For 10 years, beer, snack vendor keeps Las Vegas baseball crowds cheering
It’s about an hour-and-a-half until the first pitch, and as the Las Vegas 51s do their pregame workout on the field, Bruce Reiner does his own in the stands of Cashman Field.
He walks down the concrete steps of the stands, stretching his legs as he goes. He turns left and does a series of lunges, traversing the walkway with high strides. Already, it’s enough to break a serious sweat on a 110-degree day.
Then, stretching completed, he returns to a cramped but blessedly air-conditioned room along the Cashman Field concourse to put on the tool that will be the focus of the evening’s weight-training regimen: A plastic crate filled with iced-down bottled beer, sodas and water, into which is nestled another crate packed with peanuts, cotton candy and other classic ballpark snacks.
Reiner is a hawker — a mobile food vendor — for Aramark, the company that handles concessions at Cashman Field Center. During Las Vegas 51s games, he hikes the ballpark’s stands, ready to supply refreshment to parched or hungry fans.
Rob Dionisio, Aramark director of operations at Cashman Field, says anywhere from two to 10 hawkers will work each 51s game, depending upon the game, the day of the week and any special promotions that are scheduled for a game. And while fans certainly can pick up their in-game victuals at kiosks and stands along the ballpark concourse, hawkers provide convenience mixed with a dollop of ballpark nostalgia.
Reiner figures that the wares he carries weigh more than 40 pounds, so the ability to cart such a load up and down stairs and all over the stands for three or so hours in the summertime sun is the job’s first basic requirement.
More important, though, is that the ideal hawker is “very extroverted,” Dionisio says. “They have to be loud.”
Hawkers make an hourly salary as well as a commission. Dionisio says hawking is a part-time job, and that some hawkers work multiple venues and multiple events as well as regular jobs.
Reiner has been hawking at Cashman Field for more than 10 years. He’s worked at other venues in town and elsewhere — he returned to Cashman this season after working in Cleveland last season when his parents became ill — and credits his brother, Steve, who also is a hawker at Cashman, for getting him into hawking.
Reiner says he spent about 20 years working in the music industry in Los Angeles and “sort of got over it and moved to Las Vegas to be close to my brother.
“That’s when he said, ‘I’ve got the perfect job for you. He’s, like, ‘You’ve got a big mouth, you like to attract attention and you’re a great salesman. You should be a beer vendor, a beer hawker, at Cashman.’”
Reiner applied, landed a job when a spot opened up, and says he plans to be a hawker for as long as he can. He says that he enjoys the entertainment part of the job as much as he does the retailing.
“It’s hard work. It’s the desert. But the people keep me going,” he says. “The crowd gets energized by what I do and I get energized by what they do. And that’s when it turns into something special.”
He says he wants to provide “an experience” to fans at whatever event he works.
An hour before the game begins, it’s hard to miss Reiner. There’s that fluorescent shirt, but also the booming voice that announces his presence even if you can’t pick him out from among the crowd.
“Beer here. Beer, soda, water,” he bellows. “Hot dogs. Beer here.”
Fan Robert Bohanon admires both Reiner’s enthusiasm and his physical endurance.
“Somebody’s (doing) a job in 110-degree heat outside. Like, he’s selling everything you want to eat,” Bohanon says. “He says some off-the-wall things.”
Bohanon says son Shane, 10, even can do an impressive vocal impression of Reiner. Shane demonstrates with a deep ”Ice cold beer” in what Shane describes as Reiner’s “loud, wrinkled voice.”
Tonight, Reiner will anoint two sets of delighted kids as the night’s “Cotton Candy Kids,” which bears no visible benefits other than a bag of cotton candy, a high-five and lots of laughter.
Fans look out for him. One woman — who doesn’t even buy anything — sprays Reiner’s face with a mister as he closes his eyes with a satisfied smile.
No shtick is off-limits. Reiner tries to get a call-and-response cheer going.
“I say, ‘beer,’ you say, ‘here,’ ” he says.
Weird thing is, it works, even if only a half-dozen people join in.
Donna Garrison, attending the game with husband Rocky, says that when Reiner was off last season, “I missed him.”
“He’s awesome,” says Garrison, who even possesses a photograph of Reiner dancing with Cosmo, the 51s mascot. “I mean, I really missed him when he was gone.”
Members of the Vance family are such fans that they actually have Reiner’s cellphone number and text him when they need something.
“He offers that level of customer service,” Jim Vance says. “He’s outstanding.”
The only time Reiner isn’t on the move is during the singing of the national anthem. And when the last hot dog is sold on this Monday night, Reiner smiles with the satisfaction of doing a job he loves among people he genuinely likes.
“I enjoy being a hawker because, one, I love the fans. I love being there in the public eye. I love giving them that experience of a lifetime. To see a smile on an adult and see a smile on kids, these things make a difference to me, personally.”
Read more from John Przybys at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com and follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter.
