It’s usually a little quieter in the Turf Supper Club.

Or at least it’s usually a place you could sit, have dinner andallow the dim red of the room sink into your skin.

Not tonight.

It is Saturday, after all.

“I’m sorry, man,” says the blond-haired bartender to a couplewhose order he has inadvertently overlooked. “If you’d have caught meon any other night…”

Doug Thompson looks like the typical bartender — not on accountof looks, of course, but by virtue of an inherent air ofrestlessness, of constant movement.

“Saturday nights aren’t usually this crazy,” says the 29-year-old,moving quickly — almost as if without thinking — from the counterto the collection of clean glasses behind him and then to the varietyof alcohol bottles that grace his side of the bar. “I don’t knowwhat’s up. Fridays are our busier nights, but things seemed to haveswitched around this weekend.”

Indeed, it is a packed house, and the voices that waft in the airjumble into a raucous collection of laughs, pick-ups and drunkenconversation. You can see, amid the collage of heads, a white-hairedman — Turf Club regular Tiny Lee — singing his heart out. But it’sof little consequence. His own voice is buried in the crowd’scacophony.

It’s a scene bartenders are all too familiar with, one they’veassimilated as a normal part of their lives. And as hectic as it is,Thompson manages to keep his cool.

“You have to,” he says. “It’s all part of the job.”

Welcome to the world of the bartender, whose job, by definition,is to serve alcoholic drinks at a bar. But as many local bartenderswill tell you, there’s more to bartending than taking orders,concocting drinks and picking up on women.

“There’s a joke we have,” says Steve Atencio, 38-year-oldbartender at Tony’s Bar in Ocean Beach, “that says that thedifference between God and a bartender is that God doesn’t think he’sa bartender, which does say something about the typical bartenderego. But we’re too busy most of the time to pick up on women. We gohome with more wet socks than women.”

Another fallacy that most bartenders run into is that bartendingschool is a requirement for success.

“Bartending isn’t just about recipes,” says Atencio. “That seemsto be 90 percent of what bartending schools concentrate on.

“A good bartender is someone who is organized, professional,personable and always up for the challenge of juggling everything atonce.”

You’ve simply either got it, or you don’t, he says.

“There is a balancing act that must be done between putting outdrinks in a timely manner and attending to the social aspects ofbartending.”

Both Atencio and Thompson, who have been bartending for 15 yearsand nine years respectively, say these are aspects of the jobbartending school can’t teach.

“I feel as if I’m hosting a party every night I work,” Atenciosays. “I’m responsible for making sure that everyone’s taken care of,whether that means they have a drink in hand or that they feelcomfortable with their surroundings.”

If there’s one stereotype bartenders can attest to being true,it’s that the money they rake in is nothing to complain about. Whiletheir wages are generally low — oftentimes minimum wage — themajority of the money they make is in tips, which Atencio says varieson volume and clientele.

“Local regulars are the backbone of a place like Tony’s,” he says.”They’ll come in on a certain night and know who is going to bebehind the bar. It’s that kind of consistency that makes a local bara great place to be.”

Thompson, who bartended in Chicago for several years, says he onceencountered a man who, for every drink ordered, would put down $100.

“We don’t make an enormous amount of money, but it’s a goodamount,” says Thompson. “This is a labor of love, and it has allowedme to do my art, to buy a home, to live comfortably.”

Atencio, too, says, he wouldn’t mind doing this for the long run.

“I’ve definitely bartended longer than I’d have thought,” he says.”It put me through college and I even got out into the real world fora while. But I just plain missed it — the social interaction,coupled with the hours, were just right for my life.”

Turf Supper Club, 1116 25th St. (619) 234-6363

Tony’s, 5034 Newport Ave. (619) 223-0558