"When I'm out there I'm not as comfortable as I am behind the bar."
Poignant words from Margo MacGillivray, a constant at Winnie's for almost four decades.
In "Last call for legendary bartender", Gazette columnist and occasional barfly Bill Brownstein profiles the woman who spent more than a few shifts as therapist and den mother to the lions of Anglophone Montreal's literary, journalistic and political guilds.
“Margo was the Patrick Roy of bartenders – because nothing got past her,” [filmmaker Brian] McKenna marvels. “She had this ability to create a kind of holy space. Margo’s bar was a place of retreat, a place that out-shone Cheers. Like all the great ones, she has an endless capacity to listen."
MacGillivray, a former Miss Alouette and Grey Cup Miss Congeniality, tells Brownstein that she only got into the business to overcome her shyness.
"Now that I’ve finally achieved that, I’m ready to move on.” Pause. “But not before one more dance on top of the bar.”
Margo MacGillivray's last shift at Winnie's is on Friday.
