A Bouncer, Beers, and a Belmar Bar Hop
I’ve been in a lot of bars in my life (oh, stop bragging, Al) and even worked in a few of them. The best bar I’ve ever been to and worked at was Mary’s Husband’s Pub in Belmar, NJ.
Now if you think working at a bar that you loved would be fun…
...you’d be wrong.
When not working at Mary’s, they had turtle races, Screwie Louie (DJ), Richie Meyer (One Man One Guitar One Good Time), The Lynch Boys, and a variety of the best shore bands at the time. The irony is that when I worked at Mary’s they had all those same things, but now I was on the outside of the glass looking in.
I worked in many bars that were fun where I was also a patron, but shore bars are a different animal.
Do you remember that I mentioned turtle races?
Working in a non-shore bar is fine: big crowds, good music, friendly (and not so friendly) people. It’s not hard to blend in and do your job because one bar is the same as the other.
Working in a shore bar is me standing on a soapbox while all my friends drink, dance, sweat, and laugh like crazy as they listen to bands or bet on turtle races to win beers and prizes.
I agonized as I counted the minutes until I could step down, swap out my work shirt for something more festive, and join my friends.
As soon as I was off the clock (and barely off the soapbox) someone would hand me a beer.
Inevitably, I stopped working there and just became another incoherent customer.
But my friend from Old Bridge, Harry, continued to work there. This was the third bar that Harry and I had worked at together.
Although, unlike me, I don’t think Harry thought working at Mary’s was actually, you know, work.
For Harry, he was the director, and the people in the bar were actors in his movie.
Harry was a big man with an easy grin, and within those walls his words were law. For us, being friends with Harry for years in Old Bridge, afforded us some unique privileges.
Every weekend there were lines to get into Mary’s. Sometimes they reached out into the street and around the corner. People had to wait a long time to get in to the bar.
For us?
Lines? We don’t do no stinkin’ lines.
Why?
We had Harry.
When there were long lines, Harry would squirrel our group through a side door, across the kitchen floor (think Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco’s nightclub scene in Goodfellas) right to the bar nearest the stage.
This wash-rinse-repeat happened most weekends in the summer, and (rightly so) the people who stood in line were pissed.
Over time, we heard whispers — what other patrons would say when we cut the line:
“There goes Harry Turner’s Asshole Friends.”
We understood, because we’d say the same thing if we were stuck in line and saw Harry and those asshole friends cut through the side door.
So instead of getting mad, we did something else:
We turned an insult into a bar hop.
Even had t-shirts made.
Jump ahead two weeks and nearly a dozen of us marched into Mary’s Husband’s Pub all dressed with HARRY TURNER’S ASSHOLE FRIEND’S BAR HOP blazed across our backs and chests (pink t-shirts for girls, blue for boys).
After the first drink at Mary’s we walked out into the bright afternoon sun, and were on our way. I don’t think we had a plan, just to go from bar-to-bar based on majority opinion. Didn’t really matter, though, since we were going to hit them all eventually.
Except, that is, for Bar Anticipation (Bar A).
Bar A was a pretty far distance from Mary’s (other side of the main highway), and we’d probably lose half the herd in the crosswalk.
Better safe than sorry.
After Mary’s, and in no particular order, we drank at Reggie’s Bar, Tropical Pub, Key Largo, Montego Bay, and D’Jais.
Let me tell you something about D’Jais.
D’Jais, in the eighties, was a big-hair bar — all disco music, bright lights, and Aqua Net. Not one of our usual go-to places.
But it had been once.
In the late seventies D’Jais was your typical hole-in-the-wall bar. The smell of stale beer, urine, and vomit greeted you like a hostess when you entered.
However, there was a very good reason behind this collection of smells.
D’Jais offered five beers for a dollar (who could pass up a deal like that even with the smells).
Of course, no one ever ordered just five beers (more like thirty). The bartender circled 8-ounce glasses on the bar, then poured generously as he waved a pitcher above them. Most of the poured beer ended up on the bar-top instead of in the glass (hence the smell of stale beer).
The best part was when the bartender bear-hugged the filled glasses and carried them over to your table.
In the transfer, more beer spilled onto the floor (oh, I forgot to mention how sticky the floor was).
The sticky floor caused an awkward gait, like walking on the moon (one small step for man…).
At some point in the eighties D’Jais went from smelling like a locker room bathroom to smelling like this:
A few years ago, on a Saturday, I rode my bike past D’Jais one night. One Uber van after another pulled up in front of the bar. As the patrons exited the vehicles, the smell of cologne and perfume slapped my face like a frustrated woman on a bad first date.
So basically, over the years, D’Jais just exchanged one bad group of smells for another.
Towards the end of the bar hop (and an unknown number of drinks later) small groups splintered off and either headed home or found another bar.
For the rest of the summer, even after the bar hop flagged us as assholes, Harry still let us in the side door while others waited in line.
Hey, we might have been assholes, but we weren’t idiots.
Maryann Turner (yes, Harry’s sister) still had the shirt!
