“One Jack and Coke, two Sex on the Beach, two top-shelf Margaritas, one frozen with salt, one on-the-rocks no salt, three draft Bud Lights, one “Hefe,” one Tecate with a shot of Herradura Silver, and one shot of Jaeger!”
It’s a song, a chant, a rap — quite familiar among waiting-staff and barkeeps alike with subtle variations to both rhythm and lyrics as drink orders are placed and the work shifts extend into the nether zones at any one of Main Street’s wide-ranging watering holes. There’s a flow and an energy level inherent to the biz that are fine tuned over time until they become as natural as breath.
At the No Name Saloon on upper Main Street in old town, highly proficient and popular bartender Sherri Murdock is in her element. Calmly assembling building blocks for specific cocktails while her eyes check out the locals’ corner they call “the point,” she smoothly slips a lemon-wedge garnish onto the rim of a freshly-poured Hefeweizen before adding a splash of Gran Marnier to the rocks Margarita. Multi-tasking and an acute memory come with the territory.
Sherri, a quintessential “people person,” doesn’t even try to hide her exuberance level when talking about her gig at the No Name: “I love my job! The local people are amazing! They are consistent I know what each one drinks — and patient when it’s busy. Everyone’s always upbeat and happy! Visitors, too!”
Her path to Main Street mixology began when she found herself calling in sick to her 9-to-5 quality-control job in Ogden more often than either she or her boss thought was reasonable.
The obvious culprit, a passion for snowboarding, caused her supervisor to suggest relocating closer to the lifts. She agreed and it wasn’t too much later that she found herself working her dream ski town gig behind the bar at the No Name — within those same hallowed walls that once housed the legendary “Alamo.”
Sherri’s signature cocktail is her “tweaked” Bloody Mary, a bold yet subtle concoction which, on a personal note, translates quite refreshingly into its tequila hybrid, the “Bloody Maria.” Herself, she’s a Budweiser and Jack Daniels kind of gal who, when the muse strikes, likes to slip off from her digs in Kamas to favorite haunts up in the Uintas. Especially, say, after an Arts Festival weekend.
The shapes shift a bit a few blocks further down on Lower Main. At Lindzee O’Michaels you can find Chaz Concheck concocting his signature cocktail, a finely-tuned Margarita creation he dubbed “Reverse Evolution.” The body language is not unlike, say, a witch hovering over a cauldron as the curtain rises on Act 4 of “Macbeth,”
“Sasquatch,” as Chaz is known affectionately among both friends on the scene and regular clientele, sees his special blend as almost a public service, a great way “to get a little primitive,” to shake off the fluff of the current age. His caveat, of course, is that if you ingest one too many, you might find yourself, at the end of the evening, “dragging your knuckles out the door.”
Concheck’s trajectory to Park City began back when, as a member of a trio of savvy Brooklynites, his two buddies blew town — one to Aruba, the other to Memphis as a member of the Grizzlies training staff. Left with a wide-open field upon which to geographically reinvent himself, Chaz followed the old axiom that “the west is the best.”
His discovery that Utah had a physical diversity comparable to New York City’s cultural diversity cemented the deal. “I didn’t really know what a magical place it was until I actually moved here,” he recalls. Shootin’ the breeze with Sasquatch, he appears totally at peace with the turn his journey has taken. And it’s a joy he likes to share with those on the other side of the bar.
Turning people on to under-the-radar jewels such as mom-and-pop ski resorts, obscure southeastern Utah slot canyons, or a favorite off-the-beaten-path waterfall up in the Uintas gets him off as much as providing them with a perfectly constructed to-order mixed beverage. He is Sasquatchian, after all.
Bartenders up-and-down Park City’s Main Street perform their high-wire acts on a daily, and nightly, basis above a net fashioned from the very-high expectations of both locals and visitors alike. Fortunately for us, no other street in the state flaunts a more astute mixologist community or a more revelry-rich bar scene. Salud!