Bartender Best Practices

I never go to the clubbier/packed bars in my area but ended up in one for a friend's birthday. I couldn't quite hear what the upgrade was when I ordered a round (two beers, two mixed drinks) but for $1 per drink, I figured whatever it was would be fine, so I nodded.

It turned out it was "your second drink is a dollar" and I was presented with eight drinks. I tipped $4, which seems... fine?

I also quickly figured out why I've seen so many people incoherently stumbling out of that place at relatively early hours

wow

wow x2

in Oregon they have a rule about how much actual alcohol you can order at once, e.g. you can't get a 2 oz bourbon sampler plus a full pint of beer, gotta dial that beer down to a beer back order.

the owner of said bar used to have a place that would charge cover and then have a "penny pitchers" special in the early evening

the bar was surprisingly less objectionable than I expected, but very much in the "slap a new coat of paint on and change the place's name when business dies down" vein

In a market system bars will both respond to customers' wishes _and_ shape their expectations. I am not defending this system, but merely observing it phenomenologically.

Do I sometimes wish there were introvert bars with privacy shields on either side and cunningly selective speaker systems that could pipe specific music or infotainment to each patron? Sure.

In the meantime I go to bars when I am okay with being in a bar. (This is true both in the US and the UK.) When I want to curate the experience to my taste, I stay home and fuckin curate the experience.

according to this thread, bars in the US are so far removed from the UK the experience is unrecognisable

otm

I sometimes wonder what Americans make of service in bars in (for example) Dublin where it’s unremarkable for barmen to appear resentful at having to interact with patrons in any way.

Right. I'm not used to bartenders talking to me beyond 'Can I help you?' and 'That's £10.40 please' unless I actually know them as a friend.

Flavourful 6%+ craft beer is easier to come by in North America therefore North American bars are inarguably superior.

The worst pubs piss all over the worst bars though.

I can’t put my finger on why it seems wrong to turn bar tending into an arm of the customer service industry. I’ve been buying pints off lads for 15 years and it wouldn’t cross my mind to ask them their name.

way to ruin getting pissed, The US ;-)

If getting pissed is the goal, one can just buy a fifth of bourbon and nurse it all morning in one's own armchair while reading the collected stories of Somerset Maugham.

Going to a pub or bar is different, and should be.

I’m a regular at a handful of cocktail bars in my area of the U.S. and they tend to take customer service very seriously—their goal isn’t just to make you drinks, but to groom your whole experience. I actually love it, and can always count on them to read whether I’m trying to shoot the shit or just have them leave me alone so I can dick around on my phone and have something boozy.

If the bar serves pints in multiple sizes, don’t give the customer the option for the smallest size. Pour the medium or large by default when they order without specifying.

pints in multiple sizes

FFS USA

adorable

like most people, I think of this panel three out of four times I get a pint in the US. but calling multiple sizes in the same bar by the one name is frankly a macroaggression.

https://i.imgur.com/W6G767A.jpg


not sorry for hueg, it's imperial tbf

If I am your first customer at midday on a Saturday, please do me the honour of pulling through, so i get a pint from the cellar, rather than one that has been sitting in the pipes overnight.

A pint is a pint!

Grant you, there aren't any schooners or tea cups or whatever.

Most of the time, your choices are draught (maybe even a draft) or a bottle anyway

If I am your first customer at midday on a Saturday, please do me the honour of pulling through, so i get a pint from the cellar, rather than one that has been sitting in the pipes overnight.

If a suspected lush lays a big bill on the bar for a cheap drink, let it sit. It’ll cause the barfly anxiety and implies the purchase of a second drink.

Ime people paying in cash are mostly having one drink, or intending to use the pay-as-you-go model. People who will be staying a while are either providing a card to run a tab, or operating on a "trust me, I'm good for it" model. which one may be dependent on bar policy, crowdedness, etc.

The "leave bills on the bar" model is increasingly rare these days, at least in the places I hang out. Perhaps it is regional?

I mean, I understand calstars's logic but I am not sure I would classify "make your customers anxious on purpose to get them to drink more" as a "best practice," you know?

I almost always go vodka if I'm having a mixed drink at a bar. And if it's a nice bar or special occasion, I'll go with a premium vodka, be it a vodkatini or vodka-soda. But after hearing a few times from ppl in the service industry how often grey goose bottle are filled with McCormick or whatever, I'm now too suspicious that i'll get swindled to order call drinks.

What say you, calstars?

Not calstars but for most mixed drinks I am fine with cheap booze or rail. Call me a heathen but I I don't really care if a bourbon & ginger is made with Jim Beam or Maker's or Bulleit or whatever. Once it's mixed with a sugary soda it's hard to notice or care about the difference between bourbons.

In a Martini I might care. On vodka I have basically no opinion, so might as well go with rail (or cheap) vodka in a vodka tonic or whatever

oh i am very much a vodka truther, but in more upscale settings it just seems appropriate to splurge, but i don't bother anymore

Hard to research this without an inside source ‘cause every server will deny it or say yes at a past job, but not THIS one wink wink. This job is someone else’s past job five years from now though, so probably. But servers may not even know, it’s to the owner’s advantage that they don’t, so they can honestly claim ignorance. From the bartender’s perspective, yes, that’s top shelf shit, and thanks for the tip.

I've never heard of a bar swapping out call or premium for cheap shit. It wouldn't make sense - bars are generally open, you can watch them open up a new one and scratch the tax sticker (in Texas).
Liquor margins are very high, there's no real reason for them to risk it anyway - even a strong rumor of it happening would kill business and you don't think a disgruntled employee would narc them out to the state/social media?

You shouldn't bother with premium vodka because it's vodka - anything past Tito's and you're setting money on fire.

i don't know how popular Tito's is outside of TX but they have a lock on the market here, must be rolling in it

good bars don't do that. it's a thing that a bar on Bar Rescue might do but liquor-heads would often know the difference between what they were being served and what it was supposed to be.

like one of my besties is a whiskey expert to even knowing the well whiskeys by taste and which ones are good, if all the bars were doing this shit, she'd Karen it up with the manager

any “disgruntled employee” would be committing career suicide by “narcing out” their employer to “the state.”

yeah but fuck, sure the average people who just drink to be Brick from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, there are a ton of customers who can taste the diff between well and premium liquor. I am not one of those people, but if anybody sold out the owners, it wouldn't be an employee.

though there was this: https://www.nj.com/politics/2013/05/rubbing_alcohol_as_scotch_nj_o.html

A bartender who gets shitcanned or fucked over isn't worried about "career suicide." If you're a competent bartender, you can get work after being fired for theft, much less an anonymous call to the state.

lol at "Karen it up"

Invest the time to create a mental Rolodex of the little things you can do to send a subtle acknowledgment to a regular who under tips. This can include failing to top off a sloppily poured pint

Dad of a friend was a pub landlord and was found by the authorities (cant remember how) to be watering down his spirits and beer. Received a fine

If you have a regular who’s established himself as someone who will come to your bar no matter how he’s treated, you can safely take some of your aggression resultant from other dumb customers out on him safely in a plausibly deniable, passively aggressive way

if you own a bar, close it. right now.

If you have a customer you know the name of that is about to pass out or is otherwise excessively self-engaged, and that has finished their current drink, discern whether they want another by maintaining your distance and waking them from their reveries by shouting their name at them

When taking an initial order for which the customer pays with a credit card, say “keep it open?” (instead of “close it out?”). It’s easy for the customer to just say “yes,” and puts the burden them to affirm that they are leaving after one drink. Bummer

If you’d like to engage with a customer but don’t want to disrupt them if they’re on a solo mish, approach slowly and put it in neutral just incrementally within their range of spatial awareness.

If you have a customer who’s alone but you think might not want to give that impression, serve a glass of water next to them at the bar or across from them at their table.

Lol what

"Bartender duty #2: make sure yet customers don't appear to be saddos"

much obliged. my friend stepped out to take a call, but I just received a text (after talking to someone wanting to take that seat) that they had to head home after an emergency popped up at home.

I am sure they will be fine. How you doing?

This more a tip for bar owners, but if your establishment brands its own glasses with its name or logo, instruct the servers to serve the customers with the name on the glass facing them. This will augment brand / establishment exposure in case the customer takes a photo and posts it on their MyFace

Never tell customers the tip is included