Farewell Le Passage

Dear Chicago,

I’m writing this letter as my farewell to one of the institutions of this great city. It’s funny to think that a nightclub could possibly be referred to as an institution but Le Passage has undoubtedly earned that status. For over ten years Le Passage has been the provider of jobs, the meeting place for lovers and “lovers”, the backbone of the nightclub industry and THE trendsetter for the service industry.

For the last 2 years of my life, I had the pleasure of being part of the Le Passage legacy. The story of how I even became the General Manager there is amazing. After leaving my job in June of 2008, I was without a job for almost 3 months. Because of the economy, people were flooding the service industry and filling all of the tipped positions and even with my experience, there were no openings anywhere. After randomly meeting the Assistant GM of LP and me quickly telling him of my abilities as a bartender, he called me a couple weeks later. After my first shift, I was asked to come the following week. The next week, the same thing. The next week I scored 2 shifts. A few weeks later, I got to work the busier bar. Then, a couple weeks later they asked me to be the head bartender. Four weeks later, they asked me to be the GM. I had never managed Bottle service, a front door, a security team, VIP hosts or bussers but there was a great core team there that I could learn from and build upon. They taught me so much and my learning curve was off of the charts. I will admit that it took me about 6 months to get fully acclimated but when I was, we were all able to hit the ground RUNNING!

We built the best team that I have ever witnessed…especially in this business. The team was made up of people that cared about their jobs not because they feared me but because they respected the entire system that they were a part of. It was easy to create a social network of employees that wanted to invite people in and book tables and “promote” because people were part of a FAMILY. I’ve been in the service industry for 15 years and I can tell you that in most teams are not like ours. It’s an anomaly to have a group of service industry personnel that care so much for each other. So much so that when we fight, we fight like siblings; when we have a task, we approach it like a family; when I scolded, I did so like a father. Needless to say, our turnover was very low…and if you got fired, it’s because YOU asked for it.

Tuesday June 8th, my employment with Le Passage ended but my family is still there.

TO MY LP FAMILY: I want you to know that I did not abandon you and I didn’t leave because I couldn’t handle it. I had no idea that my meeting the other day would go the way that it did. I have been frustrated with some things over the past few months and I sent a pretty aggressive e-mail to our owners. I said that if certain things didn’t change then I could not continue to lead this team. I said that my grasp was slipping and I think a lot of you were as concerned as I was having had such a rough shift on Saturday night. It killed me to see you feel defeated. That was why we had that post-shift at the end of the night. While I knew that it was time for me to eventually move on, I had no idea it was going to happen so soon. In all honesty, I think based on my confrontational e-mail and the fact that I was offering to train another GM for them, the owners took that as if I didn’t want to be there anymore. I thought that I would have the opportunity to say goodbye to you all and throw a few more epic parties but based on everything that happened, I no longer have the graceful exit that I wanted. I came in with my planner and my notebook open…ready to make notes and add to my calendar. Does that sound like someone planning to abandon you? I’m sure that given all of the circumstances that this was probably a miscommunication. I wanted to plan my exit, train a replacement, throw some parties and instead, that was received as my “immediate resignation.” I didn’t fight it. I said “ok”, listened to a couple more things, then got my stuff and left. After 2 years, I never expected “the end” conversation to be 8 minutes long. However, the events of one day and one short conversation WILL NOT define my experience as the head of this team.

It’s an unfortunate exit but I regret nothing. I have been proud to serve my staff, my friends, my guests, my owners and even my enemies at Le Passage. I have grown as an individual more than I could ever have imagined possible. I have become a better, stronger leader through my experience. This job has forced me to grab a stronger hold onto God because there was NO WAY that I was strong enough to do this job, at this level, with this intensity, for this long. I pray that if you know me, you know that it’s not me that makes me the way that I am.

I want to thank Three Headed Productions, Matt, Tommy, Jay, Kim Charles and the rest of the office team for this experience. You took a risk on a cocky bartender and I sincerely appreciate it. I’m not sure how you think I did but I hope you don’t regret the risk you took…if you do, I sincerely apologize…I tried my hardest to make you proud.

To my Le Passage family, I love and support you! I will continue to send business your way until I land at another venue. Even then, I will always look out for you guys because I know you have looked out for me. Please keep in touch and don’t be strangers!

LOVE!!!!!!!

Joel David Barnes