Bartender Paige Unger-Cline has traded mixology for motherhood and mortgages
A year ago, Paige Unger-Cline was riding high as one of Kansas City’s best-known bartenders.
The head of the drinks program at the iconic American Restaurant had impeccable credentials: In 2013, while bartender at Extra Virgin, she won the 2013 Paris of the Plains Bartending Competition, and went on to compete nationally. Last April, she defended her crown at Speed Rack Kansas City, the all-women bartending contest, winning top honors for the second year in a row.
A life-changing event took place three months ago — February 11, to be exact — when Unger-Cline and her husband, Phil Cline (sous chef at Michael Smith Restaurant), became parents to Hamilton Phillip Cline. On April 30, Paige Unger-Cline mixed her last cocktail from behind the bar at the American Restaurant.
“Leaving the American was a tough choice,” Unger-Cline says. “I had so many dreams for that job, but ultimately my family came first. It’s hard to walk away from dreams you’ve had for a year, but in the end my son is my number-one priority. “
Unger-Cline has been replaced by another employee, not currently a bartender, at the American. Since taking leave of the American’s bar, Unger-Cline is now working a 9-to-5 job at Veterans United, a mortgage company in Lenexa.
“But I’m not completely retired as a bartender,” she says. “I still keep in practice at home and I’m available for guest bartending jobs.
Unger-Cline says the highlight of her tenure at the American was during celebrity bartender Dale DeGroff’s (founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail) “Night on the Town” event last year, part of the Paris of the Plains festivities.
“Dale DeGroff! He revived the whole cocktail culture and I got to have him in my house,” she says. “He came in the night before and sat at my bar for three hours and we just talked about everything. The morning after ‘Night on the Town’ I hosted his Pisco seminar and even got to serve a drink at it.”
Unger-Cline says that she and her husband have toyed with the idea of opening their own restaurant someday.
“When we first started dating,” Unger-Cline says, “we definitely thought of that as a goal. Now, if we did anything, I’d like to see Phil doing a charcuterie shop. He’s so talented with sausages and dry-aged meats from his training in Italy with Dario Cecchini. And he could probably maintain more normal hours.”
