Hipster Bar Etiquette With Danny's Doorman Stephen Sowley

By Michele Lenni in Arts & Entertainment on Dec 21, 2011 5:05PM

There has been many a night we have bellied up to the bar at one of our favorite Bucktown haunts Danny's. Cheap drinks, great DJs, dancing and just enough light to get an outline of the person you'll be gracing with your best walk-of-shame the next day usually makes for an interesting evening to say the least. Stephen Sowley, a six-year-veteran in his humble station as doorman at the bar has probably seen it all. After all, mixing young people, massive amounts of booze and perhaps some less than savvy judgement calls can make for some intriguing stories to say the least.

In Sowley's latest Tumblr installment he, well, whines a bit about his position in the service industry as well as gives some rules of the road for bar-goers. Some nights, everything's cool and some nights, "involve[s] me waking up the next morning, having a cup of coffee and realizing a very very tiny part of my soul has died," according to Sowley. Over the past six years he has noticed an increase in the bar's population of "assholes." To those he gives some guidelines, some rules to go by when entering and drinking at Danny's. Here are some excerpts of the highlights:

Cash Only: yes, the bar is cash only and no we do not have an ATM. Let’s get the easy one out of the way. Look around you… where would we put a stupid ATM machine? Yeah exactly. Half a block south of here, that’s where our ATM machine is.

ID: The amount of shit I get for this truly astounding. If you’re going out you should have ID. I don’t care how weathered, grizzled, old, and wrecked you look, I need ID. You know why I need ID? Because it’s the law, and at any given time a cop can come in and be a cop. He can dick out if he wants and if he finds out that someone in there doesn’t have ID, we either get shut down or go to jail.

Capacity, “The Line,” And You: When we reach capacity, we have to start a line. I take no joy in it; a couple years ago, we arbitrarily made up the line based on how packed the room was. Well, the fire department busted us and shut us down for three days. Since then we’ve played ball. I really want everyone to get in and have a good time, but I refuse to do that at the expense of the fire department shutting us down.

When Nature Calls: Okay? Are we good? We all understand now? Great… hey, you—yeah rummy—DON’T PISS ON OUR NEIGHBORS BUILDING. They keep us open more than you do. If you need to piss, come see me. I’ll take your ID, you can walk in use the bathroom and come back out and wait in line.

All-in-all most of the rant reads pretty high on our personal "no duh" meter, but hey, never shall we take for granted how many drunken fools walk to streets of our city on any drunken night.