Cheers: Luke McConvey from the Willoughby Arms Deadlinepix KT16934
After weeks of closely-fought competition, we can now announce that the winner of Kingston's Best Bartender is Luke McConvey from The Willoughby Arms.
Christmas has come early this year for Luke, who took the coveted prize after an outstanding last-minute voting push by his friends and regular customers at the pub in Willoughby Road, Kingston.
Thanks to a well-orchestrated publicity campaign by Luke's pub manager Rick Robinson, Luke fought off second placed Kirsty Jones from the Albert Arms and third-placed Kyle Robinson from the Shy Horse.
Luke, 22, from York Road in Kingston, said: "I read the paper last week and I thought the other barman, Kyle, had it in the bag. But we had a final voting push and I'm quite chuffed really by the result. It's nice to be recognised."
Luke has been working full-time at The Willoughby Arms for four years. He said: "I have no real ambitions at the moment to move on. I've got my NVQ Level 2 certificate for health and safety and food hygiene and I'm now working to get my personal alcohol licence, so we'll see what happens when I get that."
As a bar supervisor, Luke runs the pub on a day-to-day basis, taking deliveries and opening up in the morning.
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"We work in shifts so I still manage to fit in some sort of social life around work," he said. "I'm a big football fan and my boss is pretty lenient about letting me have time off to watch games."
Luke grew up in Kingston and attended Wimbledon College as a student. He is currently considering going travelling but has ambitions to run his own bar in the future. He said: "The only bad thing about this job is that you can get a bit of grief from customers when they've had a few, but apart from that, it's a great job."
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