E279 Bree Keeney
Bikini Bars, Barfights & Bartending Chaos
In this episode of The Industry Podcast, hosts Dan and Kypp sit down with Bree Keeney, a Huntington Beach, California bartender who started behind the stick at 21 in the dive bars of Lakewood and Long Beach. Bree came up in tight-knit neighborhood bars where she was the bartender, bar back, security and manager all at once, and where regulars became family. Today she works the day shift at Little Misfit in Huntington Beach, a bar she says finally feels like home.
Bree explains what the bikini bar world in Orange County is really like, and how she carved out a spot in it by wearing short shorts and crop tops while out-working everyone on the floor. Bree shares why bars that hire on looks alone leave money on the table, and why the relationships between bartenders and regulars are what actually keep a bar alive. Along the way she tells some of the wildest stories we've heard on the show, including a Friday night in San Clemente that ended in a 40-minute freeway pursuit, and a one-shift stint at a cash-only dive that went sideways fast.
The conversation also gets honest about the long-term side of the job: being a single mom in the industry, the emotional exhaustion of being "on" all day, why the day shift works for her family, and the bar she has been planning to open one day. Bree also talks about learning to lean on her regulars' trust rather than fake it when memory gets tough. It's funny, raw and full of hard-earned bar wisdom.
Also in this episode:
- Why a one-person bar demands constant hypervigilance
- Solo bars vs. big-team bars, and which job is actually harder
- Why new bar owners should let a business run for three months before changing anything
- Why long-time staff and regulars are the real value of a neighborhood bar
- The strange reality of never being able to go out without being "on"
- Why guests shouldn't expect you to remember them outside the bar
- Bree's near-purchase of her longtime home bar and the lessons from it
- Why forcing a bar dream never works, and letting the timing find you
Notable Quote
> "Chaos is the environment, and I'm okay with it."
> — Bree Keeney
Connect with Bree
Instagram: @_breekeeney
A big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes of Imbiblia. Imbiblia is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurants and cocktail lovers alike and build by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar. Several of the features of the platform include the ability to create your own Imbiblia Recipe Cards with the Imbiblia Cocktail Builder, rapidly select ingredients, garnishes, methods and workshop recipes with a unique visual format, search by taste, using flavour profiles unique to Imbiblia, share recipes publicly plus many more....Imbiblia - check it out!
Contact the host Kypp Saunders by email at [email protected] for products from Elora Distilling and Noble Estates.
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