Bartenders who worked in the 1970s through 2010 — and some still working — reunited on December 16th at The Blue Monkey, which most of them probably still refer to as “Trader Dick’s Truck Stop.” That’s what was at that location on Madison Avenue back in the day.
Surveying the guests, Henry Jones says, “A lot of whiskey has been slung among this crew here.”
“Nice to know this many bartenders are around,” Robert Brown says.
Former Kudzu’s Bar & Grill owner Steve Edmundson, along with fellow veteran bartenders Bobby Maupin and Joe Dougherty, spearheaded the reunion. “I just happened to be out and ran into Bobby and we started talking about it,” Edmundson says. “It seems like, usually when we see each other, all the old bartenders, I hate to say it, but it’s usually celebrations of life or funerals because so many of the bartenders we worked with over the years have passed away.
“So, we thought, ‘Why don’t we try to get a bunch of people together that we worked with over the years and do it so that it’s more of a party than a celebration of life?’”
They put together names and phone numbers of bartenders as well as servers from that time frame. “It started off being Overton Square and Huey’s and then, of course, we’d better add Silky’s in there, and better add Kitty’s in there.”
The list grew and they ended up getting about 80 people to the reunion.
Edmundson began mixing drinks on Union Avenue at the old Elfo’s Behind, which, he says, the late Elfo Grisanti opened after he closed his restaurant in the Snowden/Ashlar Hall “castle” on Central. “Right before mixed drinks came in. When the mixed drinks came in, a lot of people started going to Overton Square. When that happened I went to work full time at the newspaper and Huey’s part time.”
He worked in advertising for The Commercial Appeal and the old Memphis Press-Scimitar. When the newspaper went on strike in the late 1960s, Edmundson decided to major in special education at the old Memphis State University, now University of Memphis.
In addition to teaching special education full time, Edumdson also worked at Huey’s, Fantasia, Bombay Bicycle Club, where he was head bartender; Miss Kitty’s Bar & Grill; High Cotton; and Gonzales’ & Gertrude’s, which he helped open. “I think I’ve worked at about every bar in Overton Square,” he says, adding, “I never worked at Friday’s and I never worked at Godfather’s or Mississippi River Co. I had a couple of shifts at Lafayette’s [Music Room], but I just substituted.”
In 1971, Edmundson helped open the Hard Rock Cafe in London. “I guess my claim to fame was I was the first American bartender at the Hard Rock in London. I worked with Chris Jagger, Mick Jagger’s little brother, and Steve Crisman. He ended up marrying Mariel Hemingway.”
Edmundson, who also worked for a while at his brother’s bar, The Mogul, in Breckenridge, Colorado, opened Kudzu’s in 1990, and closed it in 2011.
Bartenders laughed, joked, and reminisced at the more than three-hour reunion.
And, of course, there were the stories.
Former bartender Rev. Larry Chitwood, now pastor at St. Mark’s United Methodist Church, recalls the time he noticed a former Bombay Bicycle Club patron from “back in the day” at a funeral he was officiating. “I saw him in the congregation at the funeral. And after the funeral I found him and went up to him and introduced myself and said, ‘I used to be a bartender at Bombay Bicycle Club.’”
The guy said he remembered him and they reminisced a bit. Then Chitwood said, “By the way.”
“I pulled out my wallet. I said, ‘I have a tab on you from 1982.’ And he just went to mumbling and scrambling. He said, ‘I didn’t know. I’ll be glad to pay you. I don’t have any cash.’ He thought I was serious. I told him, ‘No. I was just kidding.’”
Chitwood told another story about former Bombay Bicycle Club bartender Tom Kirkpatrick, who also was at the reunion. Kirkpatrick used to tell young bartenders, “Four quarters make a dollar.”
“In other words, a tip is a tip,” Chitwood says “And be thankful for every one you get and say, ‘Thank you.’”
If Kirkpatrick only got a quarter, he would “tap it twice on the bar and say, ‘Thank you,’” to the customer.
Chitwood considered Kirkpatrick’s advice “a great lesson to us all.”
