Times I have been in bars on Thanksgiving

Today it was simple for me to think of what I am thankful for and anyone who has put in a good few years in hospitality or retail already knows what I’m going to say and that is, I didn’t have to work.

The above title of this article was a chapter idea that didn’t fit in my novel about my years in the Manhattan restaurant world. I didn’t end up using chapter titles, though I have learned that readers like them and perhaps my super non-linear book could have used them. Alas. Also who can resist that kind of double entendre? Because you see, I am the one behind said bar on Thanksgiving.

Today is the sum total of your life’s decisions, my friend Tim said not long ago, and sliding behind the bar on a family holiday like this one will make you really go over those decisions as you start juicing oranges and slicing limes while your family, kids and assorted loved ones are somewhere enjoying their precious time together.

Lots of people have to work on holidays of course; doctors, nurses, train conductors. People we call essential. Perhaps they knew it comes with the field. Cops and Firefighters also. We call them heros. If you find yourself bartending on Christmas Eve, you are not a hero.

Eating in a restaurant is the opposite of what Thanksgiving is supposed to be about. There is nothing essential about it. Lots of people disagree with me, I get it. And if you want to go to the bar on Thanksgiving, fine go ahead, but leave me out of it.

I always railed against having to work in a restaurant on these special holidays. It infuriated me. It infuriated me mostly because, it was a reminder of those life choices and how I was in a shitty job doing something I hated, serving people I simply wished weren’t there. Every single customer was the physical embodiment of why I wasn’t home with my family. “Sucks you gotta work on Thanksgiving, bruh…”

The thought of the owner of the place; at home with his sock feet up on the ottoman dribbling pie crumbs onto his Christmas sweater made my blood boil more than anything.

If you eat in a restaurant on a holiday, you should remember that no matter how much they may protest to the contrary; how many smiles and jokes there are and how good the service — you are deeply resented by everyone you come in contact with, and this whole arrangement has ruined many people’s holiday and please don’t do it again.

I skillfully wiggled out of it most years. The transactions begin months in advance. The trades, and bargains and schedule requests. “Hasan’s Muslim, he’ll take my Christmas Eve…”

Christmas is on a Monday this year and Mondays I’m off anyway…

It’s degrading.

If enough people don’t care or want to make the extra money — let them, but if not, the place should close. I’m not saying it should be law, I’m not saying let’s pass legislation — I’m saying it’s wrong. There are many other religious holidays that are off limits from employers, but I don’t want to go down that path either.

Once, I had to go back to a bar gig because I was in-between production jobs and being the new guy meant that my holidays that year were basically torched. I had to be at this place at 9:30 in the morning on Thanksgiving to start cutting enough fruit to get us through what would be a marathon shift in this Times Square Thunder Dome of a popular restaurant. Every couple hours, Radio City disgorges a fresh hoard of lunatics into the bar waiting for their reservation. I will never forget how I felt that morning. Like I had done everything wrong up to that point that I was required to do this.

I started to quietly complain because, well what else was there to do?

One of the other bartenders shut me down. “I don’t want to hear that all day. You have a job. Be grateful. Your family will be there when you get home,” and he was right.

That place made a huge “Family Meal,” for Thanksgiving meal; turkey and everything that goes with which we hastily piled onto a plate. A valiant attempt at levity and thanks made worse somehow by its’ own existence. Jostle for position somewhere to sit and eat before the place opens — shit there’s no more forks — go find a fork… I looked down at it and it hit to me. This meal was made by someone who had to get there even earlier than I did — who was working even harder and for less money. How could I even eat it? How could I not? I had to work for the entire day and evening. And so it goes. The manager started the pre shift meeting, “Happy Thanksgiving, thank you for working today…”

“We had to,” someone quipped bitterly.

There is always someone above you on the food chain and there is always someone below. A few years ago when stores started having their “Black Friday,” sales on Thanksgiving night, the first thing I thought of was the minimum wage earners who now had to leave their homes in the middle of the afternoon on Thanksgiving and I felt a terrible sadness for them because I knew how powerless they felt. I have never spent a dime on Black Friday and I encourage you not to either.

Of course I am writing this in a different time than I lived it and many of our favorite restaurants are likely to close for good as the pandemic returns and they have to close for the holidays. This year, eating in a restaurant on Thanksgiving could be called patriotic.

I am thankful that I will not ever go back to that life, but I am thankful for the perspective it has given me. I am thankful I and my loved ones have made it through this crisis with little more than a nagging ennui.

Thank you , thank you, thank you.