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World's Oldest Bartender Calling It Quits
By Harry Kimball
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Posted Aug 29, 09 2:45 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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The longest serving bartender in the world—that Guinness-certified honor came 10 years ago—and slinger of one of the first beers after Prohibition ended is hanging up his cocktail shaker, the AP reports. Ninety-five-year-old Angelo Cammarata, owner of the beloved Cammarata’s Café in Pittsburgh, is selling after more than 70 years behind the bar. It’s bittersweet, he says. “This is a good bar. All my customers here are family.”
“We're a local bar, shot and a beer,” he says. That tradition goes back to just before midnight on April 6, 1933, the night before beer became legal again. “The first strike of the clock, I took a case of beer off, took it in our grocery store, took bottles out, and started selling them, 10 cents each.” The venture was so successful the store became a bar. Not that Cammarata himself is much of a drinker. His father told him, “'Beer is made to sell, not drink. Don’t be your best customer.' And I took that to heart."