On Becoming a Regular
If you’re raised by industrious Midwestern near-teetotalers as I was, you don’t aspire to become a regular at a bar. And reading a lot of Bukowski later in life solidified my notion that people who get to know bartenders’ names are on their way to Skid Row.
But a few years ago Tony Maws opened up Craigie on Main, right on my walk home from MIT. I’d eaten at the Craigie St. Bistro, his former restaurant, a few times and liked what he could do with steak and marrow, so I stopped in with a friend. We had a great meal, and I walked out happy that there was another good restaurant in my neighborhood (When I was a student at MIT in the latter half of the 1980s I was broke and Central Square was a wasteland; both situations are better now).
On a later visit I ordered a cocktail that turned out to be delicious and found myself in a conversation with the bartender about whether a man who was not James Bond could drink a drink that was not a martini from a martini glass. I maintained not. He maintained, politely enough, that I was an idiot. There are many ways for friendships to start.
His name, I eventually learned, was Tom Schlesinger-Guidelli, and like Maws he was extraordinarily good at what he did. And the core of his talent, I’ve come to believe, is taking care of people, making them feel like they’re being well looked after for the time that they’re in his place.
Hospitality is hard work. The hours are brutal, the demands constant, and the customers too often unappreciative or even nasty. There are lots of reasons not to do it. But as I watched Tony, Tom, and the people they hired and worked with I was reminded of some great lines from that old drunk Bukowski himself, who started his poem “so you want to be a writer?” with the lines
if it doesn’t come bursting out of you
in spite of everything
don’t do it
Hospitality has come bursting out of the staff at Craigie. The place is far from cheap and too many other people know about it, but I don’t care. I’ll keep going there, because it’s a pleasure to see real professionalism and experience true hospitality. And the cheeseburger is as good as you’ve heard.
Tom has moved on from Craigie; he’s now managing the wonderful Island Creek Oyster Bar near Fenway Park with the help of Ashley Paige White-Stern. Other alums are keeping people happy throughout the Boston area. Paul Manzelli is at Bergamot, Carrie Cole has moved on to Eastern Standard, and John Mayer is in Southie at Local 149. I can’t be a regular at all these places, sadly, but I can recommend them without hesitation.
Some of the old guard remains at Craigie. Meredith Devinney manages the place, and I’m pretty sure she’s the reincarnation of legendary Tour d’Argent host Claude Terrail; she can put anyone at ease, make them feel welcome, and improve their disposition. Ted Gallagher runs the bar and runs his mouth, both to great effect. Anna Ellingboe maintains the distaff tradition behind the bar, and of course chef Tony is always there. He sometimes even has a minute to come over and talk about the Sox, especially at the end of the night.
When he does, I try not to get star-struck. This May, Maws was given the James Beard award as the best chef in the Northeast. He’s not the only one bringing home hardware. Tom and a team from Eastern Standard won the Tales of the Cocktail Bar Room Brawl competition in New Orleans earlier this month. I’m thrilled to see their crazy talent and worth ethic recognized.
The poet and critic Randall Jerrell wrote about reaching the point when you wake up wishing not for things to be different, but instead wishing “May this day / Be the same day, the day of my life.” The essayist Adam Gopnik picked up that idea and wrote that in the evening of the day of his life he dined at the Parisian Brasserie Le Balzar. In the evening of the day of my life I have dinner at Craigie on Main, or one of the places where its alums have landed.
