E270 Matthew Rangel

What happens when a lifelong actor ends up behind a bar — and realizes the two aren't all that different? That's the story of Matthew "Matty" Rangel, a born-and-raised Wisconsin bartender who stumbled into social media content creation at 5:00 AM in a pub basement, and now has nearly half a million followers across platforms.

In this episode, we sit down with Matty for a candid conversation about his dual life as a bartender and actor, the raw and real content that built his audience, and why talking about mental health in the hospitality industry isn't optional — it's essential.

What We Cover

From the stage to the bar — and back again Matty's love of acting started at age seven, watching his dad perform. When the pandemic killed a signed contract to join a New York theater company, bartending kept the bills paid. Then some drunk friends in a bar basement told him to just start making videos — and everything changed.

Nearly half a million followers, no flair required Matty's content is unapologetically dive bar. No bottle flipping, no craft cocktail tutorials — just the real, raw day-to-day life of a neighborhood bartender. His 70-page notes document of stories and observations has become the foundation of a highly relatable and growing following.

Bartending as performance Matty draws direct parallels between acting and working behind the bar — putting on a face when your grandparents are in the hospital, talking a stranger through the death of their son, then driving home and sitting in your driveway in silence for 20 minutes. It's a performance job, but the emotional weight is very real.

Mental Health Mondays Matty runs a recurring content series dedicated to mental health in the industry. He talks about why bartenders need to let it out — and why the emotional labor of the job deserves to be taken seriously, regardless of how it compares to other professions.

Auditions, COVID, and the silver lining Pre-pandemic, pursuing acting from Wisconsin meant moving to Chicago or New York. Now, virtual auditions mean Matty can stay rooted in Racine while still working with his Chicago-based agent. An unexpected upside of a difficult era.

Just start Whether it's content creation or anything else — Matty's biggest piece of advice is to stop waiting for perfect and just go. He stumbled and bumbled his way to half a million followers. The only way to learn is to do.

Connect with Matty Rangel

LinkTree - Matty Rangel

Instagram / TikTok / Facebook / YouTube: @TheRealMattyRangel

A big thank you to Jean-Marc Dykes of Imbiblia. Imbiblia is a cocktail app for bartenders, restaurants and cocktail lovers alike and built by a bartender with more than a decade of experience behind the bar. Several of the features includes the ability to create your own Imbiblia Recipe Cards with the Imbiblia Cocktail Builder, rapidly select ingredients, garnishes, methods and workshop recipes with a unique visual format, search by taste, using flavour profiles unique to Imbiblia, share recipes publicly plus many more......Imbiblia - check it out!

Contact the host Kypp Saunders by email at kyppsaunders@gmail.com for products from Elora Distilling and Malivoire Winery.

Links

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