‘It’s a religious thing’
There aren’t many bars you can keep full on a Monday at 1 p.m. by serving breakfast fare and running Scooby Doo on the only television in the place.
But then again, Monday brunch at Trina’s isn’t for everyone.
It’s customary in the food and beverage industry to drink your face off on Sunday after an arduous shenanigans-filled Friday through Saturday. Sometimes the bender starts Saturday after work, playing into a starry Sunday abyss.
The people recovering from this custom are the Monday brunch patrons at Trina’s Starlite Lounge.
Old Dirty Bastard is playing at a volume just loud enough to require outdoor voices. The bartender, Emma, has just cashed her first bottle of Fernet—not in cocktails but as shots—
“Ooh baby I like it raaaaww, ooh baby I like it rAAAAAW.”
Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Shimmy Shimmy Ya by rikma
Emma fashions up a vodka grapefruit, heavy on the vodka, but not by request. She sets it in front of me. Everyone at the bar is drinking, mostly Highlife with a Fernet back. Or is it the other way around?
Every few minutes a kitchen bell breaks through the mellow mix of old and new school hip-hop.
This time the bell is for me. Biscuits and gravy.
A conversation stirs in front of the taps about Josh Childs—one of the bar’s owners. Childs might not be aware, but he’s on a tenure track to Patron Saint of the Service Industry. It’s difficult to find anyone in town who doesn’t croon over his six-foot-something frame and complementary soothing demeanor.
The third or fourth episode of Scooby Doo rolls on. Ding. More food. Grand Master Flash is playing.
“How ya doing Fred?” Emma says to a new arrival.
Two women leave. “Byyyeee,” comes a chorus from most of the bar.
Emma opens another bottle of Fernet. Typically she goes through four bottles, sometimes in only two hours. The record is six.
“There’s a reason I told Brandeis I can only teach days, but NOT Mondays,” says a guy at the bar. “Priorities.”
“It’s a religious thing,” says Emma.
Happenings like Monday brunch at Trina’s are all over the U.S. OK, truthfully I can only confirm their existence in Madison, Wis. and Cambridge. But trust me, where there are restaurants there are servers and bartenders and cooks who go to bars and eateries to unwind.
Maybe it’s the $10 tab following your $50 of sauce consumption or the strategically placed Monday brunch, inaccessible to most muggles.
One such woman noses her way onto my screen as I’m sitting at a bar clacking the keys of my computer. I explain that I’m writing a few words about a part of restaurant industry life typically invisible to patrons.
“Aww, you called us muggles … and not in a good way.”
She laments her non-industry life, stargazing at the idea of drinking and brunch on a Monday; concerned she’s stuck in her advertising position. She works the accounts side of things: Pete Campbell, not Don Draper.
They finish their meal. She wishes me good luck with the article; I wish her good luck selling ads.
“I don’t sell ads. … I’m actually in charge of a lot of money. I should be proud of myself,” she says.
“You should,” I say.
As for me—I prefer a Monday afternoon dose of Scooby Doo and Fernet with the hooligans.
I think the hooligans do, too.
TRINA’S STARLITE LOUNGE
3 BEACON ST.
SOMERVILLE
BRUNCH | MONDAYS, NOON-4PM
@TRINASTARLITE
TRINASTARLITELOUNGE.COM