Sand in the Coffee, Vol. 121: the slow-season bartender, and what to ask when they finally have time
The best restaurant guide on this coast isn’t an app, a top-ten list or, and this costs me something to type, this website. It’s the person behind the bar at three o’clock on a Tuesday in October, cutting limes for a dinner rush that hasn’t started yet.
In July you can’t get near that person. They’re three deep in drink tickets and haven’t made unhurried eye contact with a customer since Memorial Day. By October a good share of the summer help has long since gone back to school, the year-round crew is still here, and between lunch and dinner they have something they haven’t had since spring: time. Spend it well and you’ll eat better for the rest of your trip.
when to sit down
Between two and five on a weekday. Lunch is cleared, dinner hasn’t arrived, and the bartender is restocking and polishing and, in my experience, quietly hoping somebody interesting sits down. Be somebody interesting. Or at least somebody who isn’t on speakerphone.
Sit at the bar, not a table. A table gets you a server with five other tables. The bar gets you the whole conversation.
The timing comes with a bonus: most of the happy hours on our list start at three, and every one of them is checked against the place’s own website. You can pick the stool and the discount at the same time.
what to ask
Skip “what’s good?” That question has one answer, “everything,” delivered by someone who has heard it eleven times since lunch. You’ll be steered to the most-ordered plate, which is how it became the most-ordered plate.
Ask “what would you eat tonight if you weren’t working?” It’s the same question with the sales pitch removed. Watch for a pause before the answer. The pause is the review.
Ask “what came in today?” The fish on the board changes with what the boats bring back, and the kitchen always has a favorite. If Royal Reds are on, those are the deep-water Gulf shrimp that eat more like lobster than shrimp, and you want to hear about them before the table behind you orders the last of them.
Ask “where do you eat on your night off?” This is the single best question on the Gulf Coast. People who work in restaurants spend their nights off somewhere that’s good, fairly priced and glad to see them, which is everything you want and nothing a billboard promises. Expect a name you’ve never heard and directions that include the words “past the” and “on the left.”
Ask “who’s playing tonight, and are they worth it?” They know who’s on, who’s worth the drive and who they’d skip. Then check the time on /events/, because the bartender knows the band, not the start time.
Ask about the other side of the line. Ask a bartender on the Key about Orange Beach, and one in Orange Beach about the Key. Both will have opinions. Both opinions will be useful, and at least one will be funny.
what not to do
Don’t ask where the locals go. You’re sitting in it, and two of them are three stools down, listening.
Don’t ask for a place “nobody knows about.” If they tell you, it becomes a place you both know about, and on Friday night they’ll be standing behind you in line for a table.
Don’t nurse one iced tea for two hours. Order something, even if it’s a basket of fries to split. Tip like you plan to come back Thursday, because if the advice is any good, you will. Twenty percent is the floor. More if they drew you a map on a napkin.
Write it down. You’re going to get three names and a left turn, and you won’t remember any of it after the second Bushwacker, the frozen rum milkshake this coast runs on. Put it in your phone before the drink arrives.
one honest caveat
Fall hours shrink. Kitchens close earlier, and some places go dark a day or two a week once the season thins out. When the bartender sends you somewhere, call before you drive. Nobody knows better than restaurant people how wrong the hours online can be, and nobody will be less offended that you checked.
and then
Every local I know has one place they first heard about from somebody behind a bar. None of us will tell you its name. That isn’t meanness. It’s the system working: the stool is open, the limes are cut, and the conversation is free from two to five. Go get your own.
— Chris
P.S. Bartenders, pass this one to the owner: if your place is on this site, Key side or Orange Beach side, it’s theirs to claim, free, always: /submit/claim/
