By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com San Diego Blogger
When you walk into Taste & Thirst, a locals’ bar in a relatively tame area of the Gaslamp Quarter on Forth Ave., between F and G streets, two things will likely grab your attention. One is the fact that it almost always seems to be Happy Hour. It goes from 3-8 p.m., then starts up again at 10. During this time, you can get a beer for as cheap as $3 and mixed drinks for around five bucks.
The other thing you are likely to notice is a particular person behind the bar. She has a smile as big as San Diego Bay and an approachable demeanor that draws you in like a Star Trek tractor beam. Her name is Chole (pronounced Clo-we) Bugayong and she is PubClub.com’s San Diego Bartender of the Month for April.
“Thank you, thank you!,” she said.
Being at Taste & Thirst, which is not to be confused with some of the busiest bars in the Gaslamp, gives her an appreciation for what she does and where she does it. She has the time and opportunity to get to know her customers and she pours a well-made drink that is certainly not to be considered a short pour of the alcohol.
“I love that is a neighborhood bar, that it is family owned (three brothers and a sister),”she said. “The regulars – that’s how I met PubClub.com – makes me feel like I’m in the community.”
But when things pick up, she can handle it like Manny Machado does a fastball at nearby Petco Park. She worked at a sports bar in Denver’s busy LoDo (Lower Downtown) area and before that slung drinks at bar in a college town. That can pretty much prepare a bartender for anything.
“It was a younger, more rowdy crowd,” she said of the college bar experience. “It was a lot of fun, chaotic, busy. It was a good way to meet friends and be able to go out without really going out all the time (she laughed when she finished that sentence).” She added that she is “glad to get away from that” scene.
Her blonde hair and tan scream California beach girl but she is from Florida. And not even the beach. Chole is from Tallahassee, the hilly and wooded state capitol. She stayed put to go to college at Florida State, which is where she worked at that college bar.
One of the things that stands out about Chole is her approachability and the ease of striking up a conversation with her. Within the span of half a drink, you feel that you’ve known her for a long while. That makes a customer feel at ease with a bar and a bartender.
But you don’t know a bartender – or anyone, really – until you see them on the other side of the bar. Frankly, I kind of expected Chole to have a little bravado in our interview, to be bold and assertive. I guess I expected it from someone who had been dealing with lively college students and rabid sports fans in Denver.
Instead, as you can see in the video, she is a very humble person. She gave short, quiet answers in the interview, which is a sign she doesn’t like to really like to talk or brag about herself. It’s a trait that reveals a nice and quality person. She’s polite. That shows in what she likes to do away from work, too, which is not to go raging in a nightclub.
“I love to read,” she said. “I’m always reading a book, mostly fiction.” She does like to go to the beach, of course, and do some traveling; this summer she is going to Barcelona. When living in Denver, she spent a lot of time at the lakes in Colorado being close to nature. “Anything outdoors” she said.
So go into Taste & Thirst and see for yourself why Chole is the PubClub.com Bartender of the Month!
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