Bartender of the week

Nichola Powell aged 23 and from Blaina in South Wales is the bar manager in the Angel Inn and for the next seven days, she is the Bartender of the Week.

Having recently graduated uni with a 2:1 in Law she’s certainly smart and knows a thing or two about drinking laws, but more importantly how to really love her job.

Cor, get a load of ’em jugs

“The best thing about my job? Probably the people watching, actually definitely the people watching, some people are just so cringey and they come up to the bar with literally the worst chat up line I’ve ever heard. One guy genuinely once said to me ‘can I get a shot of you poured over ice’ and I almost just spat my drink in his face laughing.”

What’s the back bar of angel like sober? “Well at the beginning of the night it’s just awkward, like you’re standing behind the bar whilst it’s still quiet, looking across the room and it basically just looks like you’re staring at people like a stalker. Honestly I think I prefer the top bar to the back bar.”

“The best thing about the Angel though? The staff are more of a loving dysfunctional family than just colleagues, we all work a lot better as a team. The land lord and lady are like surrogate parents to us all.”

With Halloween coming up, undeniably one of the biggest nights in the social calender before NYE, Nichola told us she was looking forward to “dressing up, the busyness though, not so much. What I’m really excited to do though is decorate the pub for Christmas… So much tinsel.”

When she’s not pulling pints and feeding you shots of double Woods rum Nichola loves a good night out with a Honey JD on ice in Pier over Yokos every time “because it’s less sweaty, I also like the fact that you can’t have drinks on the dance floor in Pier. It means there’s less chance of them being spilled over me and having my make up run… besides you’ve gotta love a bit Pier charts ‘n’ cheese.”

“My favourite thing about being a bartender would definitely be the power to refuse people drinks, calling time at the bar is a glorious feeling, some people have just had too much sometimes. I remember one time a fresher left the pub with an old middle age woman hanging off his neck, they walked to the castle from the pub and came back half an hour later walking opposite sides of the road. It was obvious what they’d been doing at the castle and you could just see the shame on both their faces, it was absolutely hilarious.”

Nichola’s party trick is to ask guys if they want to see her moustache, “people always give me funny looks assuming I’m talking about something else but its actually a pretty funny tattoo I have.” If that fails to work she can always wheel out her favourite member of the bar staff team, Luther the security dog.

The ‘security’ dog

But being the bar manager as well as a bartender comes with it’s extra stresses, “booking events and events cancelling are really frustrating sometimes, also finding new bar staff and being students, they all want to go home at the same time when really they all just need to not, but I still love them all.”

“Besides, I’m often told that we are the happiest bar staff in Aber… but obviously I’m the happiest right?”