The Hill, 10:37 p.m., Friday, Nov. 18. I’m sitting at a small round table upstairs watching the band set up. It’s still very early by Knoxville standards and no one is really here yet. A bearded man -- not fat per se, but certainly in the shape of someone who spends all of their waking hours in a college dive -- lumbers up the stairs and gesticulates frantically to a Minnie Driverish-looking bartender who responds with the overwhelming indifference of someone who doesn’t really give a s***. He wipes the streaming sweat from his forehead and gives the finger to the guy in the back working the soundboard.
Trevor. The Hill is his brainchild. Like most relationships between an establishment and its owner, the actual bar itself is a kind of aesthetic self-representation. It is the world as seen through his eyes. One gets the sense that they can tell a great deal about what’s going on inside Trevor’s head by the overall atmosphere radiated by the place.
He looks a bit like Paul Giamatti on cocaine. He moves quickly and sporadically through the bar but doesn’t ever seem to do anything other than eat and drink from his own inventory and bark orders at young, bewildered, noticeably undertrained waitresses (This is worth noting because there are no “waiters.”) He sweats profusely, but not in the working-really-hard kind of way, more in the ultra-paranoid, Ray Liotta from Goodfellas kind of way. He seems to share other similarities with the mob in that he’s willing to bend the rules and do favors for anyone brave and/or foolish enough to do business with him.
The Hill is widely known and recognized as something of an “underage” bar. The bouncers are comparatively easy on IDs, and even if your fake is denied, you can always go in under and buy a 21+ wristband for 10 bucks from the guy inside the doorway. Located rather oddly in the northeast corner of The Fort, and not really near a “hill” of any kind, it is far removed and isolated from both the actual Knoxville and UT bar scenes. This poses an interesting dilemma, and one that probably explains certain aspects of their odd and risky business model.
I spoke with a unnamed former employee of the bar who “resigned” for reasons as ethical as they were economic. She gave me the inside scoop on how the place is run and operated, and characterized Trevor with a word that my fine editors hear at The Odyssey kind of demand that I not use.
For one, there are only somewhere between three and five people on the actual payroll depending what kind of mood Trevor is in and who happens to quit. These include Trevor, the general manager (who used to be a guy named Quentin but reliable sources say he’s gone too), the “senior” bartender, the cook, and John, the head bouncer. Describing this gentleman physically would be an embarrassing exercise in cliché. Suffice it to say that “you’ve seen this guy before.”
My unnamed source, who we’ll call “Karen” to keep the Goodfellas analogy going (and also because her last name in the movie is in fact “Hill”), said that she never had to submit any kind of official resumé or application. She just showed up and was asked to put her contact information on a blank sheet of paper. It’s worth noting perhaps that Karen is an attractive blond, and at the time, sophomore girl. Maybe a lot of attractive females are hired in this manner, and I’m just out of the loop, but for reasons that will become clear, this seemed significant.
Neither the servers nor the bartending staff are paid in anything other than tips. If they don’t make tips, they don’t get paid. This is true. Karen would often receive a frantic call from Trevor at 11:00 a.m. on a Gameday asking her to come in. She would work until close and leave with nothing but the measly tips that are all too seldom left in actual cash. (She also told me how Trevor would often encourage his bartenders to “restock” by pouring new or old liquor into existing bottles, perhaps fooling the customer into paying for low-shelf booze with a high-shelf label.)
Despite the circulating rumors, I’ve found no evidence to support the claim that The Hill is financing an underground drug ring. I will admit that these rumors are what attracted me to write a piece about it in the first place, and I will also admit, as if it isn’t already clear, that I’m no journalist. Nevertheless, I think it’s much more likely that Trevor is just an asshole, and not some surreptitious drug lord.
It’s no real surprise that the police have begun to play an increasingly involved role, particularly since the place has cultivated such a positive reputation among the freshmen. The trouble for fraternities is, if the cops decide to raid the place in the middle of the party you’ve paid for, there’s no compensation by the bar whatsoever. The party is just... over. This isn’t entirely unreasonable I guess, since one of the most attractive reasons for renting out the place is that if you provide the music (a.k.a. pay for a band), Trevor will usually let the fraternity use the upstairs for free. Enter at your own risk. This is all off the record and very hush-hush.
Also, the wings are quite good.
