A Swig o' Grog fer Ye, Matey?

Jeff Hunt, a barrel-chested waiter known as Thud (from his days as a nightclub bouncer), sports a seaman's pigtail and makes his own wooden broadswords.

Kassy Freely is a waiter at another restaurant but goes to the tavern on her nights off to sing bawdy chanteys with other members of a reenactors group known as the Pirates of the Drunken Ferret.

"Aye, right now is a great time to be a pirate," said Couey (for whom every day is talk like a pirate day). But he is quick to point out that he was swashbuckling before swashbuckling was cool -- or at least before it was so heavily marketed. "My mother always told me I was born in the wrong century."

The Santa Rosa, Calif., native grew up an avid surfer in a family of navy seaman. He started playing serious pirate games in middle school, and his love of backyard swordplay grew into a passion for fencing and then sword choreography that he pursued in college.

"That's how I lost me eye," he said, pointing to the patch.

Yes, the patch is real. And yes, he lost it in a sword fight. Almost a year ago, during the opening of the previous installment of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, Couey and another pirate were hired to perform promotional sword battles at Arundel Mills mall near Annapolis. The routine was carefully choreographed, and they had performed it dozens of times when his exhausted partner surprised him with an accidental lunge.

"It sliced me left eye right in half," he said, with something like pride. "I was back performing the act within two weeks."

Couey did acknowledge, when pressed, the seriousness of the injury. But he also relishes the pirate cred it gave him.

"Absolute prestige," he said with a grin, getting up to deliver a steak to a table on the back patio. "I'm hailed by pirates near and far."

It was just after sunset when Couey and the others ushered the patrons who weren't in the middle of their paella or salmagundi stew out for a little sideshow in the back alley. With the colorful headquarters of the Discovery Channel glowing behind him, Hunt, 29, took a break from his waiter's duties long enough to spit some fire. The diners, some with napkins in hand, stood back as the burly lubber filled his cheeks with lantern fuel, held a small torch to his lips and spewed a 10-foot, 650-degree tongue of flame across the alley.

"Oh, my God," said customer Andrea Halverson of Bethesda, who had taken an extra step back. "These guys are really into it. Everyone here seems to legitimately believe they are a pirate."

Hunt, who also teaches sword fighting at Renaissance fairs in Maryland and Texas, said that for him, the best thing about the pirate's life is dazzling the kids who are there during the early dinner hours. And, of course, the clothes.