Cosmopolitan

Written as a memoir, this book follows a single day at Passerby, a bar that Toby Cecchini owns and runs. Across that shift, he reflects on years spent working in the service industry and on the particular quirks of bartending as a career.

The bar serves as a window onto people. Cecchini watches how drinkers act when alcohol, desire, and the urge to cut loose take hold, and he records the odd and sometimes revealing things that happen once the night is in full swing.

His voice shifts between sharp humor, cool observation, sardonic commentary, and moments of lyricism as he describes the everyday realities of his trade. The result sheds light on the less visible side of what people get up to when they go out at night.