Lively Spirit : Octogenarian Barmaid Is No Hangover From the Old Days

Barmaid Carrie Felix uses an old bouncer’s technique when she has to kick someone out of the El Sereno lounge where she works.

That’s because Felix is an old bouncer.

“I just ask them real nice to leave,” says Felix, 80. “Usually they do. Being older gives me more respect.”

Felix has served up drinks and banter for 17 years at the Stop Off, a bar at the edge of a working-class neighborhood. She is an anomaly in a job not often filled by grandmotherly types in polyester pantsuits; in fact, the California Restaurant Assn. reports that the median age of female beverage and food workers in the United States is 26.

“My jaw dropped the first time we walked in and saw her,” bar patron Linnea Petschar said. “I teased my husband Harry that it was too bad she wasn’t wearing a miniskirt.”

Night bartender Frank Sopher admits to being shocked when he first learned he would be pouring drinks with an octogenarian. “The first day I came to work here and saw her behind the bar, it blew my mind,” he said.

The 5-foot Felix stirs screwdrivers and slings Singapores on a shelf behind the bar because she is too short to mix drinks on top. But she has no problem trading jibes over the bar with the regulars who line it daily.

“I tell people off if they need it,” Felix said. “I tell them in a nice way. If that doesn’t work, I tell them off in a less-nice way. I don’t want to brag, but I’m a bouncer, too.”

Felix said her age is no handicap in handling a bar crowd, although she bristles when some first-time patrons address her as “mom” when ordering up a beer. She likes it even less when they call her “grandma.”

“I set them straight. I tell them I work here--that I’m not their mother,” she said. Privately, however, that’s the way Felix is viewed by some of the regulars at the Stop Off, a Huntington Drive South fixture since 1945.

“This is a family-type place, and she adds a motherly mood to it,” said Al Martinez, a truck driver who has frequented the bar for three years. “The first time I came here and saw an elderly lady behind the bar, I figured she had to be the owner. Now, I see her like my mom.”

Felix began her full-time lounge job after she retired at age 62 as a waitress at a downtown Los Angeles cafeteria. “I told the cafeteria I wanted to quit then because I might not live to be 65,” she said.

But Felix quickly grew bored sitting around her El Sereno home, located near the Stop Off. When the owner of the bar asked her if she could help out, she signed up for what she expected to be a temporary job.

Current bar owner Bob Cadena said he had no qualms about keeping Felix on when he took over four years ago. He said she handles everything from cases of empty beer bottles to preparation of daily lunch specials served at the bar.

“I’m not kidding you. She’s also a bouncer--she chases the guys out,” Cadena said.

Unruly customers are rare because of the bar’s neighborhood clientele, although Felix keeps a lead-weighted stick beneath the bar. “She never uses it, but she pulls it out playfully if customers start harassing her,” Sopher said.

“Carrie breaks through the generation gap. Kids who have just turned 21 and guys who have been coming here 35 years--she relates to them all.”

The regulars relate to her, too. When Felix turned 80 in April, bar patrons threw her a party. Some, such as Sally Castaneda and Martha Alexander, invite Felix along when they go places, such as Las Vegas.

“Carrie takes advantage of her age,” laughed Al Martinet, a retired carpet salesman who frequently stops off for a beer.