The Transition To Virtual
Covid hit us back in March 2020. I remember sitting at a manager’s meeting in February 2020 at The Bungalow Club, where I was the Bar Manager, and Covid was brought up. Our Chef and owner, Andrew Kraft said, “This will definitely affect business.” How right he was. Within two weeks of us having our most successful month ever, we would be shut down.
For three and a half months I focused on writing the book I have been working on for two years. As I started sending out queries, we were notified that in-person dining would resume. I would start making and creating craft cocktails for guests. Where our bar program used to rely heavily on classic cocktails, we decided that the cocktails would transition to fun and easily executed beverages. I looked more into seasonal flavors, tiki cocktails, and current events for inspiration.
We opened with two cocktails on tap and seven batched cocktails for our cocktail menu. We had our amazing Old Fashioned, a Manhattan, as well as a Mezcal Paloma and Margarita on tap. The other five cocktails rotated as seasonal flavors and local produce changed.
The biggest change, however, was the insecurity of the staff and issues with guest behavior. We never imagined that asking guests to wear masks or telling people they could only have groups of six people or fewer would be an issue. Guests didn’t want to follow the rules, we were in masks for ten hours a day, and because of the limited capacity, we had a smaller staff so we were taking more steps. I remember thinking that a day with 18,000 steps during a shift was easy - I usually averaged around 24,000.
As August came about, cases were on the rise again and I had injuries that were affecting me. My wrist was hurting a bit when I was shaking cocktails.
Earlier in 2020, I was on a Zoom call with a bunch of local bartenders from local craft cocktail bars. One of them said he was having great success doing virtual events: so much so that he was turning people away. For the past five years I gave in-personal cocktail classes. The idea to become a virtual mixologist seeded in that call and was beginning to sprout.
I have an unfinished basement, the knowledge of designing a cocktail making course online, so I moved my daughter’s art area to the other side of the basement and started to build.
