night after the cataclysm of America.
That’s right…Donald Trump is the new President-Elect of the United States of America.
For much of history, the relationship between bartender and patron has been more than just one of business, certainly therapeutic and at times even institutionally faithful. Standing behind the DMZ, there is the bartender, stoic or not, awaiting with note pads of shakers and mixing glasses. Their wisdom doesn’t come for free, but with the exchange of basic human currency: respect. Coming in, loud and snarky, will get you little more than a pour and a check. It is with respect, even a base-level amount reserved for anyone because they are, you know, human, that the relationship and the doctor-client privilege is commenced. But here, tonight, there is no DMZ to be found. We are all raw, our worst fears not just open to be seen by the world, but the very fabric of our souls exposed, however fragile or grotesque. Who are we? If we are to judge by what we witnessed 24 hours before, we are this…apparently.
One Ferrari, a blend of Fernet and Campari, leads gracefully into another. Then whiskey, tequila for others. Beer on tap and barkeep choice cocktails. There aren’t smiles here, at least not the ones I’ve come to expect with one of the best bars in Denver. Laughter is hallow, joy of the overwhelmingly white guest pool rendered meaningless for those aware enough to see the context within which their lives now exist. This is the bar I have so often come for evaluations as to the state of my unions, with friends and lovers and more. Tonight, though, I simply see disillusioned faces among those I’ve come with and those we’ve met.
That’s right…Donald Trump is the new President-Elect of the United States of America.
“Blood relations only go so far,” says our bartender, speaking of a family member living in Georgia who had openly expressed her jubilee following Tuesday night’s election returns on social media. Once seeing the post, our barkeep contacted said relative to inform her that their relationship, from that moment forward, was terminated.
Her eyes dart left, towards the rear corner of the bar just in front of a black curtain that hides stairs leading towards the restaurant above and its charcuterie room. There sits her fiancé, the second half of a couple now facing an executive administration that couldn’t be more openly hostile to their rights, their existence. Their wedding, scheduled for next August, is likely moving up.
“There were times tonight where I’d turn around to the back of the bar and just start tearing up,” she says. “I’ve never had that happen to me at work.”
Trump’s victory in Tuesday’s election and the solemn mood of her bar top on Wednesday only reminds her of one other national tragedy where such a mood was palpable in her professional environment. That was Sandy Hook, which rendered her DUMBO restaurant and bar in Brooklyn speechless.
Bartenders play the kind of role in our society that is often overlooked, but critically essential to our evolution as a society. With every drink they pour for a patron, a contract is signed. Your secrets are safe here, with me, behind this bar. It is, in all but the most egregiously misguided establishments, a contract that is binding. It is also a one way deal.
We, as patrons, visit the bar top for celebration, escape, or anything else. It is an intensely selfish experience, which is why such a contract between bartender and patron is a one way deal. Even through our best intentions, no one wants to sit at a bar and listen to the problems of a barkeep—reason (pick a fucking number) why I believe tenders of bar are among the least fairly compensated professionals in the world.
Tonight, though, there are no unspoken contracts of bar top ethics, no lines between guest and professional. We’re all here, as exposed as I mentioned before, together.
“I felt more humanity in this bar than I’ve ever felt,” she says incredulously. “People are really feeling it right now.”
The ice cube in my mezcal cocktail has begun to melt, diluting my drink slowly over the course of our evening. With that, the smoky bitterness that was showcased originally has faded, as orange oil and the spirit’s floral capacity jumps to the forefront. It mimics our discourse, becoming easier to swallow and brighter in nature.
Perhaps Trump’s rhetoric was pandering, a ploy to get him elected by fringe groups of American society that have been broadly shunned, though not entirely disenfranchised, by the GOP for years. There is a chance that he, a life-long Democrat until recently, simply chose the platform that gave him the best chance to win the White House and plans on being a more progressive candidate than we imagined. Another possibility is that he’ll simply be a lame-duck President who accomplishes nothing of true substance, despite holding a death grip on all three branches of government.
Through it all, hopeful speculation from the bar top, six or seven drinks in, fighting to find a gasp of light—only to be stomped out with Thursday morning rumors of the impending Cabinet.
“Tonight we can be sad,” says my partner. “Tomorrow we fight.”
