These days, I am a living, breathing, stout-drinking member of the Irish pub community. I never knew this was an actual thing, but Irish pubs are certainly something different and special. All over the world, Irish pubs provide a particular ambiance and comfort zone for English speakers and locals alike. There's a consistency among them: stouts, ales, ciders, and whiskeys in abundance, fish and chips and Irish stew to fill your belly, and a friendly-staff to make you feel included.

My pub is much the same and among our small staff (currently six of us), we have ourselves a little Irish pub family. We help each other, tell each other things, get annoyed, criticize, complain, you name it, the emotion has been flung around. My boss describes his love-hate relationship with his employees to others, and that term really hits the nail on the head. That stereotypical Irish temper is certainly deeply ingrained in him, despite 30 years in Germany. Luckily, also the fun, drinking Irishman is also in there to balance things out. He's also quite the joker and pokes a lot of fun. I often remind him that he's lucky I do not have low self-esteem because I'd be one step from falling the cliff. In the past couple of weeks, two of my best friends have joined the family, and it's been total glee. Well, totally glee until we get in trouble for talking to each other too much and neglecting our oh so loyal customers. Speaking of loyal customers, we have quite the regular crowd. We know their names, their orders, and some of them are so freaking invariable I don't even have to tally up their bill, because it's €8.90 every day.

I woke up this morning confused. Why do I feel under the weather? I only had a cider after work. Oh wait Alex, no you didn't, you all went drinking after and you had a cider + four gin and tonics. Our boss asked the three of us if we wanted to grab a beer after work. He clearly did not mean beer, and when the boss is paying, we go for the good stuff. One of my favorite moments of the night was talking about how I don't every buy beer for my flat because I'd have to carry it up 4 flights of stairs. My boss was like why the hell would you ever by beer? And it's true, I get the best beer in town, locally brewed, for free!



Last week, the pub celebrated it's fifth birthday with a big party. Normally, we cannot drink on the job (at least until the end of the night), but this birthday party was an exception. It was a packed night, but an easy day at work because everyone on staff was "working" that evening.









Does this seem like a ramble? I do not even know. My goal was to provide a glance into my life, which at the moment is the pub life. At the pub, everyone knows your name. We serve the best beer in town and offer an exclusive stout and ale. I love working at a place that does not feel like work. This is my first job on the restaurant/bar scene and the fact that I get to talk to people all evening (which my boss loves making fun of how I never shut up) and have my friends come in and hang out while I "work", I cannot even complain (except I do always find something to complain about, but then we give ourselves a reality slap over the back of the head).

What do you think about Irish pubs?