Everyone loves a staff party, especially when the boss is paying for all the drinks and we quite enjoy working them too. In November of last year Mexican Burrito chain Tortilla threw a party for all of their staff in one of their restaurants in the city. If you’ve ever been to the city at the weekend it’s an incredibly eerie place: all the offices are closed and with no business people around most shops and bars shut too. It’s the nearest thing to a ghost town I’ve ever seen. If I’m honest, turning up to a place with no people or atmosphere to do a party didn’t fill me with confidence, however I was pleasantly surprised.
We got everything set up in the basement of the venue: we were alongside roulette tables, a popcorn machine, and a dance floor, the perfect place for a bar. We had been told to be ready to serve around 7.30pm, and to expect roughly 150 people. By 8 o’clock there were very few people there, which was a bit of a concern, but it was the calm before the storm. At 9 o’clock the staff began arriving, and from then on there was never a quiet moment. Crowds of thirsty South-Americans were flooding down the stairs and making a beeline for the bar. With all our staff working non-stop they were flying through the drinks. From our point of view this was perfect, there’s nothing we like more than people having a good time and enjoying our drinks.
Before we knew it midnight had come and it was time to pack up. Exhausted, we cleared up the carnage that the happy staff had left behind and took ourselves off home. In hindsight there’s only thing we’d change about that night: the parking ticket at 12:45 am.
