Boston women pick up slack

Follow Survive and Thrive: Boston around the Hub as we visit local bars and talk with servers moonlighting to supplement their income.

By Michael Del Rosso

Megan McDonough - Church of Boston, 69 Kilmarnock St.

Megan McDonough, 23, started serving in high school and says she's stuck with restaurant work because it's "something you can do during school, it's cash and [the hours] are always really flexible."

During the day she is a rental broker, which pays only when she can sell an apartment. Sometimes she doesn't know when her next commission check will come so she leans more on the steady, night-to-night income that working at the Fenway restaurant, Church of Boston, provides.

"I've been here the longest and I can make my own hours," Megan said. "I can add an extra day to make ends meet on a slow week."

And she said on a good weekend night, she can make more than $200.

Megan worked at the Irish bar An Tua Nua and at the upscale Mantra when she attended Emmanuel College. She got to know the Fenway area well and liked the laid-back environment. Mantra, in Downtown Crossing, and An Tua Nua, by Fenway Park, have more upbeat locales, attracting a higher-energy crowd, she said.

Church of Boston's clientele reflects this laid-back mood, she said. The bar has more of a neighborhood feel; a lot of the regular customers live nearby. And she said those visiting the area come for the quality of food and service, not because it's a hot spot.

"We're kind of a hidden gem," she said.

For women who want to be servers in Boston, Megan says, "Know what you're getting into." She has some friends in the business, she said, who wear skimpier outfits and work in places that concentrate more on image. Sure, they make good tips, more than her sometimes, but people aren't necessarily coming there for the quality of service.

"You have to realize what you want from [serving]," she said.

While Megan admits she makes less at Church of Boston than at a busier bar, she loves the more sophisticated clientele, the stress-free environment, and the good group of people she works with.

And perhaps the best part:

"You're not taking [serving] home with you," she said. "You do it, you make your money and you leave it here."

Emily O'Brien - Sidebar, 14 Bromfield St.

Emily O'Brien, 23, started serving at the downtown Sidebar, after she broke her leg snowboarding and couldn't hold her job tending bar at the Pour House on Boylston Street.

"It's not like any other job where I could take time off because I was injured," Emily said.

But Pour House shutting the door on her opened an opportune window for Emily. Her friend was leaving Sidebar and Emily took her place. She was quick to take another job tending bar; the flexibility worked well with her freelance photography career, she said.

Emily's tips on tips

At Sidebar, Emily runs the whole bar in the left room and, therefore, doesn't have to share her tips.

"When I worked at the Pour House we had to pool our tips," she said. Some nights, she would earn $600 on her own, while the other bartenders would earn significantly less than this. At the end of the night, however, each bartender would get an equal share of the tips, she said.

"I might only get $200, when I know I earned more," she said.

Now she makes 100 percent of the tips SHE earns and said she can run the bar a lot more smoothly by herself.

"I have a better flow when it's just me," she said.

Emily also works primarily during the day, the lunch shift, on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. She has built up a rapport with her regulars and knows which customers to go to first.

"When the Suffolk Construction guys come in after work, I go right over to them," she said. "I know if I take care of them, they will tip me well."

On Mondays and Wednesdays, Emily will work into the night, a double-shift (roughly 13 hours). On a good Wednesday, she can earn $500, she said.

Emily said there's also a way to deal with people.

"You can't get pissed off at customers," she said. "That's how you make your money."

One of her pet peeves are customers who won't leave credit-card tabs open and ask her to swipe the card for every round.

"Instead of getting mad at them," she said, "I'll usually make a joke of them continually giving me their credit card: 'Wow, my hand is getting really tired swiping this!'"

If she handles the matter lightly, Emily can usually get her way without offending any meal tickets.

Emily's advice on finding a job

If you can't get a bartender job right away, start off as a waitress. A lot of restaurants/bars will promote waitresses from within to bartenders, who tend to make more money.

Don't go to bartenders' school. Most places only care about experience.

If you don't have a lot of experience, focus on what you do know in the interview. The main goal is to get in the door. As long as you have some serving experience, you can figure out a lot going along. Emily admitted she didn't make Redheaded Sluts (a popular shot) right for the first month and nobody really noticed.

Go where the crowds are. As spring rolls around, look for bars in the Fenway area, where the Red Sox play. They will be looking for more staff. In the summer months, places with outside drinking will be opening up. And in the fall, the Garden area by North Station will see a sports-fan surge as basketball and hockey season begin.

Try to find a friendly face. If you already know someone working at the bar, your application may be put on top of strangers'.

Caitlin Tierney - J.A. Stats, 99 Broad St.

Caitlin Tierney, 25, started tending bar in Sydney, Australia when she lived there for a year. They don't make tips Down Under, but she thought it would be a good way to have fun while working and meet people, she said.

When she returned to the States, she got a regular 9-to-5 job in advertising. But it didn't pay what she ideally wanted and she fell back on her Aussie-learned skill to supplement her income, she said.

"I can get by with my 9-to-5 job, but tending bar gives me money for the things I want to do," she said.

Caitlin works at J.A. Stats on Broad Street in the Financial District every Thursday night. And she'll pick up Friday and Saturday shifts as they come. After working all day in advertising and all night at the bar on Thursdays, Caitlin's a little tired on Fridays, she said. But she has ways to cope with burning the candle at both ends.

Mind over matter

Caitlin said she's trained herself to adapt to those long Thursdays.

"I know, if I'm working Thursday, that I'm not going to get to bed until 2 a.m.," she said. "I'll go to bed super early on Wednesday to prepare, 9:30 p.m. at the latest."

If she can get nine or 10 hours of sleep on Wednesday, she has a little more energy on Thursday, she said. When she works on Friday nights too, Caitlin said she has to break through that 3 p.m. wall, however.

"Right around 2 or 3 p.m. I'll have some caffeine," she said. "And the change of pace and scenery [from the office to the bar], having to serve customers on your feet, keeps my mind off how tired I am."

The fast-paced nature of her night job will carry her well into the evening until the crowds start to thin, she said.

Some nights, no degree of preparedness can equip Caitlin for the "horrible clients" she may run into, she said. But she doesn't let those people get to her and remembers, "Life is what you make of it," she said.

While they make her work as hard or harder than other customers and tip less, Caitlin chooses to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel: "cold hard cash."

"At the end of the night, I will have all this money in my hand and realize that I stuck through it," she said. "Maybe that jerk tipped OK and maybe I'm not that tired." That's when Caitlin can forgive and forget, she said.

Location, location, location

But Caitlin has noticed less money since the economy took a downturn, she said.

"On a Thursday night, I used to average between $250 and $350," she said. "But now I make between $200 and $300."

Caitlin attributes her cut in tips to the fact that J.A. Stats is located in the Financial District. Some of the regular clients, who used to run up large tabs and stay later, have now lost their jobs and aren't around anymore, she said.

"And the fear of losing their jobs [in finance] has kept a lot of people around here from drinking as much," she said.

J.A. Stats depends more on an after-work crowd because it sits in the middle of businesses and not in a "more high concentration of bars" like Faneuil Hall, she said. When Caitlin used to work at The Rack, now the Hard Rock Cafe in Faneuil Hall, she noticed a lot of business on the weekends and little flow during the week.

"J.A. Stats is off the beaten path and a little bit of a walk for people visiting Boston on a Friday or Saturday night," she said. "But we will have more business during the week than bars in Faneuil Hall because of workers nearby."