Charlie Ainsbury - This Must Be The Place

MEET THE BARTENDER: CHARLIE AINSBURY

explore DRINKS caught up with world-class bartender Charlie Ainsbury. We find out what it took for Charlie to open This Must Be The Place in Sydney, and the best and worst things consumers can do in his venue.

explore DRINKS. How long have you been bartending for? Charlie Ainsbury. 13 years.

ED. What drove you into bartending? CA. Like a lot of us, I needed a job that fit with the university lifestyle. Slowly I started spending more time in the bar than in the classroom, my choice completely.

ED. Where was your first bar job? CA. If you scrap the 14-hour Friday night glassy shift at St. Patrick’s Tavern on King Street, it would be a similar role at Bungalow 8 in Darling Harbour, Sydney.

ED. You’re a very successful bartender and bar co-owner. What lead you to become so successful? CA. My success can be measured on the amount of times I’ve failed. I think it’s a matter of always pushing yourself and staying relevant in the industry, the attitude of not being satisfied with what you’ve got. In regards to the bar, it’s due to the strength my business partner Luke Ashton and I forge along with our team. Our staff come first.

ED. Where do you get your passion? CA. There is an evident camaraderie seen in the global bartending industry that I love; it’s a big family with no bad blood. When you become a bartender, you have friends all around the world, not to mention a skill-set that can take you around the world.

ED. You’re co-owner of This Must Be The Place, located in Sydney. It must be every bartender’s dream to own a bar. How did your dream come to reality? CA. It became a reality with the help of my business partner, Luke Ashton. We were sitting at a very similar point in our careers. If you spend over 10 years in this industry, you start looking at a fork in the road; you can keep doing what you’re doing; move into the business/corporate side of the industry; or open your own bar. Looking back on it, to open the bar was really just a long series of paperwork along with some DIY. ED. If you weren’t bartending, what would you be doing? CA. I’d like to think that somehow I’d always end up being a bartender in some way or another.

ED. What’s your favourite drink? CA. A Negroni. It keeps the blood pumping.

ED. Apart from your own bar, where’s the best place to drink in Australia? CA. The Black Pearl in Melbourne and Bulletin Place in Sydney.

ED. What’s the worst thing a consumer can do in a bar? CA. Put chewing gum under the table. We have napkins and rubbish bins back here!

ED. List the top five best things a consumer can do in a bar? CA. 1. Give up your seat for others e.g. if you’re sitting on a large table by yourself and a group of six is crowded around a bar looking for extra stools, well it’s common sense isn’t it? It’s nice to see people being kind to one another in a bar setting. 2. Manners – please and thank you can go a long way. 3. Know your limits – the bartender is always there to take care of their patrons but it helps us when they know not to take it too far or if they’ve overstepped their boundary with drinking. No bartender ever wants to put someone in a taxi or cut someone off; it’s the last thing we want to do. 4. When it’s busy, have your order ready. We understand that people in the group can jump in and change their order but the more ready the better. 5. Tell us if something’s wrong. If we don’t know we’ll never be able to help or fix things. We want you to leave happier than when you walked in.