Italian, seafood, brewpub, corporate chain, or mom-and-pop – you name the type of restaurant, and Anne Winter has probably worked it. And lately, all the ups and downs of that experience seem to be paying off.
“This is like my dream job,” says Winter, who’s about six weeks into her management gig here at the Brewstation.
“All these restaurant jobs, everything I’ve been through, I’ve said to myself, ‘What am I doing with my life? But I didn’t realize that with every single experience, I was learning what works, and what doesn’t.”
She’s brought a treasure trove of industry knowledge to her current position here, which, as you can tell, she happens to like quite a bit.
“This place is locally owned, and it’s got a great family environment,” she said. “It’s also got an amazing staff that hasn’t been corrupted by bad management, or had the experience of being burned out, jaded. They have such a wonderful customer base — all locals, all regulars. It’s a dream job for a bartender.”
Anne grew up in Sutherlin, partly, and graduated from the University of Oregon. She says that as the daughter of a military man, she’s moved around pretty much her whole life. Her hospitality experience started at the age of 15 or 16, as a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant. But she says a gig at a prominent Eugene brewpub helped her fall in love with the business.
“I got hired at Steelhead with a group of people that were amazing,” she said. “They taught me everything I know.
It was there, Anne said, where she came to love bartending.
“It’s my favorite job” she said. “You get to meet people outside their element. You know things that maybe their family doesn’t know.”
She’s certainly proved her mettle so far, and Anne says she’s jazzed to spend a summer making fantastic cocktails and sharing stories with the community.
“This is the place to be,” she said. “And the door is open.”
