It’s hard to strike out at Stan’s.
Working at Stan’s Sports Bar is a home run for many single employees, who have the watering hole across the street from Yankee Stadium to thank for scoring their spouses.
Some married fellow staffers and others tied the knot with the Yankees — and even Mets — fans who came into the Bronx bar to pregame.
Bronx natives Brian and Jessica Kirby met in 2008 as bartenders, and now have four children — so have celebrated many milestones at the gin joint on River Avenue, which opened in 1979.
“I walked in and told him I was pregnant at Stan’s. And he said, ‘That’s great. Let’s do a shot of Jameson,’” Jessica, 36, told The Post ahead of the Yankees home opener on April 3 against the Miami Marlins.
“I said, ‘No!’” she added. “We had all our kids’ birthdays in the bar too.”
“We also did one of our gender reveals there,” added Brian, 41.
Co-owner Mike Rendino, a Bronx native, met his Queens-born wife, Lauren, during the 2005 Subway Series, when she sauntered into Stan’s wearing a Mets shirt.
Rendino, 51, said Stan’s maintains an old-school vibe, where customers are known to get to first base.
“People used to make out in bars. The next generation, they don’t do that anymore, except at Stan’s because it feels like it’s the late ’90s,” he said.
The staff also encourages single patrons to mingle.
“A nice-looking guy will be there and a nice looking girl will be across the bar. I’ll run over to the girl and buy her a shot and say, ‘Here, that’s from that guy right there,’” said Rendino, who predicts at least 100 customers have married each other.
“If they’re on their phones, we’ll come and take their phone away, and say, ‘If you don’t start talking to each other, get the hell out of here.’”
Jennifer McPartland first laid eyes on her husband, Mike, in 2013, when he was bartending at Stan’s.
“It was just love at first sight. When I saw him at the bar, I told my best friend, ‘Oh my God, that’s the cutest man I’ve ever seen in my life,’” recalled McPartland, 36, a native of Poughkeepsie.
“And the bartender standing in front of me did an immediate about-face and went and told Mike.”
She wasted no time introducing herself to Mike, an FDNY fireman, and the pair hit it off right off the bat — and even learned that their firemen fathers already knew one another.
“I just kept going back to games and I would stand at his side of the bar,” she said.
“And that was really it. We hung out that whole summer and we were moved in together within the year.”
Staten Island native Chris Martucci, whose dad was the bar’s original owner Stan, met his wife, Chicagoan Natalie, when she stopped by the bar before a Yankees game during a trip to NYC in 2021.
“Just by total chance, me and a bunch of the guys had a trip planned to Chicago the following weekend, tickets to Wrigley and everything,” Martucci, 53, explained.
“We were out for drinks one night and I invited her out, and her and a couple of friends came and joined us. And then the next night, I took her out to dinner.”
The couple now live in Illinois, and during baseball season, Martucci flies back to New York on weekends to work at Stan’s — where Derek Jeter famously filmed a Gatorade commercial before he retired in 2014.
Their wedding was on Nov. 4, 2023 — and luckily the Yankees didn’t make the World Series that season.
“Game seven of the World Series that year would’ve been the night of my wedding if the Yankees won,” Martucci said.
“I said, ‘I would be at the wedding, but nobody else would have.’ Because everybody invited, my whole bridal party … They all work at Stan’s.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
