This year I’m celebrating 20 years as a bartender.

I shall take this opportunity to delve into the archives and showcase some of the highlights of those years as well as keeping you up to date with what I’m doing now.

I started bartending at The Exchange Bar Diner in St Andrew’s Quay in Hull at Easter 1995 – I had applied for a part-time job in a new restaurant that was opening as I was studying at the University of Humberside. We had to do 3 weeks of intensive training and I loved the whole process so much that by the time the diner opened to the public, I knew this was my destined career path and I asked to go full time.

I was at the Exchange for a few months before I was asked to head up the bar at Chiquito Mexican Restaurant as they had just changed their cocktail programme. Seeing as I don’t have ay pictures from my time at the Exchange, here’s one of the first pictures of me at work.