Getting a Kick Out of It: Restaurant Workers Create Community One Game at a Time

Oct 03, 2024

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank.

BAR HARBOR—That Sunday morning, Emily Wagg paced all around the wet grass of the Park Street soccer field, clipboard in hand, pausing her forward movement only to talk to fellow restaurant workers under the bright Maine sky. Some gathered wore cleats. Some had no shoes on at all. Some just wore sneakers. Many blearily wiped sleep from their eye the morning after a long shift. But their faces? They were full of smiles.

Wagg eyed each group coming in. Conferred with others.

“We’re going to do this!” someone shouted, whipping off their shirt to put another one on.

“Hell right, we are, man!” another answered.

Men ran at each other with open arms and bounced into hugs. Women jumped into the air, bouncing, amping up. And all across the field there was friendship and joy as the farmer’s market set up in the MDI YMCA parking lot across the street.

“Hey! Hey! You’re here!”

“I am! I am here!”

“I thought you had to work.”

“I got covered!”

“Score!”

“Doing that later, you know. You know?”

The soccer tournament had begun. Organized by Wagg, the general manager of the Havana Restaurant Group, it brought eight teams together to vie for bragging rights until next season. Thirty-minute games of five-on-five led to winners and losers. The winners head to the semifinals and finals on October 4 at the same place at 9 a.m.

“In early September, Michael (Boland) and I were having a conversation about our end of season plans and he mentioned that years ago there had been a soccer competition between McKay's and Havana but they hadn't been able to repeat it. I played soccer growing up and am admittedly very competitive so the idea immediately grabbed my attention and I ran with it. That same day I printed flyers and passed them out at restaurants around town. Six other restaurants joined in and we put the whole thing together in a few weeks,” she said.

Wagg made the bracket randomly by assigning teams via pulling the restaurants' names out of a hat.

“I did most of the organizing, but I would like to shout out all of the other team captains,” Wagg said. “This was just an idea but the fact that so many people were eager to join in, made this competition a reality.”

Those teams and captains were McKay's, captained by Rowan Kase; Geddy's captained by Benjamin Curtis; Galyn's captained by Aidan Robichaud-Ward; Side Street Cafe captained by Bo Jennings; Atlantic Brewing captained by Daniel Vasile; and the Bar Harbor Inn captained by Jeremy Dougherty.

She also gave a shout-out to Boland who “ let me spend so much of my work day on this project.”

“Organizing this was super fun,” she said. “It was great to have something to look forward to at the end of the busy summer season.”

“Of course over the last 26 years we’ve had some fantastic folks in management roles but we hit the jackpot with Emily! She’s organized, driven, focused on high quality, and all while making sure that the hard work done by the staff is balanced with levity and humor. So organizing this soccer tourney was right up her alley,” Boland said.

STRESS AND RESTAURANT STAFF

Recently, there has been a bit more study on the psychological stress of waitstaff nationwide.

“Picture this: It’s a Friday night, the restaurant is packed, and you’re juggling orders for six different tables. The kitchen is backed up, a customer is complaining about their overcooked steak, and your manager is breathing down your neck about upselling desserts. Welcome to the high-pressure world of waiting tables,” NeuroStaff writes.

“The restaurant environment is a breeding ground for stress and anxiety. Servers often find themselves in a constant state of fight-or-flight, their bodies flooded with cortisol as they navigate the chaotic dance of service,” it continues. “This perpetual state of alertness can take a significant toll on mental health, leading to burnout and even long-term anxiety disorders.”

Add in a backdrop where it’s beautiful, but hard to find housing, where people are also engaged in lawsuits about cruise ship visitation, and it can be a lot.

The soccer games are a part of trying to help, to create community and hijinks and fun.

“Mostly I just hope that everyone has fun. Summer is obviously a crazy time for those of us in the restaurant and hospitality industry; I hope that this is something that people have been looking forward to as a celebration of the end of another season. I would love to see this continue next year, with more teams!” Wagg said.

They work hard even when it comes to getting ready for the tournament.

One guy threw up in practice the day before. He’d just been running on coffee then.

“Are you ready?” someone asked, bouncing a ball between their foot and knee.

“No. No, I am definitely not ready.”

A truck hit a pole on Park Street. Maybe it was a waste bin. No. A pole.

“You okay?” someone yelled.

The driver gave a thumbs-up and brought a wireless speaker, complete with tunes.

LET’S TALK COMMUNITY

Over and over, people in Bar Harbor lament the dwindling of community, but it might be that they just aren’t looking for community in the right places. Or it might be that the angry and bitter voices and moments often resonate the loudest.

Community happens at restaurants and bars as people gather, on the sidewalks of School Street as neighbors greet each other walking into work every morning, at the YMCA, the YWCA, the library, the College of the Atlantic, at art classes and contra dances, benefits, and nonprofit gatherings. It happens at Conners Emerson and high school school events and clubs and stages. It happens at lectures and walks and at the grocery store. It even happens at government meetings that can be full of recriminations and accusations.

And community—that lifting people up kind—it also happens on soccer fields after some good-natured, trash-talking by restaurant owners. That trash-talking turned horrified as some realized that players on other teams had games all throughout the summer.

Atlantic Brewing, Side Street Cafe, Galyn’s, and Havana 2 moved onto the semifinals where Atlantic will meet Side Street and Galyn’s will meet Havana 2. The winners proceed to the finals.

Things weren’t always regulation perfect. One team didn’t have enough players so they asked a kid walking down the street. A mastiff took the ball and jaunted away. One team might have been a bit late.

It didn’t matter. The chaos made memories, made joy, made community, made moments.

“Start talking! Start talking to each other!” Wagg yelled. “Good save. Good save!”

Her words of support brought a fist bump from the goalie and a smile. That sort of kindness wasn’t just on the field. Spectators told each other they looked good, they missed them, asked if they were doing okay. She treated everyone with dignity.

Everyone treated everyone with dignity.

That’s the thing: they were competing—often directly competing, but they still treated each other with kindness, cheered each other on, moaned together over bad kicks, missed plays and opportunities, and cheered on some really brilliant goals.

The same week as the soccer tournament, multiple meetings about potential changes to the town’s limits on cruise ship visitations, potential moratoriums on transient accommodations (lodgings), and vice presidential debates spawned heated language in person and on social media. Laments occurred about the loss of kindness and goodwill.

But on the field? On the field something different was happening.

One woman stood at the sideline of the playing field as headers were attempted, side kicks smashed goals. She answered how she was feeling when asked by another woman beside her. “Ah, tired,” she sighed out before pointing down to the grass and at the other woman’s white shoes. “Cute shoes. They new?”

“Yeah.”

“They are new and you came here today! To a field? Girl, I need to take care of you,” one woman said.

And that’s the thing, right? That’s what community is. It’s where we gather together. And in the best of communities, it’s where we take care of each other.