Bartenders for hire

By SARAH E. MORAN
For The Times Herald

Sara Moody’s cup is overflowing with business this holiday season.

Moody is the 26-year-old owner of Swig, a contract bartending business she started on the side two years ago after graduating from West Chester University with a marketing degree.
She developed Swig into a full-time entrepreneurial venture when she was recently laid off from her job at an interactive marketing agency.

Today, Moody employs 20 contract bartenders — she calls them “swigtenders” — who travel hither and yon to sling drinks at parties, restaurants and other events in Chester County and environs.

She cut her bartending teeth at the Four Dogs Tavern in Marshalton, where she worked for eight years — first as a hostess during high school (she graduated from the former Downingtown High School in 2001) and later as a bartender while she was at West Chester University.

Swig provides bartenders and supplies — glasses, napkins, shakers and the like — at a wide range of venues, from “banks and art galleries, colleges and offices to private homes — people’s garages, backyards and dining rooms,” Moody said.

Clients run the gamut from the extremely well-heeled to those who simply want to enjoy their own event and leave the mixings, be it alcoholic or non-, to a hired hand.

Take, for instance, Thursday night’s fundraising event at Penn Liberty Bank’s East Goshen branch to benefit Menzfit, a Philadelphia non-profit group that provides gently used suits and other professional work clothing to needy men. The event was sponsored by the Colby Kirby Team at Keller Williams Real Estate’s West Whiteland office.

Moody and her staff mixed and served drinks from behind several bank teller windows - not unlike bellying up to a bar, observed Colby Kirby Team real estate agent Nicole Marcum, who hired Swig for the benefit and uses the company regularly for various events.

Commented Marcum, “Sara is professional and lots of fun. An important piece for us is that she’s always on time. And she’s creative.”

Case in point: Most drinks Thursday night were on the house, but, for a $1 donation to Menzfit per drink, Moody and her staff shook up the Suitini - a pomegranate martini named in honor of the non-profit.

Moody combs Web sites and talks with other bartenders to come up with new and unusual specialty drinks and the latest imbibing trends. Sweet tea vodka-based drinks, using flavored teas, are popular right now, as are fruit-infused martinis.

A recent addition to Swig’s repertoire: A lychee martini, flavored with pureed lychee nuts (the consistency is that of fresh pureed pear) and garnished with a lychee nut.

Her major competition is event staffing companies, many of them large and highly competitive on pricing.

Moody doesn’t have a liquor license, so she can’t provide the alcohol itself. But she does give her clients a shopping list of exactly what to buy and how much. She also provides supplies such as shakers, pourers, wine keys and bottle openers, as well as plastic cups, ice, napkins and mixers for about $1 per person.

A new Swig wrinkle is that Moody now offers a “green” option - suggesting a list of organic wines and liquors as well as providing organic mixers, cups, napkins and other environmentally friendly products for an event.

A Swig bartender costs between $140 and $160 for a four-hour stint. Moody’s bartenders have extensive barkeep experience and work for Swig on the side, many holding down day jobs as nurses, gardeners, jewelers and the like, Moody said.

Swig bartenders routinely card people at events, which can make for some sticky situations. Wedding guests are the most likely to get angry about being asked for I.D. Moody said, either “because they’re truly underage or they don’t have their identification with them.”

The bartending business also has its fair share of funny stories.

One client at a recent event asked Moody to haul away every bit of bar trash. She paid her bartenders to load up their cars, hers included, with odiferous trash bags for an unscheduled stop at the dump.

“Our cars stank for a week,” Moody recalled with a rueful laugh.