The Story:
Many say if you find a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. And that is true for this 95-year-old lady in Alpena who has been a bartender for 74 years and counting.
Fox 32's Katie Boomgaard serves up the details on this bartender who is setting the bar.
"In 1924 it was decided by my grandparents that they would open a dance hall. And in a few short weeks, with the help of neighbors and my grandfather, Henry Peter Cadarette's brothers, they opened this place as a dance hall," explained family historian Carole Cadarette.
Three Alpena brothers put the house and dance hall now known as the Maplewood Tavern into place and kept it going for years.
"You could go almost every township that had a fairly large building would have a dance on Friday or Saturday nights. And everybody would flock to those dances."
The Maplewood Tavern was one of those hoppin' dance halls. But prohibition meant the family had to pull together to keep the place alive.
"They ran it as a dance hall from 1924 to 1932. In 1932, my grandfather passed away, one more year of a dance hall with a lot of help from family and friends. Prohibition was over with and my grandmother applied for beer and wine license. And then it became what we lovingly called a beer garden instead of a tavern."
After this place made a name for itself, a famous bartender was born and took over the family business.
"I never had a dull moment, I'll tell ya, when I wasn't bartending, I was washing dishes or washing clothes or scrubbing floors." Clarise Grzenkowicz became part of Maplewood Tavern and before she knew it, she'd been behind the bar for 74 years.
"I've never accepted tips through the years. I didn't feel like they should. I'd probably be rich now, probably wouldn't have saved it anyway, I'd spent it, hahaha."
"You always want to know somebody's that's famous and so we were sitting here, my friend's and I, and I heard somebody up at the bar say to her, how long have you been doing this and she said oh I guess it's like 70 years and I thought to myself, that's gotta be a record of some kind," said friend Shirley Dietlin.
Sure enough, Clarise became the Guinness Book of World Records' holder for longest career as a bartender in 2011 and still holds that record today. A bar full of history and a bartender who continues to make history.
"It is just unbelievable, in this little town of Alpena, Michigan that you have a Guinness World Record holder at this bar. But she's here, bartending, getting your drink, whatever drink you want, it's amazing, truly amazing. She's going to do it until she's not here anymore, she's going, we're holding the record out for 100 years, I'm sure she'll still be here, she loves it here."
"And seeing how you've been here for 74 years, how much longer do you plan on bartending? Probably until I'm six foot under, I'm only 95, I can't give up yet," said Clarise. "It means a lot, it really does that I've been able to stay here, had good health to be here, and hope to stay here if I can."
Even though Clarise doesn't keep tabs on how many beers she's actually poured, she can chalk another one up to her list.
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