About us
The story of how a homemade bar counter built from window sills, one that never quite fit in the trunk, grew into Bartender's.
Bartender's began with two schoolmates — Maxim and Andrei — and a small bar job in Mustamäe.
We were first-year university students at the time, and we quickly realised that bartending is a surprisingly interesting profession. It's work that happens wherever other people are celebrating. It lets you talk to people, meet new ones, travel, and develop a very specific craft at the same time.
Maxim drifted further into flair and show bartending, Andrei into classic bartending. At one point we even took a leave of absence from university and travelled around Europe with the idea of reaching Spain, getting a job at a bar by the sea, and spending the winter there.
Over time each of us built our own working life. Maxim worked as a bartender, bar manager and restaurant manager, later moving into logistics and air freight. Andrei worked in construction, sold windows and doors, trained as a lawyer, and picked up web development along the way.
But bartending never went away.
By the time we were about 21 or 22, we already wanted to build something of our own, but of course there was no money for our own bar. What we did have was bar experience, and Andrei could build websites. That's how our first web page appeared, offering mobile bar and bartender show services.
We built our first mobile counter ourselves — out of window sills Andrei got from a window company's warehouse. We had the design printed, put the thing together, and started driving to our first events.
We hauled it around in a Mercury Cougar. The counter didn't come apart, so we crammed it into the trunk, which then wouldn't close.
But those first bookings showed the idea worked. A real counter followed, then equipment, glassware, tools, clients, partners, and people we wanted to work with again.
For the first few years, Bartender's was still more of a hobby. The website existed, requests came in, but there was barely a sales process to speak of. Sometimes an email to us wasn't enough for a client — they had to call as well, just to make sure we'd actually seen it.
We were barely into our twenties, each with our own job, studies and other plans. Sometimes we lived in different countries. But the project kept going.
During those years we worked in a huge number of bars, restaurants, clubs and lounges. We watched bars open, grow and close. We got to know people across the industry, studied different standards of work, and gradually built a circle of professionals around us.
Alongside all that, we competed in classic bartending and flair competitions. Maxim went especially deep into flair and became the Estonian bartending champion.
Flair taught us well that a professional result comes from thousands of repetitions. We trained in bars, on the street, in halls — wherever we could. Maxim even managed to keep training during his service in the Kuperjanov Battalion.
Later we were invited to teach bartending.
That turned out to be a genuinely important stage. Knowing how to make a cocktail yourself is one thing; explaining to someone else why it has to be done exactly that way is another. We went back through the professional literature, safety standards, preparation techniques, workstation setup, and the whole service process.
That's how we learned not just to work, but to teach.
Over the years, quite a few people came through our classes and became good bartenders. Some of them we work with today.
Training and teaching needed a space of our own. At first it was a small studio with shelving, glassware, tools and a dishwasher. Over time it gradually turned into a private event space.
Later a second venue followed. Today we have two venues of our own in central Tallinn — MyBar on Tartu mnt 35, and Secret Bar on Roosikrantsi 3.
But the real turning point came later, closer to when we were both nearly thirty.
One December we met up, drank a bottle of good whisky, went for a swim in the sea, and decided we'd had enough of treating Bartender's as a hobby.
By then we already had the knowledge, the people, the equipment, the clients and the professional connections. The only thing missing was a system.
That's how the modern Bartender's began.
Today we work across mobile bars, bartender shows, cocktail workshops, welcome bars, alcohol-free bars, branded projects and glass pyramids. We have our own counters, glassware and equipment, two venues in central Tallinn, and a large network of partners across the event industry.
But the most important thing to grow out of these years is the team.
Some of the people on our team we trained ourselves. Some we met working in bars and restaurants. Some just turned up one day to try a new profession and stayed with us for years.
That's what happened with Enso, for example. He came to try something new, quickly showed himself to be a very talented person, and today is our head bar manager.
Alisa and Klavdiya work with our clients. Anita is one of our strongest workshop hosts. Anastasia is one of the bartenders we're especially glad to have on the team. And alongside them, dozens more people we've come to know over years in this industry.
About ten years have passed since our first attempts to bring a homemade counter to an event.
In that time, Bartender's has been a student idea, a hobby, a side job, a training ground and a school, before turning into a professional event business.
But the main thing has barely changed.
We're still interested in bartending.
We're just a lot better organised now than those two guys driving to a booking in a Mercury Cougar with a window-sill counter sticking out of the trunk.
