In 1968, Sardi’s restaurant in New York was still enjoying its decades-long heyday, stealing the spotlight as the premier venue on Broadway for showbiz people, from the bigwigs to the dreamers to the down-and-out.
Playwrights, agents, publicists and newspaper columnists competed for strategic tables in the dining room, exchanging glances, gossip, biting comments and air kisses. Fascinated tourists delighted in the presence of Groucho Marx or Liza Minnelli entering to applause, a Sardi’s tradition.
That was the year that a young Croatian immigrant, Josep Petrsoric, whose English was not so good, arrived with much less fanfare. He was soon making drinks for all of them.
But last month, Petrsoric, the good-natured bartender at Sardi’s known to everyone as Joe, ended his nightly stir, shake and pour performance after 55 years.
As unlikely as it seemed at the time, he felt instantly at home at Sardi’s in 1968. His brother Mike had immigrated to the United States earlier and got a job as a chef at Sardi’s, paving the way for Petrsoric.
At age 23, he became a bar boy, carrying cases of liquor, and was soon promoted to service bartender, which meant filling drink orders for the mostly Italian-speaking servers. He didn’t interact with clients like Jackie Gleason, Lauren Bacall, Sammy Davis Jr., Raquel Welch and Henry Fonda.
In those days, Petrsoric said he made 2,000 drinks a day: 150 Bloody Marys, 150 bullshots and countless martinis. “I was like a machine,” he recalled.
Vincent Sardi Jr., the then-owner, took notice and in 1972 called him into his office. Petrsoric recalled that his boss demanded: “Joe, I want you to go behind the bar.”
“I said, ‘Mr. Sardi, no, I don’t know enough language. I can’t talk to customers.’”
Sardi prevailed. And so, Petrsoric became a fixture behind the bar, except during the restaurant’s temporary closure in 1990 after a bankruptcy and the roughly 22 months that Sardi’s was out of business during the Covid pandemic.
When a younger bartender mentioned the celebrities who flooded the premiere party at Sardi’s for the recent Wes Anderson movie “Asteroid City”—Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, Scarlett Johansson, Colin Jost, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, Maya Hawke, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, Adrien Brody, Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Jason Schwartzman—Petrsoric shrugged.
“I’m not that crazy about celebrities,” Petrsoric, 78, said. “To me, they are all humans, not gods.”
While on duty, Petrsoric remained as alert as an owl, turning his head, his brown eyes watching for anyone who indicated he wanted another round.
“You don’t know the names, but you know what everyone drinks,” he said. In 1968, martinis cost $1 or $1.25, he said. Today, Sardi’s charges almost $20.
Kicking drunks out of the bar was anathema to him. “You politely say, ‘Time to go,’ and they leave,” Petrsoric said.
After news of his retirement broke, regulars flocked to Sardi’s to ask him to get them one more drink for the road.
“I hope to live a long life, but why work?” Petrsoric said. “The house is paid for.”
“The house” is where he was born in 1945, a villa in Krk, Croatia, an island in the northern Adriatic Sea.
His father and paternal grandfather lived to be 98 years old, and his older brothers are 96, 89 and 80 years old. However, the death last year of two close friends disturbed him, calling him home permanently. Long divorced, he has two grown children and now three grandchildren; He was accompanied by his 62-year-old American fiancée.
Petrsoric couldn’t think of anything to complain about, not his health, his feet, his back, or the salary and tips that had kept his career largely unrecognized.
“I’m happy, but very sad,” he said. “I know so many people I will never see again. I want to say thank you and I will miss you, like a friend, like family. This job was made for me. If I am born again, I will return here.”
Por: Julie Besonen
BBC-NEWS-SRC: IMPORTING DATE: 2023-09-05 20:30:09
2023-09-11 05:27:08
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