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This one was the easiest choice EVER…I have personally been lobbying for this gentleman to be a bartender of the month since the Parrot started doing a Bartender of the Month. This guy is not only my bartender of the month…he is without a doubt my favorite bartender of all time. Now if you know me, you know I’ve probably met more bartenders than most other people have met umm…OTHER people. This is the bartender’s bartender. He embodies what a bartender should be… in any bartending guidebook there’s a picture of the perfect bartender…and it’s his picture.
Ron Bello is the bartender at Donato’s at 1900 Tamiami Trail in Port Charlotte better known as the mall where the new Lowes is. It’s an Italian eatery with a market attached. The food is phenomenal and I’ve never had better Italian food…but…I’m not the food critic…and this article is about a bartender.
Let’s start with when I arrived to interview Ron. He was working the front register in the market, answering the phones and doing seven other jobs. Ron is the consummate professional. He is my kind of guy. He is a problem solver in the first degree. He does not complain about the problem or try to find the person whose job it is, he rolls up his sleeves and gets it done.
When we started the interview I normally have a list of questions to help me get info to compile an 800 word article…with this one I didn’t need it. I told him that it would be real quick because I already had 750 words on him before I got there. There won’t be a bunch of stuff about what his favorite drink is or his favorite color because I’m going to need all the space to tell the stories! Let’s do the preliminaries as fast as possible. He’s single, just turned 60, and lives in Punta Gorda. He lost everything he owned in Charley and I mean EVERYTHING. He moved south from Glens Falls, NY in 1994. He’s been tending bar for 35 years. He served 4 years in the Navy which involved traveling worldwide. He has his own signature drink which follows him around…Ron’s Special coffee…Bailey’s, Kailua, coffee, Chambord drizzled over whipped cream. He always wears a nametag. He has been at Donato’s since Jan. 6 when they opened their bar which he helped set up. He has bartended at Breaker’s (now Portofino’s) the Raw Bar (flattened by Charley) the Lighthouse which is now Casa Loca. He has guest bartender at Celtic Ray and Millie’s Hideaway (now the Nav-A-Gator) among others. He has bartended for many a charity function including United Way functions and Habitat for Humanity functions. He has done TONS of work for the Boy’s and Girl’s Club and will jump at any good cause. He is a great cook.
Now that all that is out of the way let me start the stories. I know I won’t have enough space already. I can write 800 words about each story! Actually this could be a book.
Ron was my regular bartender for almost 3 years at Hogbody’s. He has a habit of starting work by singing when he comes through the door. At Hogbody’s it was Journey. He laughs because now it’s Dean Martin since it’s an Italian joint. Ron is the fastest smoker of all time. A cigarette break for him has been timed at less than 30 seconds! He is the smartest individual I know. He knows more than professors about literature, food, movies, music, politics, geography and just about everything else. He and I once tried out for Jeopardy when tryouts were in Fort Myers. We sat next to each other and were given 10 question tests that were different. Had we moved a seat in either direction one of us would have moved to the next level. We both got 9 out of tens and when we discussed the questions he knew the one I missed and vice versa. We stood in the line to test for hours making people laugh because no one knew the capital of Albania. We eventually looked it up on my internet phone but we had such a good time teasing everyone in line. That’s Ron. Ron is always smiling and making people smile.
Ron used to laugh at people who ordered wine at Hogbody’s. They would ask what kinds they had and his answer was CCR, CCW, and CCP… that’s Cheap California Red and Cheap California White…the Cheap California Pink was just mixing the two. When people would complain he would laugh and say “there’s a PIG on the sign!!! What kind of wine would you like with your pulled pork sandwich?” He finds it ironic that he’s now selling fine wines.
He told me a great story about the night at Breakers when one of the beervats exploded and gave everyone at the bar a beer shower, but I’m going to use the rest of my space to tell a story which typifies Ron best. He volunteered to set up the bars for a function for the Boy’s and Girls Club at the Cultural Center. His version of this story took 10 minutes and was worthy of another beer to listen to it. My version goes like this… After he spent the afternoon setting everything up, he found out that the club had asked outside bartenders from another bar to come in and run them for the night. They told him they had another job for him. He was upset and eventually decided that he was leaving. He went to Hogbody’s and sat at the bar and stewed over the evening. The crew there told him he needed to go back and he just couldn’t walk out like that. He refused. Ten minutes later the key speaker who was a guest from Mississippi along with the leader of the organization came into the bar and sat next to him. They told him he needed to come back. He refused… they then relented and told him he HAD to…because you see he was being honored as their first Volunteer of the Year!
I have dozens of other stories including the days when he had Storybook Hour at the bar and he read children’s books to us regulars… but if you want to hear about that… GO SEE HIM! He will make you smile and you will get sucked into becoming one of his regulars.
Oh by the way, the capital of Albania is Tirana. Thank You Ron Bello for being my favorite bartender of all time!
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