Tom Cruise's Bartending Roots Shaped Modern Bar Culture

In 2025, Tom Cruise remains one of America's most celebrated movie stars, with a career that has evolved through various phases. While he is now known for his elder-statesman action hero roles, Cruise's career in the late 1980s and early 1990s saw him take on more serious dramatic acting, as well as a turn as a charismatic heartthrob in popular films like "Risky Business" and "Top Gun."

One of Cruise's most iconic roles during this period was in the 1988 film "Cocktail," where he played the character of Brian Flanagan, a hotshot bartender from New York City who travels to Jamaica to ply his trade. To prepare for this role, Cruise trained with a real-life bartender from the TGI Fridays restaurant chain, which was known at the time for its bar scene rather than its dining offerings.

Interestingly, TGI Fridays itself played a pivotal role in shaping modern bar culture in the 1960s. The chain's founder, Alan Stillman, opened the first TGI Fridays location as a place where young singles could mingle, a concept that was revolutionary at the time. With its rigorous bartender training and extensive drink menu, TGI Fridays helped establish the bar as a social hub, rather than just a male-dominated domain.

The success of "Cocktail" and its depiction of the bartending lifestyle also had a lasting impact, as the film is credited with popularizing the cocktail "Sex on the Beach." While TGI Fridays has since faced some challenges, its legacy as a trailblazer in the world of mixology remains an important part of the story of how modern bar culture came to be.