• Job: Bar manager, Manuel's Tavern, Atlanta

KARL W. RITZLER/Special (ENLARGE)

Longtime employee Bill McCloskey serves a beer to customer Scott Polinsky at Manuel's Tavern.

• What I do: Bill McCloskey knows what it's like to be a regular at Atlanta landmark Manuel's Tavern.

"I'd come up here at night [after work] and hang out," he recalled. "[Tavern founder] Manuel Maloof told me to watch the bar one night, and I'm still here."

In the 35 years since, McCloskey has served dinner and drinks to luminaries such as President Jimmy Carter, Hall of Fame baseball manager Tommy Lasorda and former U.S. Sen. Wyche Fowler. He's even got a hamburger named after him.

McCloskey, 62, has been a bartender, waiter, cook, dishwasher and, until recently, night manager. Now, he says, he's "trying to retire."

He inventories food and beverages, sets up the bar and receives early deliveries. Sometimes when he shows up for work at 6 a.m., "there are still a few people in the parking lot," even though the bar closes at 2 a.m. most days.

And he occasionally pours a beer, serves food and cooks.

You can get a McCloskey Burger, which the menu calls "our 8-ounce patty with lettuce, tomato and onion on a kaiser roll."

"It's the way I'd fix them. I tried to make mine a little bit bigger," he said, adding, jokingly, "After so many years of service, they wouldn't give me a watch, so they named a burger after me."

At one time, Manuel's was an unofficial Democratic Party headquarters. The tavern frequently hosted election-night parties and gatherings of politicians or notables.

Among his customers, McCloskey counts Carter, whose Carter Center is just around the corner, as well as a host of politicians, sports stars, students, police officers, "artsy people" and journalists.

Manuel's Tavern welcomes both Democrats and Republicans and is still the neighborhood bar for ordinary folks.

"They've had a hard day," McCloskey said. "We'll be there for them."

• What got me interested in this: McCloskey said he had been working at a nearby printing company and would stop at Manuel's on his way home before Maloof hired him.

He said Maloof, the former DeKalb County CEO who died in 2004, and his brother, Robert, who is retired from the business, "took care of us." For example, the Maloof brothers offered a retirement plan for long-term employees, McCloskey said.

"One time, I needed a new truck. Robert said, 'Get a [blank company] check and buy a truck,' " he recalled.

McCloskey surprised them by actually doing it, and he repaid the loan at $50 per week.

"I knew I wouldn't get fired for years" because of the debt, he said.

• Best part of my job: "I always get to meet good people here," McCloskey said. "It's different every day."

He has seen new generations of Manuel's customers. "I see people, their grandpas used to come here."

• Most challenging part: "Just getting up in the morning" after years of working nights, McCloskey said.

• What people don't know about my job: "The history," McCloskey said. "Young people don't know the history and customers like we [longtime employees] do."

• What keeps me going: "I enjoy starting the day off in the morning," he said. "Nights just got to me."

McCloskey is looking toward retirement, saying he might "sell my house, buy a new truck and go for a ride."

• Preparation needed for this job: McCloskey said many of the younger employees at Manuel's are students or theater people between gigs.

To keep a job, he said, you have to be alert and know your customers.

"Some people want to talk, and others want to be left alone," he said. "People like it when they walk in the door, and you put their favorite beer in front of them."

Bartenders often can be like confessors.

"I've heard a lot — probably too much," McCloskey said.

He added that you have to be there for the customers and make them feel good so they'll come back.

Sometimes, though, you have to be tough.

"You're not a regular until you've been thrown out," he said.

- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.