Photo by Southern Foodways Alliance/FlickrCC
I'll be honest; I get a little kick out of the series from Generation Awesome called, "The Bartender Hates You." In this series the embattled bartender, flanked by sleazy dudes, chirpy chicks, and all manner of besotted bar denizens, gets revenge by belittling, berating, and lambasting customers for their lack of bar etiquette. I can't blame him. While I train my bar staff to resist the temptation to personally confront the rude and indignant, bartenders are all too human and one can't help but take personal some of the affronts from ones fellow man.
The incivility can be from both sides, so I do acknowledge that sometimes customers are the victims as well as the perpetrators (and sometimes it's just one long chain). However, it's not uncommon for customers, bar side, to begin their interaction without even the basest of pleasantries. They shout "gin and tonic," an unnecessarily hostile beginning like a cannon ball fired from close range. This happens even in a quiet or slow bar. While this method is direct, it's also a more appropriate first meeting for a vending machine. Why not, "Hi, can I get a gin & tonic?" or even, "Please." (Exasperated "pleases" don't count, either.)
Not all bars are set up to accommodate all needs. Read: not every bar has freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.That incivility can stem from a perceived slight by the customers. I was at an event recently making specialty cocktails and John McLaughlin, of the McLaughlin Group, asked for tonic water and lemon. When I tried delicately and politely to direct him to the bar that had those ingredients, which I did not, he threw up his hands in astonishment and made a gruff remark before departing the station. I did keep hoping he would say, "from zero to ten, ten being metaphysical certainty, do you have tonic water?" Of course my answer still would have been no.
There are also those who walk up with a scowl before word one, reminding me of the parental advice about being careful lest someone slap the back of your head and your face stays that way. This everyday belligerence belongs to the most common scenario: that someone is already angry and harboring a sense of entitlement before they approach the bar and you're simply there as fodder.
These interactions generally begin with an earnest attempt by the bartender to appease the customer, although much like a wounded baby deer is made sport by the clever carnivore, more aggressive tactics meet any attempt at appeasement. I can't say that I haven't met those tactics with equal force--call it the customer cold war--using the first tactic in the bartenders arsenal, refusal of service. However, the best scenario is still to simply do your best to meet their demands. It isn't personal, after all.
Yet if I could make a plea for the uncivil to save themselves the slower and perpetually more embarrassing route of rudeness, I assure you together we can make a better bar experience (cue tranquil music here). Generally bartenders are customer service professionals and will do their best to meet your needs. (Keeping in mind, not all bars are set up to accommodate all needs. Read: not every bar has freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.) Thank you for reading and have a nice day.
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So true... I worked at a bar and restaurants in my younger years and it always amazed me how uncivil people could be. The other day a guy was cleaning a bar I was sitting at, and when I moved my backpack off the bar so he could wipe there, he just stopped, looked surprised, and said how surprised he was that I did that. He said that everyone else treats him like he doesn't exist when he's cleaning.
Just a head's up to those out there who call in to customer support asking for help with your account (this applies to any kind of business), it doesn't help to get impatient or angry with us. The worse you berate me, the slower I get at solving your problem. But even if you have the most ridiculous problem, I'll stay on the phone for an hour with you as long as you're polite.
Thanks for the post. I think your points go well beyond bartending, and down to basic manners of Americans in all forms of communications and interactions in business life. I have lived in San Jose del Cabo Mexico for three years now. I have always been the please and thank you type. In Mexico, this level of politeness is even more formalized and must include, good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I'm in love--and it's like fingernails on the blackboard when Americans just shout out in English at a bar, restaurant, store, etc. "Give me this, give me that, I need this, I need that." It's given me a real lesson on why Americans have the reputation they do abroad (though no doubt the Germans could beat us out on this front--hey at least Gringos tip well, verdad?)
I hear you, people really are quite rude. But you should lighten up on John McLaughin: tonic water and lemon aren't exactly freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.
OK, here's a really simple question: What is bar etiquette? As someone who rarely goes to bars are there some simple rules one should follow? Beyond the stuff they teach in kindergarten about saying "please" and "thank you". A post about the unspoken rules for a bar would be nice. Especially for those of us who spend little time at a saloon.
All true. Great words of advice for all that step up to a bar (or table in a restaurant). May your words sink in and mend the ways of the already angry, entitled set.
It should be mentioned that bartenders have an advantage in dealing with customers that most servers do not. Based on the fact that bartenders are the keepers of the alcohol, customers tend to give bartenders a bit more respect for fear of not getting served. Message here? Be nice to the entire service staff and you'll be sure to get great service.
Corporations today encourage their employees to be "friendly" in order to get more business. So now I get a lot of corporate mandated "how are yous" from people who don't care how I am and "have a nice day"s from people who don't care what kind of day I'm having. I often don't respond to this, as I am feeling somewhat manipulated by the whole transaction. Perhaps I have less of a tolerance for phony small talk than most people.
So the other night I smiled at the bartender and asked for water please. The bartender brought me a bottle of Fiji ($.79 at the supermarket) and said $5.00. I said thank you and gave him $6.00, but somehow, that's not enough.
Despite what you boss, or customer care specialist tells you, many of us don't what to have a relationship with you. We just want to hang out with our friends while you bring us the drinks.
that is a fare comment and its true we as bartenders are asked to be nice to customers but we don't set the price of the drinks the corporation does and people still blame us and we get paid shit,we don't care about you so we not wanting to talk to you just pay and leave the bar area and hang with yea mates but it is human respons to ask how yea days been here is a simple answer, good thanks, easy.
The last sentence of the fourth paragraph illustrates very well with how Americans compare to more socially advanced societies. Something is definitely out of order here, as though our essential sense of humor and perspective has been replaced by the aforementioned sense of entitlement. It's wonderful to see an adult get socially smacked down for throwing a tantrum. Unfortunately our idea of customer service here is to lick boots and hope for repeat business.
I do agree that people can often be rude, however, I think that many people thing that brevity is the custom. In the movies the bartender walks up and says ¨what´ll it be¨ and the customer says ¨Just a vodka martini, shaken not stirred¨ or some other nonsense. In a high-volume bar there isn´t usually time for more than this.
Brian Levine´s response is accurate in that there are far too many unnecessary pleasantries exchanged. And really, if there weren´t any difficult customers who got upset because you mixed the martini wrong, would you really care if they didn´t say thank you?
Brian Levine prefers rudeness to all rather than possibly giving any validation to those few who mask their true feelings. Let me give you a hint Brian, if you are and have been ignoring common pleasantries that might be heard on the street between two passengers from people who are handling your food, you're probably not eating as well as you've hoped. Moreover, if you have children and you want them to get a summer job, for instance, you and your ilk are setting the precedents now that the servers you've scorned will remember when they're older and getting served by your fresh-faced and gullible spawn and decide that the gratuity compact can be forgotten.
Sour Candy Orchestra, if you don't like human interaction, don't go to a bar. Bars and pubs are run by...people! Holy shit! If you're upset about the caliber of service you're receiving merely pay more and more and more and with every bit more you spend you'll qualify for ever more deferential and machine-like servers. Not that it's worse for either party in those settings, things are just much more open. And which pleasantries are unnecessary? Just the one you didn't want to hear?
Or better yet, start exerting the power of the customer and frequenting bars and restaurants whose service standards accord with yours. Don't go out. Don't go anywhere new. Sit and get familiar with your one bartender who, since you know him SO well, you don't even feel as though you have to tip, so great of friends are you two, you and he, you who sits and drinks and he who merely fetches you drinks without the GROSS and HORRIBLE, not to mention patently fabricated, niceties that go along with most every interaction in this country, excepting service.
Or stop feeling as though you deserve more than the liquid in the glass or the food on your plate.