Bruce Springsteen was 'drunk as a skunk’ while bartending at The Stone Pony

Rock icon Bruce Springsteen was "drunk as a skunk" when he jumped behind the bar of the iconic New Jersey The Stone Pony and started "h anding drinks out to whoever wanted ‘em." Known for his eclectic array of talents, Springsteen, 74, can now seemingly add bartending to music and performing in the fields that he excels in.

The Boss has performed at the venue for decades, with the former owner Jack Roig, who owned the venue from 1974 until 1992, providing a hilarious anecdote about Springsteen ensuring all customers got their fill of drinks.

“I walked in the front door and saw people around the front bar and there he is behind the bar, handing drinks out to whoever wanted ’em, drunk as a skunk and having the ball of his life,” Roig told The New York Post.

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Despite his best efforts, Springsteen didn't know how to make cocktails. Instead, Roig laughed in memory, he focused on “beer and shots, he knew how to do that."

The Stone Pony recently celebrated its 50th birthday and it was the subject of a recent book titled, “I Don’t Want to Go Home: The Oral History of the Stone Pony," written by New Jersey native and New York Times correspondent, Nick Corasaniti.

In the book, Springsteen expands on Roig's hilarious anecdote. “I wasn’t much of a bartender, but I’d serve up the beers and just have fun with the fans, and just enjoy myself. [My signature] was beer. With a Jack Daniel’s on the side, maybe," the musical icon recalled.

Roig recalled that Springsteen would invariably come to the bar alone. However, if he was bringing The E Street Band with him, then he would phone ahead.

“He said, ‘Can we come down and play?’ — Can you believe that? ‘Can we?," Roig said, while also revealing that Springsteen would never ask for money to perform at the venue. “Never, it was never even suggested. And the building’s maximum legal capacity was 556. Now, tell me how I’m gonna pay a guy that can fill up MetLife Stadium,” Roig remembered. “One summer, he played here 11 out of 13 Sundays.”

Roig continued, remembering how Springsteen, by then nationally famous, tried to pay the cover charge for access to The Stone Pony. “When he was on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the same week [in 1975], he’s down at the end of the line, looking through his pockets to see if he’s got enough money to come in,” Roig said.

In Coransaniti's book, Pete Llewellyn, who worked at Stone the Pony between 1979 and 1992, fondly remembered Springsteen, who never paid for a drink at the venue, and his patronage of the venue. “He’d get four or five kamikazes in him and he’d go up to the band and play for an hour,” Llewellyn said.

Springsteen's debut album, “Greetings from Asbury Park,” showcased his love for New Jersey and he rented a garage apartment in Deal, which is two miles away from Asbury, where the Stone Pony is located. “I think that’s where he wrote a good portion of the ‘Born in the USA‘ album. And he would get tired of writing and he would come in and just want to blow some steam off,” Llewellyn

Llewelyn described Springsteen as a “a real laid back guy,” and said that patrons of the bar wouldn't bother him when he was in the Stone Pony, despite his fame. “He’d pull up in an old, beat-up pickup truck. He would come in, he’d put a red baseball hat on,” the former Stone Pony employee recalled. “And he would mind his business and people knew not to mob him and make a spectacle of him. He didn’t like that.”

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Many women, however, did try to flirt with the music legend. “What girl didn’t want to go home with Bruce Springsteen in 1985? Well, I knew one [who did], and she worked there, so I don’t want to mention her name,” Llewelyn laughed.

Llewelyn recalled serving Springsteen when he first saw his current wife, Patti Scialfa. Scialfa herself used to perform at the venue singing and playing guitar. “He was sitting at the front bar and he stopped what he was doing. He just sat there and was glued to her. He liked what he saw. And I’m not talking physically. He liked the way she sang, he liked her presence,” he said. “After the show he went in the back and they were talking … And then, of course, the rest is history.”

Llewelyn's most cherished memory of Springsteen in the Stone Pony was when he performed tracks from the upcoming album Born in the USA for the staff between 4 to 10 am. “He wasn’t quite sure what songs he was going to put on the album just yet … and we even got to hear songs that didn’t even make the album. After he sang a song, we all gave our opinion on it, and our opinion meant something to him,” the former bartender remembered.

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Released in 1984, the album was hugely successful and played a role in both Springsteen and The Stone Pony being known by a bigger audience of fans. “When I used to proof people at the front door, you would see a tremendous amount of European passports," Llewelyn, who was also a bouncer at the venue, remembered.

The Boss would also have fan mail from around the world sent to the Stone Pony's address. “It would be addressed to ‘Bruce Springsteen, USA,’ and it would be delivered to us. I bet, over the years, we got thousands of pieces of mail,” Llewleyn said.

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