Brian Avey was working as a bartender at Wild Buffalo Wings in Tacoma, Washington.
He knows that the most important thing about a position like this is not to pour the right amount of liquids and then mix well, but to be a good listener.
“[Customers] open up and they can get what they want to tell you out,” he told KTVL CBS 10 News.
Bartenders tend to become friends with loyal customers. They can tell when they feel blue or when they’re in the mood for a chat just by looking at them- or by the drink they order.
Which, according to the law, needs to be served one at a time. Several years ago, a military woman entered Wild Buffalo Wings to have lunch and she ordered two of them.
Avey had to explain to her that drinks have to be served one at a time, but he could never have guessed the reason why she asked for two.
“I said we can only do one due to liquor laws and stuff, and she explained to me that the Corona was for her brother who had fallen in Iraq,” he told Fox13.
The woman, who was obviously heartbroken by the loss of her brother, was served her lunch and the two beers, and she just sat there, ate, and drank her Blue Moon, while looking at the Corona nobody was drinking, right next to her.
While the woman was having lunch, the bartender found time to go ask his boss if it was okay to tell her the Corona was on the house. He agreed, so when the time came for her to pay the bill, Avey let her know that the restaurant would be paying for the beer.
The military woman left, but before leaving, she made sure to write a thank-you note to the bartender who had just made her day.
“Thank you,” she wrote. “An act of kindness goes a long way. It means a lot to me. Have a great rest of the day. -Greatful Soldiers”
The man was happy that, in a way, he made someone’s day. But, when the time came for him to clean the table, he faced another issue.
By no means did he want to dump that fallen soldier’s beer.
“I just couldn’t dump out a fallen soldier’s beer,” Avey said. “If someone else could do it, fine. But I wasn’t going to be the one.”
So, instead, he found a better place for the beer. With his manager’s permission, he put it on display right next to an American flag they had at the bar.
“When I showed my boss his response was Amazing… He said ‘That’s Fine, just do me a favor, put a fresh Lime in it Every Morning’,” Avey wrote on Facebook at the time.
Although it may not seem like a big deal, this was a beautiful way to show respect and honor a fallen soldier.
See Avey talk about what happened that day in the video below!
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