{"id":3248,"date":"2022-07-06T16:56:29","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T16:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/?p=3248"},"modified":"2026-05-12T19:42:02","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T19:42:02","slug":"monica-da-silva-the-christopher-inn-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/?p=3248","title":{"rendered":"Monica da Silva &#038; the Christopher Inn Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>March, 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>On bartending in the early 2000s at the Apple Barrel, which was frequented by residents of the Christopher Inn (sometimes called &#8220;the old folks&#8217; home&#8221;) next door.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>MdS: <\/strong>I had the Christopher Inn shift. There was a dayshift, then I started like at 7. Or 6pm? I forget what it was, but there was happy hour for one more hour [when I arrived].\u00a0So those guys were already <em>blasted<\/em> because they&#8217;d been sitting there daydrinking since 2pm. Out on the sidewalk, or inside the bar, or whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And they loved to get you in trouble, or make shit up, like telling Liz [Liz Montoya, owner at the time], &#8220;Liz, she&#8217;s late! And she&#8217;s already drunk!&#8221; <em>[laughing, shakes her head]<\/em> I was like, &#8220;Come on, it&#8217;s not like that clock&#8217;s ten minutes fast!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They were a handful, the regulars, but I really did love them. They were from Christopher House, mostly. And working people getting off work\u2014construction guys, stuff like that. And neighborhood musicians and artists. Lots of artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We had no tourists, then little by little, people came during Jazz Fest. They were great tippers, they knew the music, they <em>loved <\/em>the scene; they wanted to eat the scene up with a spoon, in bucketfuls. They were dream customers. People would complain, &#8220;The tourists are coming!&#8221; &#8230; I\u2019d say, \u201cThese aren\u2019t tourists, they\u2019re travellers!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Travellers from all over the world, that really loved the music. As opposed to what we got now\u2026 I mean, I have to get drunk to go to Frenchmen Street on a Saturday night!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><strong>[Stay tuned for the long-form interview with Monica and partner Monty Banks!]<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March, 2021 On bartending in the early 2000s at the Apple Barrel, which was frequented by residents of the Christopher Inn (sometimes called &#8220;the old folks&#8217; home&#8221;) next door. MdS: I had the Christopher Inn shift. There was a dayshift, then I started like at 7. Or 6pm? I forget what it was, but there [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,4,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-interviews","category-interviews","category-quick-reads"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3248"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3996,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3248\/revisions\/3996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenchmennotes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}