Being a bartender isn’t easy.

The hours aren’t great. Everyone around you is having fun while you have to work. You practically need a degree in psychology — at the least you need to be an excellent listener with a positive attitude.

Still, there are a lot of perks.

On a good night, you’re making some serious cash. You get a solid workout from running back and forth serving customers. Yyou get to meet interesting people with weird stories.

If you’re wondering, your secrets are safe with the bartender.

“Bartender’s code man,” Bryan Williams, owner of the Brass Eye in downtown Niles, said as a roguish smile appeared on his face. “It’s kind of like a little mini-Vegas in here. What happens in here, stays in here.”

At 7:03 p.m. on a Thursday night, the Brass Eye was humming. Williams was hosting a tap takeover of Dogfish Head, and it was clear the customers were excited.

The narrow room was packed with people clustered around tables and the bar. Vultures were hovering at the edges, people circling tables waiting to snag a spot.

It was all-hands-on-deck behind the bar: three of the Brass Eye’s bartenders took their positions behind the wood, prepared for the inevitable onslaught.

Cards, cash and cold ones flew back and forth across the bar top in a flurry.

Behind the bar, Williams and bartenders Abigail Hansen and Allison Schultz danced around the booze and outstretched hands in what Williams describes as “a chaotic ballet.”  There is method to the madness.

“You’ve got somebody talkin’ in your left ear telling you a story … and you’ve got somebody ordering a drink in your right ear, but you’re also making a cocktail. Plus you wanna make eye contact with the people that just came in,” Williams says. “On a busy night, it takes a lot of focus and attention to provide
good service.”

Williams — or Hansen or Shultz for that matter — does not seem deterred. He was on a 12-year bartending hiatus prior to opening the Brass Eye in 2015, but one thing he has learned about bartending is that it all comes down to providing the right experience for the customer.

“People will forgive a bad drink once in awhile, or bad food, if they get the wrong thing or if you don’t have their favorite beer, but they’ll never forget the way you made them feel that day,” he said. “To me, that’s the main thing. Some people come to a bar just to escape. Some people come in to have fun. It’s kind of like reading that person and [figuring out] what are they looking for that day and providing it for them.”