Many people who work in the Las Vegas food and beverage industry have a résumé that reads like a grocery list when it comes to the properties they’ve worked. Then there’s J.R. Gutierrez, lead bartender at Sugarcane at The Venetian Resort. The Mexico City native has built up his career at the same property since he moved to Vegas in 2008.
“The Venetian feels like home to me—this is where I started my career,” he says. He worked at a handful of restaurants all over the property, starting out as a busser, then server, then, “One day at DB Brasserie, where I was a server, they needed help behind the bar and I stepped in as a barback. That was it—I just fell in love with bartending. I just knew I didn’t want to be a server anymore; I just wanted to be behind the bar.”
That was in 2014, and through hard work, on-the-job training and his love for mixology, Gutierrez became a full-time bartender at Sugarcane in 2016 and lead bartender a few years later…