Mixin' It Up

A white-collar editor takes a stab at one of Springfield’s splashiest, toughest jobs. Can he hack it, or is he just pre-’tending?

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Editor Matt Lemmon was all smiles at the beginning of his shift at Red Room.

Click here to learn more about our Bartenders' Bash event on January 27.

Let’s get one thing straight: I was a thoroughly middle-class kid, and am a thoroughly middle-class adult, but I’ve never been blue-collar. My first job was as an usher at a local movie theater, my second job at a bank. I’ve had brief stints as a stocker at an Ozark grocery store and as a push-mower for a lawn service: Neither gig lasted a month. It’s not that I’m averse to laborious work, far from it; I’m simply conditioned to, shall we say, cushier environs.

So naturally, when planning this feature, the idea of Matt Lemmon as a bartender struck some as funny, others as novel. Fortunately, the publishers of this magazine liked the idea as an in-depth reporting piece leading up to our January 27 Bartenders’ Bash event (see page 14 for details). Ergo, I called up Mike Jalili, owner of three of Springfield’s most highbrow bars: Red Room, Romeo y Julieta’s and the bar at Touch Restaurant. He and the managers at Red Room (314 W. Walnut St., 417-862-4444) graciously agreed to let me take a crash course in making, serving and cleaning up at one of downtown’s nicest joints. What follows is an account of my one and only night working in the service industry.

God help your souls.

On Wednesday, January 2, I reported for duty at the Red Room at 4 p.m. on the button. I wore a black dress shirt and black pants—proper attire, much to my satisfaction. Jen Probyn, general manager for Red Room and Flame, the restaurant upstairs, immediately began my training. To my excitement, there were already customers in the bar.

Jen informed me that, typically, bartender training at Jalili-owned businesses lasts a week or more, since bartenders are expected to know the entire extensive menu, as well as the wine list. Red Room employees are also asked to know cigars, too, as the bar has a small humidor. If a customer wants a fancier smoke, cigars can also be fetched from Romeo y Julieta’s, just down Walnut Street at Bijan’s.