His presence did not go unheralded in the apartment, in a new warehouse conversion along the Brooklyn waterfront, although the intimate cluster of guests could have easily served themselves. “In my opinion, if you don’t have a bartender at your party, you’re a loser,” said Dustin Terry, who lives a floor below Ms. Argiro and said his job was to get models and Saudi royalty into hot clubs. “The bartender brings class and sophistication.”
“If you can’t afford to hire a bartender,” he added, “you shouldn’t be having a party.”
That seems to be the consensus of a growing crowd of 30-something New Yorkers who wish to signal they’ve graduated from post-collegiate squalor to young professional coming of age. No matter how small their abodes, they won’t invite friends over for cocktails without the assistance of a bartender — even if there’s barely room for the bartender to stand.
Wait, hold on: Is this really a thing? It’s been quite a while since I’ve been to a house party, but technically I’m going to be a 30-something in a little over a month. And I can’t really imagine anyone I know hiring a bartender to work a party in a tiny apartment. Seems like conspicuous consumption to me, and, worse, a huge waste of space.
Of course, like I said, most people I know don’t throw a lot of house parties. Or if they do, they don’t invite me.
If you’re having a party and you’ve invited me, know that I’m totally cool with a spread of hard liquors and mixers in plastic bottles on a sticky table, and maybe some cans of beer on ice in a cooler underneath. If that’s unsophisticated, I don’t want to be sophisticated.
Also, if you ever catch me saying something like, “If you can’t afford a bartender, you shouldn’t have a party,” please, please punch me in the face. In fact, though I’m generally a pacifist, I’m tempted to find Dustin Terry and fight him just on principle.
Lots of Times links today. Hat tip to Chuck Cannongeyser for this one.
Tedquarters 
I’d join in the hunt for Mr. Terry. It’s a sad, sad day when, with health care and retirement funds, parties are reserved for the prosperous.
Exactly. Parties are for the people.
His job is to get models and Saudi royalty into clubs? That has to be the easiest job in the world.
Yeah, you see these gorgeous women and billionaires? Any chance they could get into your establishment?
I was assuming it’s the other way around, and he works for the club trying to recruit models and Saudi royalty. Otherwise, like you say, it’s not really much of a job.
Ah yes. That would actually make sense.
What a pretentious, little weasel.
What “growing crowd” is this? I like to think the NYT is trolling everyone and people like this don’t exist.
Meh… its the NY Times Fashion & Style section.
Apply the Francesa rule.
These people sound like complete douches.
See, Ted, this is why I never invite you to the
“house parties” I host in my 120-sq-ft studio apartment. Last time your negative attitude really made the coat-check girl and the valet uncomfortable.
Well if the coat-check girl didn’t want to be in the mosh pit, she could have made more effort to get out of the way.
The Gothamist post about this “trend” said it best:
“You are a worthless P.O.S. if you don’t hire a bartender for your house party, say people who own catering companies and two random douchebags.”
http://gothamist.com/2010/12/09/if_you_dont_hire_a_bartender_for_yo.php
The Times is getting increasingly into asinine “trend” pieces in which they extrapolate the weirdness of about three people– married in Park Slope, single in TriBeCa/meatpacking district, to the rest of the universe.
Yeah, this. The Times loves trend pieces involving “trends” that fewer than a dozen people participate in.
I have to think I’d have to question if I would even want to attend a house party where someone went out of their way to hire a bartender. Reeks of pretentious toolboxery to me. I mean theoretically wouldn’t you be better off putting whatever funds would be needed for the bartender towards classier liquor or something?
The most likely case is that these people who need a bartender to distinguish themselves from the “college party” feel, were likely complete losers in college who never went to any good parties in college and now harbor resentment to that type if thing, and feel the need to somehow make themselves feel “above” that.
Most people I know that are cool, and were cool in college, have no problem drinking beer out of red cups, pumping thief own keg, or mixing thief own drinks from a spread layer out in the kitchen table. Like you said, I think anyone with thier priorities straight would clearly spend the extra money on either higher quantities of booze or higher quality. I mean if I’m dead set on spending a certain amount of money, I’d rather mix my own drink with Kettle or Goose than have some bartender saving me absolute or smirnoff.
Aren’t we all bartenders?
“little of this-little of that, aaaaaaaaaand it’s way too strong… perfect”.