Meet Darcy Graves, Laurel
Pub Date: 1/1/2003
A diverse stream of customers has drifted through the doors of the Board of Trade bar since it opened in 1941 across the street from the railroad tracks in Laurel.
Les Frank, who has owned the place since 1985, describes it as "a working man's bar" that serves pizza and snacks during happy hour and offers a juke box and 10 video gaming machines as entertainment.
"Our bartenders are the best entertainment," said Frank, a man who obviously appreciates humor, as he let out a chuckle.
One of them is Darcy Graves who has spent 28 years behind the plank, eight of them at the Board of Trade.
"I've been bartending a long time," she said. "I've been here long enough that I've seen a lot of characters come through that door. People from all different walks of life come in here."
Some of them have just gotten off the train.
"They just come in to get out of the cold," she says of the hobos. "We make them leave their backpacks outside, and they can stay here as long as they're courteous and respectful."
The hobos, she said, are not what you might expect them to be.
"I've met doctors and lawyers who decided to ride the rails," she said. "Amish people who have decided to leave the colony to ride the rails have come in here."
And some of them could probably afford a first-class seat on Amtrak.
"They have money," Graves said. "they're tippers. Some of them are good tippers."
For the most part, however, life at the Board of Trade is pretty predictable.
During the day, which is the shift Graves works, older people come in to have a cup of coffee and socialize. And the night crowd is as different from the day crowd as, well, day and night.
"We have younger customers at night," she said. "They are people who have just gotten off work and want a drink or two."
Graves said she sometimes encounters inebriated customers or underage visitors who want to purchase liquor or cigarettes.
"you've just got to be able to talk to them," she said of intoxicated patrons. "We just cut them off."
"Bartending is not a physical job It's a mental job," she said. "You have to have the persistence and mentality to put up with a different lifestyle."
In her 28 years as a bartender, Graves has seen many changes in the bar business.
In earlier days when she tended bar in Cut Bank and elsewhere in Laurel, Graves said customers may have imbibed more because of the less stringent DUI laws, but they also danced to live music and played poker.
Now, she said, people are drinking less and enjoy playing the video gaming machines for recreation.
"People play the machines now and that helps the bar," she said. "It's just a whole lot different than it used to be."
A single mom, Graves has a 16-year-old daughter at home and juggles her time between her job and domestic duties. For example, she said her shifts conform to when her daughter is at home or at school.
"I've had to go back and forth," she said.
She also is a different person at home than she is at work.
"I'm more boisterous here, and I don't take any baloney from anyone," she declared. "I go home, and I'm not like that."
And she doesn't have any plans to change careers.
"I like working with the public," she said. "I love my bosses. they're the best people in the world. That's why I've been here for so long."
Source: June 2004 Inside Gaming Montana quarterly magazine for workers in the hospitality business, published by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.