Beloved Raleigh bartender and grand old fellow of Player’s Retreat has died at 69
Robert McMillan, the crusty but affable bartender with the foot-long goatee, who poured millions of beers at Raleigh’s oldest bar, working at his trademark turtle’s pace whether a patron wore the dusty coveralls of a construction worker or the bow-tie of a high-priced attorney, has died.
He was 69.
Known to everyone as “Bert,” McMillan manned the taps at Player’s Retreat for 21 years until he retired in 2017. He bridged the eras when “The PR” offered three varieties of beer to its updated offerings that include blood-orange hefeweizen and 12-year Scotch at $45 a glass.
But even as tastes changed, McMillan embodied the history The PR sought to preserve, from the framed black-and-white portraits of NC State University basketball players to the antique beer can collection spanning the walls. At McMillan’s retirement, owner Gus Gusler asked, “How do you replace the sun?”
‘He came with the building’
“It’s just hard to believe he’s gone,” Gusler said Monday. “He came with the building. He could have fired me if he wanted to.”
Born in Southern Pines, McMillan earned a philosophy degree from NC State in 1978 and promptly took up bartending, his family reported in an obituary. Before his stint at Player’s Retreat, Bert also worked in a string of Raleigh’s mainstays: Mitch’s Tavern, the Bear’s Den, the Flying Burrito, The Pier, Sadlack’s.
Any patron at his bar, whether a homeless man or a Supreme Court justice, got the same question: “Are you being served?” When Gov. Pat McCrory stopped in during his term, McMillan spared the red carpet treatment, calling out, “Hey, Pat!”
“He looked at me like, ‘Who the (heck) are you?” McMillan told the N&O in 2017. “I got a charge out of it, just referring to him on a first-name basis. You’re in my house now.”
McMillan’s lack of formality became well-known among Raleigh bar patrons, adding character rather than detracting from his appeal.
“We used to joke about him being the slowest bartender in Raleigh, but one of the best,” Gusler said. “It didn’t matter if there were six people in the restaurant or 280. Bert ran at one speed.”
‘He’s our best friend’
Gusler recalled a night when six or seven patrons button-holed him inside the PR to report McMillan had been talking to someone at the end of the bar for 15 minutes and they couldn’t get a drink.
“I said, ‘Well, I guess I’ve got to go down there and fire Bert,” he said. “I was joking, but they all went nuts, saying ‘You can’t do that! He’s our best friend!’ He’ll get to you when the beer you need is ready to be served.”
McMillan remains, for the moment, the only PR employee to enter its red-jacketed Hall of Fame.
He was well-known as a bass player around Raleigh, sometimes juggling time in four different bands. His family listed a handful of them: Truk, Masses of Black, Aubrey Mack, Barc, The Buddy Black Attack Band, Sports Alternative and Semiwaveless, named for a type of water bed.
He was just as well-known for his love of standard poodles, who accompanied him on walks around Lake Johnson.
McMillan’s family said a celebration of life ceremony will be held on a date to be announced later, and Gusler added that Players’ Retreat is planning a similar gathering in Bert’s memory. The family asks that donations go to the Nature Conservancy of North Carolina or to the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
“It was bad enough when he retired,” Gusler said. “Knowing he’s gone for good, lot of people are having a hard time dealing with it. He’s part of Raleigh history.”
This story was originally published October 16, 2023 at 11:50 AM with the headline "Beloved Raleigh bartender and grand old fellow of Player’s Retreat has died at 69."