photograph by bruce vanwyngarden
Bjarni Rozen serves a “Mad Max’s Mai Tai.”
After settling in on a barstool at Max’s Sports Bar with manager Bjarni Rozen, I go to the obvious question first: “How did you get that name?”
Rozen smiles. This probably isn’t the first time he’s been asked that question. “My parents owned a sailboat and liked to sail around the Caribbean,” he says. “I was conceived on the sailboat and they named me after the Norwegian explorer Bjarni Herjolfsson, who sailed to Newfoundland from Iceland years before Leif Erikson. The ‘j’ is pronounced like in Bjork.”
Rozen grew up on St. Simons Island, Georgia, where he got an early start in the restaurant trade. “I started working in a restaurant on the Frederica River when I was 14,” he says. “I was a dessert maker. During high school, I continued to work in restaurants, and after high school, I moved to Charleston, South Carolina, with my dad. I had no interest in going to school, so I just took off and did a lot of traveling.”
In 2002, Rozen was living in Kansas City and fell for a woman who was moving to Memphis, so he came with her. The relationship didn’t last, but the love affair with Memphis did. “There’s something about Memphis,” Rozen says. “I’ve tried to leave a few times but I always found myself back here.”
Rozen’s Mai Tai is a blend of Kraken Spiced Dark Rum, amaretto, and fresh orange, cranberry, and pineapple juices. It’s quite delish. The man knows his way around a cocktail.
He began working for Memphis uber-restaurateur Karen Carrier — of the Beauty Shop, Molly Fontaine’s, and Automatic Slim’s — and soon decided to make a slight career realignment. “I noticed that the people who worked in the front of the house were making more money and having a way better time than I was in the kitchen,” he says.
Rozen put in a few years as a server with Carrier before landing his first bartending gig at Automatic Slim’s in 2008. “Karen gave me a shot and I just ran with it,” he says. “I’ve been doing it ever since. It suits my needs and my eight-year-old son’s needs. The hours are flexible and Max [owner Max Lawhon] has been great to work for.”
Rozen has managed the bar at Max’s since 2016, which means he’s seen a lot of football games. There are 10 screens in the smallish bar area, plus three more on the back deck, each with a schedule of the weekend’s contests to be shown on that TV taped to it.
“Customers can plan to get a spot near their game,” Rozen says. “Weekends during football season are packed. We serve a lot of pizza, house-made meatballs, and pulled-pork nachos. And a lot of beer.”
Last fall, all of Max’s customers gathered outside for a photo. The little bar is larger than it seems.
He points out a photo on the wall that was taken last fall. All the customers from inside the bar are posed on the sidewalk out front. Looking around the interior, it seems impossible that such a crowd would fit inside, but they do.
Most of Max’s customers are beer-drinkers, but when I remind Rozen that part of the schtick for this column is that he has to mix me a drink, he’s well prepared.
“I’ve got one in mind,” he says. “It’s called ‘Mad Max’s Mai Tai.’ If you want a nice cocktail at Max’s, we can gladly make you one. I’ve got some martini drinkers and bourbon drinkers among my regulars, and we get a lot of tourists who want a mixed drink.”
Rozen’s Mai Tai is a blend of Kraken Spiced Dark Rum, amaretto, and fresh orange, cranberry, and pineapple juices. It’s quite delish. The man knows his way around a cocktail.
I take a couple more sips and ask, “So, with all the crazy crowds, the thousands of people you’ve seen in the past seven years, is there one moment that stands out?”
Rozen pauses, thinking it over. “There’s this one guy,” he says. “He drives around in a golf cart. One day he drops in here for a couple drinks, then drives across the street to the Vault (a now-defunct bar), parks, and goes inside. A couple hours later I notice him and a friend arguing on the sidewalk. Then the guy jumps into his golf cart and stomps on the gas. The thing takes off backwards, spins around, zips across two lanes of traffic, jumps the curb, and runs into the wall of our building, almost hitting three people seated on the sidewalk. The crazy thing is, the guy gets out of the golf cart and just acts casual, like nothing is wrong. That was pretty memorable.”
Indeed. I’m glad I asked. Anyway, do yourself a favor and go see Bjarni down at Max’s, have a beer (or a Mai Tai), and cheer on your favorite team. Thirteen TVs. No waiting. Tell ’em Bjruce sent you.
Max’s Sports Bar is located at 115 G.E. Patterson Ave.
