Maybe I’m watching too much of The Bear, but I’ve recently become obsessed with what goes on at a cocktail bar before the doors open to the public each night. What emergencies arise? Are there cocktails that take hours of prep? Is the mood calm or frenetic? Is everybody doing shots? (Answer to that last one: no.)
Thankfully, the kind folks at New York cocktail institution Death & Co (now celebrating its 20th year in the city) were kind enough to let InsideHook take a sneak peek behind the bar about two hours before opening on a typical May weekday. As someone whose hospitality background is limited to having worked in fast food kitchens, I honestly had no idea what to expect.
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If you see a Bamboo on the menu, make sure to order this “totally underrated drink”If you’re unfamiliar, Death & Co was (and remains) one of the pioneers of the 21st-century cocktail culture rebirth. Part of the larger Gin & Luck hospitality group, the flagship D&C cocktail den opened in New York in 2006. Since then, offshoots have popped up in Denver, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. The group also runs an online retail platform and a new hotel ownership and management company, and the team has released several award-winning cocktail books. Most recently, Gin & Luck launched Fashioned, an online bartending course and series of drinks teachings and programming from the Death & Co team.
If you’ve waited in line or have been unsure about visiting Death & Co, don’t be scared off by the semi-hidden door or the fancy cocktail list. “I think this door and the lack of windows can be a little intimidating to some people,” says Death & Co bartender Seth Hiravy, who led our pre-opening tour. “But you want coming here to be an escape. You don’t want a barrier to entry. Being in a bar, serving cocktails, it’s something that’s meant to be shared.”
Which we’ll do now. Below, a video and some photos (from InsideHook’s Hanna Agro) that showcase the vibe at Death & Co a few hours before opening.
“Most of our bartending team or service team gets here at 4 or 5 p.m., depending on the menu,” Hiravy says (the bar opens at 6 p.m.). “Our prep guy or our juice team gets here around 12 or 12:30 and gets certain things ready, be it syrup production, making fresh juices or receiving liquor orders. When our bar team comes in, we start prepping the garnishes, topping off batches, fine-tuning things to get ready.”
And everyone is versatile. “It’s like a Swiss army knife,” Hiravy adds. “We have our job designations and titles, but you have to know how to do everything. Like juicing is something we have to do every day. Everything is cut fresh.”
If everything seems orderly, that’s by design — the bar has several systems in place to keep bottles in the right place and fresh ingredients on hand. But even on the best night, there are challenges. “There are things that go wrong every day,” Hiravy admits. “You just have to be able to adapt to challenges.” (Which I’ve experienced! One of my prior visits to Death & Co this spring, simply as a patron, was canceled because they couldn’t process payments. I remember getting a free drink while in line and being told they could help book any other night. It was disappointing, but the team handled it well.)
We weren’t able to see the basement because of some recent construction work, but Hiravy says I’m not missing much. “I think people come here and expect us to have a giant laboratory, like in X-Men,” he says. “It’s the East Village in New York — it’s small, it’s clean and it’s a very tight work space. Downstairs is tiny. I remember going to one of Dave Arnold’s bars. He was like, ‘Do you want to see the lab?’ He pulls back a curtain, and it’s a 5×5 space.”
Death & Co’s menu changes twice a year. “Conceptually, it’s like a never-ending process,” Hiravy says. “Every bartender here has an Evernote account, so if you’re up at 3 a.m., you can jot down an idea for a Daiquiri or a Swizzle. When we present our concepts, maybe we can get it right at three tries. Other times, it’s been upward of making 20 versions of a cocktail before it goes on a menu.”
If you’re wondering how bartenders keep track of the drinks, Evernote is key. “We have everything on Evernote or another sharing platform,” Hiravy adds. “That’s integral to everyone, including our prep person downstairs. It’d be unfair if you’re just expecting them to know how to make cucumber magnesium.”
Even as the night ends, the bar team tries to stay in the moment until the doors actually close. “We want to be flying on all cylinders during the whole service,” Hiravy says. “Maybe you condense some garnishes if someone hasn’t walked in in the last 30 minutes or we’re 15 minutes from last call. No matter what, we always have a bartender facing anyone sitting at the bar and another bartender who is responsible for getting all the drinks out for service.”
Last call every night is at 12:45 a.m. From there, Hiravy says it’s “about an hour or an hour and a half” to close up. And then it all repeats, seven days a week.
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