75 Years at the Tap

April 30, 2007 — -- While you might expect to find a hip 25-year-old behind the bar of your local watering hole, one Pennsylvania bartender defies the thinking that it's a young person's career.

The Pittsburgh institution Cammarata's Café traces its roots back to Prohibition, and so does its owner.

"I have been pouring beer since April 7, 1933," said Angelo Cammarata, 93, in an interview with ABC News. "At the very beginning, we did not have draft beer, we had bottled beer. In my dad's grocery store, we had an ice-cream soda fountain with a counter and that served as our first bar.

The owner, manager and resident psychologist at the West View haunt sold his first beer two weeks after the repeal of Prohibition. Cammarata was 19, and the beer was a 10-cent bottle of Fort Pitt, sold from a makeshift bar in his father's grocery store.

"My dad had to tear down his grocery store within a period of a year and build a big, beautiful, 49-foot-long bar, a dining room and everything," he explained.

Now, 75 years later, Cammarata is the world's longest-serving bartender and a local hero. Serving the residents of this tightknit community for three generations, not only has he filled their glasses but has also filled their lives with friendship and fun.

"My favorite part about being a bartender is all these folks that are in here … seeing them every day, talking with them, enjoying their company, and seeing that they enjoy our bar," said Cammarata at his diamond anniversary celebration April 7. "We're a very neighborhood bar. A lot of good personality here, there's a lot of good friendship. It's not only a matter of serving customers, but you can become well acquainted with them and enjoy them."

'Not a Beer Drinker'

So, what's kept him going all these years?

Cammarata attributes his lengthy career and good health to "74 years of being on [his] feet," staying away from heavy drinking and smoking, and a bourbon and coke once a day.

"I'm not a beer drinker," he said. "My dad told me 'beer is not made to drink, it's made to sell.'"

And that's exactly what he did. In his seven-plus decades worth of service, Cammarata has received many awards and been the subject of countless articles.

For his 70th year, Cammarata was honored by Anheuser-Busch Co.'s August Busches II and IV and joined the "70 Years of Service" club, of which he is the only member.

Perhaps most notably, the Guinness Book of World Records proclaimed Cammarata the longest-serving bartender in the world in 2007.

In the past few years, Cammarata has taken a backseat at his bar -- scaling back his hours and even moving out of his house above the bar -- to make way for the next generation of Cammarata's Café bartenders and customers.

"There's always a Cammarata in the bar," he said. "My one son, my other son, or myself, and now we have grandchildren helping them out."

In many ways, Cammarata has shaped his neighborhood and its inhabitants, one beer at time. Added up, it's more than 75 years of service, and that's a lot of beer and more than a few ears full of advice.

"I'm here for service, whether it be personal, whether it be business. Friendly service, always, is my motto," he said. "I always liked to be sociable in my years behind the bar, always. We've created a friendly bar here, and that is our main purpose."

And his clientele agrees. Cammarata's oldest customer, Charles "Blackie" Blackstock, had his first drink at Cammarata's Café in 1935.

Blackie, 93, lives in a nursing home and can no longer make it to the café for his daily brew, but his son, John Blackstock, always makes time for a couple of cold ones when he's in town.

"From my vantage point, this is utopia, the epitome of a family, neighborhood bar," said the younger Blackstock, who flew in from St. Louis to attend Cammaratta's 75th anniversary bartending bash. "When you get a town like Pittsburgh, which is a neighborhood bar town, this is the top of the tops. Seventy-five years is an absolute incredible thing."

One thing is for sure, Cammarata's legacy will live on as long as the beer holds out.

"When the Lord put some gems on this earth, he put a big one right here," said Blackstock, referring to the godfather of bartending. "The legacy [Cammarata] leaves behind will be miles and miles long. And, if you want to see it, stop back April 7 next year, and you'll see the love and the affection that these people have, that he's earned over the years."