STAFF FOCUS: Parker Girard
Parker Girard, Bar Manager
Parker Girard never thought he would wind up working in restaurants. He took up a bartending job in Charlottesville straight out of college, “and showed up knowing absolutely nothing about making drinks,” Parker says, laughing. The bar didn’t provide much training so Parker started off just winging it, until one night when a customer ordered a gin martini with a twist. “I stood there behind the bar with a peeler in one hand and a lemon in the other (which are definitely not the right tools for the job) and had absolutely no idea what to do next,” Parker said. “But that’s kind of my origin story. After that night, I decided I wanted to learn how to do everything behind the bar; I never wanted to feel unprepared again.”
Over the next few months and years, Parker spent countless hours reading cocktail books and studying bar programs at other restaurants in town in order to boost his own cocktail know-how. “I didn’t have the privilege of working underneath a strong bar mentor, but I learned a lot during this time period, even if it wasn’t the most conventional route,” Parker explained. “And I really didn’t know that I would be good at it until I started doing it. I totally just fell into it.”
After a few months in Charlottesville’s bar scene, Parker moved up to DC and helped manage a whiskey bar on Capitol Hill. After almost 5 years in DC, Parker’s fiancé got a job in Richmond, so they packed and hit the ground running. “We got all our life changes out of the way at one time: we moved, got married, and both started new jobs, all in one month.” Parker snagged the first bar management job he could find, helping a new restaurant develop their bar program, before landing at Rappahannock Oyster Co. as a bartender in early 2019. “It was a really nice change of pace for me. After managing bars for so long, I got to step back behind the bar and focus on the craft of cocktail making and the people sitting in front of me. It was a really nice return to fundamentals,” Parker explained. But then the pandemic hit. “We all left the restaurant and told each other we’d be back in a few weeks. But then two weeks passed, and we all started to look around and think that this could be different.”
Parker spent the next few months trying to decide what to do next. “I was going crazy. I started teaching myself to play piano, and I didn’t have a headphone adapter for my keyboard, so I was totally making my wife miserable,” Parker explained. “And I never thought I’d set foot in a restaurant again.” But when a Common House job listing for a bartender opened up, Parker said it was a “no-brainer.” He knew General Manager Chauncey Jenkins from previous roles in Richmond and the job seemed like a perfect fit for Parker’s background. “I don’t think any of us knew what the building was gonna be like. It was crazy,” Parker explained about opening Common House Richmond. “I’ve opened restaurants, and it’s always crazy — and this was no exception, but it was very different. If we were just running a restaurant, we’d know what to do, but Common House is everything all at once — from coworking to private tenants to tasting dinners to weddings. And that’s what makes it really exciting.”
“In a way, I never set foot in a restaurant again,” said Parker, laughing. After close to a year of working as a bartender and learning the ropes of the building, Parker was promoted to bar manager. “It felt like it was really good timing. The fact that I had been in the building every day made me so much more eager and ready to take on the role,” Parker said. Moving forward, Parker is excited to dive more into the world of beverage education at Common House and launch his first bar menu — “I haven’t even done the part of the job that I’m really good at!”
When I asked Parker what his favorite drink is, he said, “The cheapest lightest beer in a cold can. If you think about cocktails and drinks all day, the last thing you want to do is taste a cocktail and spend time breaking it down,” Parker explained.
And Parker’s favorite drink to make? “The answer is always a drink that I’ve never made before,” he said. Parker explained that so much of bartending involves people not knowing what they want to drink. “If you can take a couple seconds to get to know someone and what they like and make them an incredible cocktail, they’ll remember you every time. It feels so good to really nail a dealer’s choice and start up a conversation with someone, because people remember that — it really builds that relationship. And relationships are the cornerstone of what Common House is.”