Meet the team: Stuart Clarke
Now a bartender in Chapter House, Stuart Clarke has held quite a few roles in his time at the hotel – we catch up with him to find out more about his time here.
I started working at the hotel on 15 December 1997 – as a waiter in the restaurant, which is now The Garden Room. I had just finished college and I didn’t have any idea about what I wanted to do. I knew I didn’t want to go to university, I just wanted to earn some money – it was my first full-time job, and I’m still here today!
Most days I’ll come in at 10am to open the bar up for 11am. I’ll start off by serving people tea and coffee in the morning, then move onto lunch. Then in the afternoon, we’ll tend to see guests who are staying in the hotel or who’ve just arrived – it’s really nice to have the first contact with hotel guests as they sometimes enter the hotel through our door, suitcases in hand. Once you get to tea time, we get the post-work crowd and people travelling home from work – then I’ll leave around 6-8pm.
One of the things I love about working here is that I get to meet the world – being in the city that we are, you get meet people from all over. Making connections with people who are from other places is always interesting, talking about their travels or their home town.
I also like being kept busy! I feel a sense of achievement having been here for so long and worked in a number of departments – I’ve learnt so much about everything.
I don’t drink much—which is funny as I work in the bar—but I enjoy sipping the occasional cocktail like our Marmalade Old Fashioned or Amaretto Sour. The glasses they’re served in are just beautiful.
My favourite thing about York is that I can go out for a walk and enjoy nice places that are beautiful to look at. It’s a good-size city, but it’s not too big – I can leave my house and one way takes me to the city and one takes me out of the hustle and bustle. There are so many free activities such as walking the bar walls and museums. We’re also really well-connected transport-wise which also means we get lots of tourists – so it’s quite unique getting to meet people from all over the country/world who have just come to see York.
Fancy making one of Stuart’s cocktails? Find the recipes here: