Behind The Bar: A Look Inside 301
Story & Photos by Noah Wright | Design by Edgar Roa & Katie Jo Stewart
As we make the long 25 foot walk across the street from the previous bar my friend looks me in the eyes and mutters through beer induced burps, “this is our last stop.”
My friend, a shorter guy wearing a tighter pair of jeans and an oversized shirt made me laugh when he said that. A last stop at 10:30 p.m.…it could almost be taken as a joke.
Getting closer to the front door we notice a group of people standing outside yelling and laughing and having a good time. Walking past, we assumed they were simply outside having a smoke break but after passing a well-dressed man he angrily barked, “hey get to the back of the line.”
“There’s never a line,” my friend said to me with a bit of confusion. He was right, very rarely had I seen a line outside the bar. I knew in that instance that we were going to be in for an eventful night.
After five minutes, that seemed like an eternity because the cold night, we were finally let in to what would be a grand and entertaining display of antics.
While we were more concerned about what music was playing and the dirty glares we were getting, the bar staff was behind the scenes working to ensure we had the night of our lives.
Upon Entry:
After passing through the doors the cold night seemed like a luxurious dream compared to the sauna that was inside the bar. “I can feel myself starting to sweat,” my friend said only seconds after stepping in.
He wasn’t wrong, it felt like 100 degrees in the front bar because of the number of people. Despite not even moving, I could feel beads of sweat building up and my throat getting drier from breathing in the hot air.
Getting to the front bar for a drink seemed like an impossible mission. You could hardly make out where the bar was because of the number of people packed together waiting their turn for a drink. It felt like we were all inside a can of sardines.
As we slowly made our way through the herd of people all I could hear over the yelling and noise was the occasional “Excuse me. I’m sorry,” as lucky guys and girls made their way away from the bar with drinks held overhead.
First Event of the Night:
Once at the bar to get a drink I was met with what seemed like a race between three people. Running back and forth, the three bartenders were moving so much I felt even more sweat building up.
Occasionally I would hear a slightly intoxicated mumble of someone saying, “how hard is it to make a drink? What’s taking so long?”
My friend similarly said to me in the moment, “maybe we should have stayed a bit longer before coming here.”
Being a bartender is not as easy as pouring a drink. Justin McCullough, 301 bartender, has been working at 301 for nearly two years. Starting as a DJ, McCullough is now a front bartender most well-known for his nickname “Stoney”.
McCullough says that there are a lot of amazing parts about working as a bartender. Learning people’s names, talking to customers, seeing people come back out and making sure people get home safe is what he says makes him love his job.
But these positive aspects do not come without struggles.
McCullough says there are many challenges that the bartenders face on any given night. “A regular challenge you face any night is people's levels of intoxication,” he says. “That is the one of the hardest things to judge, because you can have someone come in here that looks perfectly fine.”
With something like alcohol, it takes very little for someone to go from perfectly fine to really drunk. This is something that bartenders have to judge on the fly as they are also making drinks and taking orders from other customers at the bar.
McCullough says that oftentimes bartenders will question themselves because of the uncertainty about someone’s level of intoxication.
Another issue commonly ran into that many people commonly underplay is the pressure of making drinks.
“You can have 100 to 150 people standing at the bar, just making sure you get the orders down, trying to do like a sprinkler system and go a long way and then sprinkle back,” McCullough says.
He explains that there are usually three bartenders on busy, later of the week, nights and that sometimes the barback will jump in. McCullough says it’s fast paced and stressful, but it’s also a “dance” where people jump in and out with key communication.
Another key issue that bartenders at 301 commonly run into is running out of something.
Bar Manager, Nate Horton says, “we [301] crank out more drinks than any other bar in town. So, a big hiccup to that is in the middle of a rush, say 12 o'clock at night. If I run out of vodka on my guns downstairs, I gotta run down there and refill all those.”
Horton has been manager for two and a half years. He says one of his first jobs when clocking on is making sure that the bar is stocked and ready for instances when things run out or become limited.
“It’s a pretty easy process, but it’s a little time consuming, especially when we pride ourselves on speed you know,” he says. “So, making sure that those things are all topped off at the beginning of the night helps resolve those problems before they come up later on down the road.”
While Horton can sometimes be seen pouring a drink himself, he is more known for one of his other roles in the bar.
Second Event of the Night:
After getting our drinks, my friend and I left the bar to make our way onto the dance floor. However, on the way we were met with a spectacular display of dominance between two drunk guys.
“What did you say to me? You wanna take this outside? What are you gonna do?”
These words rang out as the two guys prepared to fight. But before either one of them could make a move, they were swept off by Horton and front door bouncer Dave Hartless.
In a spectacular display, the two men were taken outside and the safety of everyone was ensured for the time being.
“Everyone wants to be a bartender,” Horton says. “That’s where the money is at.”
Horton says he floats between multiple roles depending on the night. At some points he will be a bartender to help the three catch up on drinks, he will assist the barback with their duties: filling ice, making food, picking up empty drinks and sometimes he will be acting as a watchful protector to stop fights from breaking out or people from doing anything unsafe.
“My job has been cleaning this place up…make it a safe place for females, for everybody,” he says.
Horton comes from a security background and he brings that experience into his role as bar manager.
“A lot of people think it’s just enforcement, enforcement, enforcement,” he says. “You get some young 21-year-old football player who’s a big dude who just thinks bouncing is all about throwing people around and, you know, bouncing their head off the concrete.”
But that isn’t what bouncing is about according to Horton. He says the biggest part of bouncing is about picking and choosing battles and learning how to properly control situations.
“There are times to be pretty hardcore about it, but there are also times to defuse situations with words,” he says. “’I’ll buy you a drink. You want to calm down, just stay away from that other person and you guys will be good for the rest of the night.”
Horton says that’s the hardest part about bouncing, because people think that bouncing is about being a big strong person that uses physical means to stop something. “Oftentimes, those create more problems and bigger problems than what the initial infraction even would have been,” he says.
While Dave and the front bartenders monitor the front area with Hortons assistance, he mostly stands at the connection point of the front and back areas so that he can monitor the dancefloor.
Third Event of the Night:
Despite the potential fight being broken up, people were still talking about it and you could feel the energy in the bar start to lift as drunken individuals were being excited by the thought of a fight.
That excitement was only lifted further by the loud and energy-inducing music blasting from the dancefloor. As we rounded the corner to the back area I was met with even more people. If the front bar was a can of sardines, the dance floor was a blob of people almost stuck together.
“Is anyone even dancing?” my friend said to me as you couldn’t make out any distinct movements between people.
As we squirmed our way through the crowd to get to the actual stage I could feel the pressure from the speakers as Pop, Rap and R&B music sent shockwaves of bass through my body. Despite everyone dancing and having a good time, I couldn’t help but notice some commotion near the DJ booth as some upset patrons were not happy with the music.
“I didn’t request this song, why aren’t you playing it yet?” is what I heard over and over as different individuals voiced their displeasure of the music that only seemed to upset that one person.
“It’s not that hard to play music,” one upset girl said as she tried to storm her way through the crowd.
Every employee works their way through different positions, according to Horton and McCullough. Starting as a DJ, employees then become a barback, then back bartender and then front bartender.
But Horton says being a DJ is more than just playing music.
“You’re [the DJ] the eyes on the dance floor,” he says. “You’re gonna be the first person who tells me if there’s a problem I have to deal with.”
According to Horton, the DJ has to address multiple things while also playing music: spilled drinks, broken glass, people crying in the corner, potential fights, vaping on the dance floor, the list goes on.
“It’s not just sitting in the booth playing music and having a good time, it’s a pretty hard job because you always have to stay vigilant,” Horton says.
McCullough himself started as a DJ and says, “You don't want people just sitting down not having a good time kind of feeling depressed, you want to play upbeat, positive, energizing type music, get the crowd going.”
McCullough says that playing music is a hard balance because as a rule he tried not to play the same song during the same night. “But if it's like eight p.m. and one a.m., a lot of those people won't remember,” he says.
McCullough also says that the DJ is always keeping an eye on the system: making sure everything is set up right, monitoring the volume of the speakers, incorporating requests so that the music flows smoothly.
“They control the tempo for sure,” he says. “You notice like if you have a lot of dance songs, throwing in a slower song calms and the bar fills up really quick, just because people are less inclined to dance or something like that.”
To End the Night:
After what seemed like a blur of a night, everyone’s least favorite moment arrived.
Coming from the speakers like an alarm waking us up for the morning we heard “Closing time” signifying our night of surprises and partying was over. As people shuffled out, closed tabs, called rides and used the bathroom one last time, the only sound I could hear was the Velcro-like rip as shoes peeled off the sticky and wet floor.
Throughout the night drinks were spilled, people fell and joy was had. But for the workers of 301 their job was still far from over, after everyone left they now began the strenuous process of cleaning the mess created by everyone during the night. Just to do these same things the next night.
So, while people may think that bartenders only make drinks, bouncers only fight and DJs only play music, the hidden roles of these different positions span wide ranges, all of which come together to give us customers the most enjoyable experience.
