Quiet Woman makes a big noise for bartender’s 40th anniversary
Tom Peroutka sat at Table 7 at The Quiet Woman in Corona del Mar for what he thought was going to be a quiet birthday celebration.
It was the evening of Jan. 17. Peroutka had turned 65 the day before.
Typically, one can find Peroutka behind The Quiet Woman’s bar, where he’s worked for 40 years.
On this night, on the other side of the restaurant, Ry Bradley and his band played before a packed house. A few patrons hopped off their seats and started dancing on the small space in front of the stage.
The cozy East Coast Highway establishment, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in December 2015, prides itself on sophisticated comfort food and being “contrary to trendy and far from fussy.” Its logo is a headless maiden.
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EDITOR’S NOTE:
This is an installment of Behind the Plate, a series of articles about longtime local restaurant workers.
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As Bradley’s band played, a Quiet Woman employee quietly placed two silver balloons above the stage. One formed the letter “T,” the other “P.”
It was part of a surprise party to celebrate Peroutka’s 40th work anniversary at The Quiet Woman.
A few minutes later, Bradley stopped the show and announced Peroutka’s milestone.
“That’s right, folks,” Bradley declared. “Forty years, folks, my man Tom has been working that bar.”
Peroutka, who grew up in Chicago, Florida and Torrance, began his long tenure at The Quiet Woman on Jan. 17, 1977. He was a college student at the time. The money was good, so he stuck with it, even after completing his bachelor’s degree at Cal State Long Beach and a master’s from UCLA’s film school.
Until a few years ago, Peroutka lived in Corona del Mar. Now he lives in Irvine, where he’s raising 5-year-old twins with his wife, whom he met at The Quiet Woman.
The people in the room applauded as a stunned Peroutka made his way to the stage, which is elevated a few feet above the floor. Peroutka grabbed a side of his bar to hoist himself up, but he couldn’t quite get there on the first try.
“Don’t break a hip,” a patron quipped. Peroutka made it on the second attempt.
The audience continued to clap as he grabbed the microphone.
“I am so shocked,” Peroutka said. “I didn’t know this was happening. You guys completely caught me by surprise.”
He said he loved seeing so many familiar faces. Customers and fellow employees at The Quiet Woman are like family, he said.
“I really, really love you guys,” Peroutka added. “You have made this a special home for me, and I hope I’ve made it the same for you.”
Lisa Johnson, a former Quiet Woman bartender, noted how Peroutka loves to engage his customers in long anecdotes while sharing his philosophies.
” When you’re working with Tom,” she joked, “you’ve never worked so hard in your life because there are 60 people looking at you to make mojitos and he’s talking about various aspects of economics.”
Johnson said Peroutka is also very thoughtful. One day when she returned to the restaurant, Peroutka retrieved a key she once used at work that he had been holding onto for years.
“He has a kind heart and a great spirit,” she said.
Peroutka, sitting on the stage as people roasted him, shook as head while someone recalled the tale of how he lacked a Halloween costume one year. So the employees grabbed everything from lost and found and made him wear it.
Jeremy Palermo, a Quiet Woman regular, recalled how a few months ago, on a busy Saturday night, one of Peroutka’s colleagues was “slammed with orders,” among them 18 dirty martinis. Meanwhile, Peroutka was waxing philosophical.
The bartender also had a host of beer orders to fill but saw that the keg was empty. Peroutka, eventually seeing his colleague was in trouble, offered to change the keg.
The bartender asked Palermo to take picture of the moment, “‘cause you will never see this again,” the bartender said.
During the surprise party, Palermo presented Peroutka with a framed picture of the scene, with him hunched over a keg.
“This is a picture of you changing the keg for only the third time in 40 years,” Palermo said.
The audience laughed.
“It took me awhile,” Peroutka exclaimed. “I didn’t know where to find it!”
“No, you were struggling,” Palermo replied. “You were sweaty, trying to figure out how to line the things up.”
Palermo gave The Quiet Woman staff a copy.
“This will be in the office for everyone to see for the next 40 years,” Palermo declared. “This is Tom trying to figure out how the keg works ... he has no idea.”
As others told stories about Peroutka — hailed as a person who makes The Quiet Woman such a friendly place to visit and jokingly called “a better friend than a bartender” — some walked to the center of the bar. On the wall above it, Quiet Woman owner Lynne Campbell had affixed a small plaque she dedicated to Peroutka that evening.
It read: “Tom Peroutka — bartender extraordinaire.”
Twitter: @BradleyZint
