Tag Archives: bartending

Tip #10 on Being a Good Bar Customer

22 Oct

Here it is. Your favorite FranklyRebekah series! To be honest, the only FranklyRebekah series but that doesn’t make it any less exciting, it just perhaps decreases the level of competition involved. If you missed them, or you want to be reminded of them, here are the other 9 previous bartender tips. Read, enjoy, share: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.

This entry actually has an alternative title: My NEDmesis. I generally try not to call people out by name on my blog, but that alternative title is just too clever and funny to pass up. No one really knows who this guy is, anyway. Except for him. And he doesn’t read my blog.

Personally I am an adherent to moderation.  Well, generally speaking.  Every now and again we all get a little too crazy, don’t eat enough snacks, and end up toppling over while trying to crouch at the subway station.  It happens.  And I won’t begrudge people the occasional sloppiness.  Or even regular sloppiness so long as said sloppiness doesn’t result in someone (a) becoming an asshole or (b) vomiting everywhere.  I think I have addressed people being assholes before.  Vomiting, however, is an unfortunate mainstay at any drinking establishment and also something that totally sucks, both for the vomiter and for the people responsible for cleaning up said vomit.  (At this point I have to give a shout out to my friend and co-worker, Sasha, who always cleans up the vomit.  You are my hero.)

Sometimes, as I mentioned before, drunkeness creeps up on a person.  By and large the older we get, the less we allow ourselves to get to the point of vomiting.  We come up with tricks.  We figure out our own signs.  We know when to stop. We drink less.  That or we drink enough that we train our stomachs to keep that liquor in there no matter what.  Not everyone can be so skilled in such an important, and pride-inducing, arena.  Sometimes, though, people vomit.  It sucks but it happens.

So here’s the thing.  If you vomit in the bathroom, or anywhere else in a bar, it is best to leave afterwards.  This is not to say you can’t come back another day but just that maybe the vomiting should be a sign to you that you have already had too much.  Also, vomiting is a sign of weakness and no one wants to be seen as weak.  (That’s sort of a joke.  Maybe it isn’t a sign of weakness but it IS embarrassing.  It smells bad and everyone knows what you had for dinner.)  You should not do what my Nedmesis does.

Okay, so we have this one customer.  He is a short guy.  I am 5’4″ and I would say I have an inch or two on him, easy.  I only mention this because, due to his diminutive stature, and the fact that he only graces us with his presence on days when the bar is absolutely packed with law students (these are my favorite days), he is able to sneak in.  He literally appears out of nowhere.  One second the coast is clear, and the next second, there he is, with beer in hand.  He never orders his own beer so I never know when I am serving him.  I really think he might like, phone in his order to one of his friends and then do a military-style crawl through the door and across the bar in order to avoid detection.  The reason why I like to know when I am serving him is because he oftentimes walks in shit-faced, he does not know when to stop, and once I stop serving him he is really difficult to get rid of.  He’s like a house fly, always buzzing around and nearly impossible to catch.  He also does those three things that people do when they get cut off that drive me crazy:

1. He argues
2. He tries to get other people to buy him drinks as if I won’t notice and is if I won’t snatch the drink from his hand if I catch him with one
3.  He takes drinks off the bar that don’t belong to him and don’t belong to his friends and starts drinking them as if he is the governor of drinks.

All of that is annoying enough but the worst of it is that he drinks enough to end up vomiting on the regular.  And he doesn’t make it to the bathroom.  Nope.  He just stands there, in front of the bar, turns his head to the side, vomits, and then looks at you as if nothing happened.  Sort of like a puppy who just shat on the floor but is trying to let his cuteness make you think that maybe it wasn’t him.  Then when you call him out on it he denies it ever happened as if the evidence isn’t just to his left and also dribbling down his chin.  And then he tries to order another drink!  Like, what?!  Don’t you realize that I will have to clean up that other, regurgitated drink in less than one minute?  But no, he doesn’t think about that.  He argues with me and it goes something like this:

Nedmesis: Ca-I have anooother ber?
Me:  Um, no.  And also I think it is time for you to go home.
Nedmesis: Buh why?
Me: Because you threw up the last beer I gave you.
Nedmesis: Thah wasn meeee.
Me:  So someone in a Ned suit threw up on the floor in order to prevent actual Ned from getting another beer?
Nedmesis: (confused stare) Ca-I have anooother ber?

Rinse and repeat.

I know my logic is perhaps a little bit beyond the abilities of a drunk person, but I sort of can’t help myself.  I also know that I shouldn’t mock someone in a diminished state but when someone gets so fucked up over and over again the only way to not get angry or feel pity is to poke a little fun.  Also, I sort of consider it revenge for the cleaning that I (or Sasha) will have to carry out.  So yea, if you vomit, just leave.  Or if you feel like you might vomit, do it on the street.  Or maybe stop drinking a little earlier.  Don’t vomit on the floor, pretend it wasn’t you, and then try to order another beer.  Don’t also get agitated when, the next time you walk in, I take pause before serving you.  In my mind, once a floor vomiter always a floor vomiter.  As professionals, we have to take certain precautions.

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Thursdays: The Night the Freaks Come Out

9 Aug

Somewhere around midnight one of my Thursday night regulars came in and asked me how my night was going.  I told him I thought there must be a full moon or something because everyone was being really weird.  It was only when he asked me if they were weirder than the week before or the week before that that I realized that every single Thursday night people are weird.  It is the night all the freaks come out.

The night started out normal enough.  Busier than it has been this summer but nothing crazy.  The usual suspects were there, drinking their usual drinks, hanging out with their usual friends, running up their usual tabs.  There was one girl there who I had never seen before who insisted on waving me down (a definite no, no) and ordering from me when my back was turned and then getting insulted when I told her that if I was not facing forward, I was probably not listening to her.  Anyway, she wasn’t weird she was just an asshole.  The actual weirdness didn’t start until sometime around 11.

So there I was at around 11, minding my own business, not paying too much attention to the slowly escalating argument in the booth at the front of the bar when all of a sudden, yelling!  There was a guy in a red and white striped t-shirt, practically standing on his toes as he tried to get in the face of one of our (much taller) regular customers, well call him Kevin.  He said something about it not being all in good fun.  Well, here we go.  I decided that since I tend to stoke the fire rather than put it out, I would let my coworker handle it — hopefully she could get the yelling to stop and figure out what had started it in the first place.  A few minutes later she came back behind the bar and told me, through uncontrollable giggles, what she had found out:  the fight had started over some pockets.

As I am sure many of you know, it can be very difficult to get a straight story out of someone who is really drunk.  They get the order of events all wrong, they sometimes forget the initial question halfway through answering it, they crack nonsensical jokes that are side-splitting to them but make absolutely no sense to anyone else.  After about 45 minutes, I managed to piece the pocket fiasco together.  There are still some holes but here is what I managed to find out.  A group of friends were outside the bar smoking cigarettes and talking.  Kevin, who didn’t know this group and was also outside smoking decided to strike up conversation with them.  Somehow, and I am still unclear as to how this happened, they decided that it would be really funny to “collectively rip the pocket off of Kevin’s t-shirt.”  I don’t really know how people go about collectively ripping someone else’s pocket off, but there you have it.  I actually think that probably it was only one person who ripped the pocket but the girl who told me the story decided she was not a snitch and thought that if they all did it then no one would be held responsible.  In reality, I didn’t really give a shit who ripped the pocket, I just thought it was ridiculous and knew I would want to write a blog about it.  So fast forward about 1/2 hour later, Kevin walked over to one of the guys in this group and decided to exact revenge on behalf of his wounded t-shirt.  He reached across the table and ripped the pocket off this other guy’s shirt.  The problem with this plan was two-fold.  First, the guy whose shirt he ripped was not actually present during the original incident and second, this guy had a bad temper and no sense of humor.  Hence the yelling.  Initially, my coworker managed to diffuse the situation but, drunk people being drunk people, Kevin decided that the best plan of action was to continue to mock bad temper guy for the rest of the evening.  It wasn’t until I informed Kevin that bad temper guy also had no sense of humor and that’s why he was getting so mad that Kevin finally backed off.  Either that or he got distracted by his on-going attempts to unclog the toilet in the men’s bathroom.

Kevin spent a good 1/3 of the night in the men’s bathroom trying to plunge the toilet.  We kept telling him to just leave it, that we would take care of it, but he was a man on a mission.  The best thing about it was that every time someone opened the door to the men’s room, you would get a glimpse of Kevin standing there, plunger in hand, paper towels all over the floor, defeated look on his face as he stared into the bowl.  We concluded that the toilet required a snake.  Kevin would not be swayed from his mission.

But that’s not all!  Sometime after the pocket period, but during the toilet bowl period, some of our other Thursday night regulars came in.  They work nearby and come in after they finish up their shifts, sometime between 1:30 and 2.  Most of them are easy, low key and fun to talk to but one of them is a little bit of a creech so I try to never go out from behind the bar for fear I might be blind-sided by an unwanted hug.  So there I was, hiding behind the bar, when my coworker and I noticed this rather odd smell.  We saw the creech standing there with a recently-extinguished match.  But the smell wasn’t from a match but something much stronger, much stinkier.  And then we were told that the creech decided to light a potato chip on fire to “demonstrate how much oil is in each individual chip.”  I told him that maybe next time he could teach his science lessons outside the bar.

So, that’s basically what happened.  I will leave you all with this one last piece of advice.  Probably don’t get into a debate with someone at 4:45 in the morning about whether Judaism is only a religion, or a religion and en ethnicity.  Especially when that person is driving you home and has a concealed carry permit.

 

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Tip # 9 on Being a Good Bar Customer

8 Aug

And we’re back with more tips, folks!  If you missed the earlier tips and wish to catch up, look no further than the following links.  Tip #1, Tip #2, Tip #3, Tip #4, Tip #5, Tip #6, Tip #7, and Tip #8.  If you wish to share the tips with your bad bar customer friends in a not-so-subtle way, please do!  Let the missteps of others inform our future booze establishment behavior. And now, without further ado, how not to behave if you get 86ed from a bar.

If you end up getting 86ed from a bar, AKA you are never ever allowed to set foot in there ever again, probably you should just never ever set foot in there again.  Obviously, I would advise you all to never behave in such a way as to get yourself 86ed, but if you do, have some pride.  I don’t know much about other cities in the world, but New York City has a lot of bars.  A lot.  There are bars everywhere.  It is easier to get a drink in this city than it is to do a lot of other things that normal people do in their day.  Here are some examples: it is easier to get a drink than mail a letter because there are basically no mailboxes; it is easier to get a drink than to find a public restroom because there are basically no public restrooms; it is easier to get a drink than go to the grocery store, the pharmacy, or the hardware store because, at least in my neighborhood, you pass at least 8 bars en route to almost any of these other destinations.  The point of this is that if you get 86ed from one bar, there are plenty of other bars you can go to unless, of course, you have gotten 86ed from all of them which is a problem I am not prepared to deal with at this time.  If you have been 86ed from All Of The Bars Ever you should probably talk to someone.

Some people who have been 86ed from my bar get it.  This doesn’t mean that they like it, but they understand that once they are refused service for acting like an asshole, they probably should not show their faces there again.  The thing about the people that get it is that generally, in their case, acting up to such a degree as to get kicked out was such an aberration for them that they are ashamed and take a pretty severe detour around the bar whenever they are in the vicinity so as not to have to relive their embarrassment.  Then there are the people who misbehave, get 86ed, and insist on walking by the bar on the regular, peering in the window and mean-mugging.  No joke.  I can think of two solid examples of this type of person: this one guy who online stalked one of my coworkers and the woman who tried to beat me up over the bar.  It’s as if they think that if they stare at the bar often enough, they will put some sort of hex on the bar and either we will go out of business or we all will suddenly be struck by strange cases of amnesia and will forget ever having 86ed them in the first place and they can happily go back to online stalking and bartender threatening.  Finally, there are the people who have been definitively 86ed from the bar and yet continuously try to come back in.  Today I am going to talk about a few of these people but not all of them because, sadly, there are just too damn many of them for one post.

Sometimes you have a really annoying customer who you hate and you really wish that he (I am just going to go with ‘he’ here because statistics!) would do something that would allow you to kick him out for good.  But no.  He walks ever so close to the line without ever crossing it.  He comes in on drugs.  He does not understand the volume of his own voice or that he is incredibly annoying.  He seems to think that “paying for drinks” is a new phenomenon that simply does not apply to him.  He spills his drinks so much that I am forced to erect safety barriers out of coasters.  Sometimes (okay, one time but I like to think it happened over and over again because it is just so damn funny) he tries to sit on a garbage can and the lid breaks and he falls into the garbage can with his legs and arms sticking out of the top of it and everyone leaves him in there for a little while because they are laughing too hard to pull him out.  Anyway, this guy gave me such a headache but there was nothing I could do about it.  I had to serve him.  But then, one day, he got super wasted, somehow got himself buzzed into my coworker’s apartment building, and proceeded to walk up and down the stairs yelling and knocking on every available door in hopes that she would open hers up.  She didn’t.  This went on for over and hour.  He started at 4:15am.  He subsequently got 86ed from the bar.  That was at least 6 months ago.  And still, all these months later, he regularly tries to get back into the bar.  His most recent attempt came at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon.  I was behind the bar, as I generally am at that time, when he walked in.  The second I saw him I started shaking my head no.  He looked back at me with an expression of complete bewilderment. Then he said, “is she here?” referring to the victim of his late night stair climbing rampage. She was, in fact, there.  Before I got a chance to say “it doesn’t really matter if she is here or not, you are not welcome to drink here” my coworker came flying down the bar, finger wagging, sternly repeating “no!” He began to argue, realized there was no point, tried to look defiant and walked out the door.  I doubt this is the last we will see of him.  But here’s the thing.  He isn’t like, an awful guy.  He just can’t drink. He crossed the line.  He followed someone to her home.  It could just be over but no.  He has to continually make our jobs harder and also make himself look like a complete asshole by repeatedly trying to sneak one by us.  Guess what?  We are not stupid.  Also, if you really need your fix of Raspberry Stoli, I am pretty sure I can point you in the direction of a bar that has some.  Basically, in any direction because there are so many bars.

A few days later on a really weird Thursday night (I think there was probably a full moon…there had to have been a full moon) this other annoying guy walked in.  He is another one of those guys that I am just itching to get rid of but he hasn’t done anything bad enough.  Yet.  He always walks in with the worst people because shitty people, I have found, tend to either be complete loners or travel in packs.  They don’t tend to go around with people who are cool.  Anyway, one of the women he walked in with was too drunk for me to serve.  She couldn’t put her elbow on the bar without it sliding off, causing her to almost fall forward off her chair.  She also would not speak to me without having her hand over her mouth, thereby making her thickly slurred speech that much more difficult to understand.  I was so busy arguing with her about how I would not serve her another drink (why does this happen?) that I didn’t even notice that the guy next to her was someone who we kicked out about a year earlier for screaming at one of the owners when she refused to give him another drink because he had already had something like 12 Bud Lights in an hour and could not hold his head up.  And yet he could scream.  Go figure.  Anyway, in the midst of explaining to elbow lady, for the 5th time, that no, she could not have a beer, I noticed that the guy sitting next to her was Angry Bud Lite Guy.  I told him that not only could he also not have a drink, but he was actually not allowed in the bar.  He then started yelling about how he didn’t want a drink and how he hated the bar anyway and would never actually go there.  I pointed out the flaw which was that he was, at that very moment, in the bar.  This did not go over well.  Anyway, yadda, yadda, yadda, he yelled, I stared at him, he yelled, I threatened to call the police, he yelled some more, then one of our other customers who is SO BIG walked over and sat next to do the dude, causing him to immediately flee the scene. (Sometimes bigger is better, it turns out.) But that’s not all!  Angry Bud Lite Guy then pulled his favorite party trick:  call the bar over and over and over again for the rest of the night, asking for the manager every time he calls even though he is already talking to her and complain about how he never misbehaved in the bar, how he never yells (while yelling) and that we are all stupid.  Again, if you want a Bud Lite, go somewhere else.  Seriously.  Keep your drama to yourself and let me do my damn job.  Staying up until 5am sucks enough without your spit landing all over my face while you yell at me about how you never yell.

So, yea, probably don’t get 86ed but if you happen to, just stay away.  We don’t forget.  Also, as I said before, have some damn pride.

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Tip #8 on Being a Good Bar Customer

17 Jul

And the customer education mission continues!  Be sure to check out my other tips if you haven’t already.  Mostly they’re funny.  Tip#1, Tip #2, Tip #3, Tip #4, Tip #5, Tip #6 and Tip #7.  Enjoy.  Share.

So I work in a bar that has 15 taps, which these days isn’t really anything to write home about, and a lot of brown liquor.  A lot.  There are so many choices. So many fun and interesting things to try.  So many possibilities.  So I get it, it can be sort of hard to figure out what you might want to drink.  So please, take your time and consider your options but keep this in mind:  choosing what drink to purchase is not like buying a car, it is not like picking a college, it is not like deciding on a career.  Those things will impact your life well beyond the making of the decision whereas choosing a drink really only makes a difference during the drinking of the drink itself.  It might be unpleasant to drink a beer you don’t like but you know what?  I get it.  Sometimes things are yucky.  Be cool.  I will hear your complaint, pour the offending drink out, serve you a new one and you know what?  If you’re nice during the whole interaction and don’t act as if I purposely mixed some foul tasting substance in with your beer specifically to fuck with you I won’t even charge you for it.  Isn’t that great? You know what will not get you a new drink?  Acting like an asshole like this girl did this past Saturday.  Let me explain.

So this past Saturday around 4:30 PM, give or take, a couple walked in and sat at a hightop.  They made no move towards the bar so after a few minutes I politely informed them that there was no table service and that they would have to come place their order at the bar.  Upon hearing this they did what people often do when I give them this information: they gave me nasty looks and acted as if they already knew there was no table service which I knew to be a complete lie because from the second they walked in the door and took their seats they were looking at me expectantly.  Whatever.  Some people just can’t be wrong.  No matter.  About a minute later the female half of the couple came up to the bar and ordered the champagne cocktail I had specialed for the day (I’ve been trying to use up that damn cassis for like, 4 years) and a rum and coke.  I made the drinks, she paid me and took them back to their table and we all carried on happily with our day.  Or so I thought.

About 1/2 hour later the girl comes back up to the bar with a completely untouched rum and coke and says to me, in one of the snottier tones I remember hearing recently (and this after I complimented her on her sandals!),

“Um…what did you make this with?”
Me: “The rum and coke?  Well…with rum? And coke?”
Snotface: “No, what kind of rum?  He says he can’t drink it.”
Me, upon lifting up the bottle of Rico Bay rum: “The well rum.  In any bar you go to if you order a ‘rum and coke’ that is what you will get.”
Snotface, in her best ever imitation of a small, bratty child: “Not any bar.”

I took a moment to calm myself and think about what bars she might frequent that don’t use well rums in their rum and coke. I thought maybe he had a very discerning palate and perhaps he just didn’t like our delicious Rico Bay.  Then I thought that was unlikely because he ordered a rum and coke.  Then I thought maybe they usually go to fancy bars that use call liquor like Bacardi for their well. I mean, her sandals were really nice so it was possible.  I decided it didn’t matter.  So I asked her, trying to do my best imitation of someone who thinks the person she is talking to is a complete bitch,

“Well, what kind of rum would you like, then?”

She turns to her companion to see what he would like and you know what he said? Cuervo.  I looked around the bar to see if anyone else was hearing this because it was hilarious.  She then turned back to me and, in a completely serious tone, repeated,

“He wants Cuervo.”
Me: “Um…tequila?  He wants tequila and coke?”
Snotface: “No, he wants rum and coke.”
Me: “That’s great except that Jose Cuervo is a tequila so I don’t really know what you want me to do here.”

Her companion then started hysterically laughing.  I guess he wasn’t such a bad guy.  Wish he would have ordered the drinks in the first place.  She looked terribly upset that she was not in on the joke.  He then, through fits of giggles, said to me,

“I want Captain Morgan!”

So you guys.  Spiced rum and regular rum taste really different.  This is mostly because spiced rum has spices in it.  Spices like vanilla maybe and some cinnamon.  A spiced rum and coke probably is going to taste different than a rum and coke.  Also, I don’t know of a bar worth its weight in salt that uses spiced rum as their well because you know what would happen? Someone would order a rum and coke and end up with a spiced rum and coke and it would taste weird and they would send it back because that is not, in fact, what they ordered.  Anyway, since she was such a fucking snot I made her pay for her new drink.  So anyway, the moral is if you screw up your order, don’t blame it on the person who made it for you.  Blame it on yourself.  Because it was, in fact, your fault.

Oh and then sort of on the same topic.  Here are three other drink ordering related things that drive most bartenders up the wall. You know, jut for your own edification.

(1) The people who come in when the bar is packed, wave you down (HUGE no-no), and then when you arrive to take their order they turn around to ask their friends what they want.  If you are going to commit the faux pa of waving, snapping, or hollering at your bartender then at least have your order down.  Otherwise you will drop down to the end of the drink line.

(2)  The people who walk in and then stare at the beer board, or taps, or drink menu for fucking ever and when you walk over to see if they are ready they’re all, “um? I need a minute?” as if part of your job is reading minds.  So you make an effort to pass them by every minute or so, looking at them as you slow down to see if they are ready and they either ignore you while staring blankly at the beer boards, taps or drink menu or they give you nasty looks.  Then, all of a sudden, they are ready!  They know what they want!  And they are incredibly agitated if you are not standing right in front of them at that very second for their order.  They act as though the amount of time it took them to get a beer is your fault as opposed to the absolute inability they have in figuring out what they want to drink as if it is the hardest and most important decision they have made ever in their entire lives.

(3)  The people who walk into a non-cocktail bar and when you ask them what they want they say “you tell me.”*  No, I’m sorry, that is not how it works.  You actually tell me. I do not want a description that’s like “I want something pink with some berry notes and a finish of bandaid.”  I want you to tell me the beer you want or the vodka you want or ask me my advice on what sort of whiskey or bourbon might be fun to try.  I will then pour that into the appropriate glass and give it to you.  And then you will like it and give me money.  And then maybe we’ll make some jokes and I’ll listen to you talk about your job and everything will be right with the world.

So yea, ordering.  It is one of the easiest things to do and yet people, regularly, get it oh so wrong.

*And, actually, in my experience cocktail bartenders don’t really like this either.  Generally they like you to at least give them a liquor and a general idea of sweet or savoryness.

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Tip #7 on Being a Good Bar Customer

18 Jun

And here it is, Tip #7.  You know what that means:  if there is a #7, then there must also exist #s 1-6 and guess what?  You’re in luck!  And you can read them all by following these links!  It’s like magic (or hyperlinks…).  Tip #1, tip #2, tip #3, tip #4, tip #5 and, finally, tip#6.

So in this blog I am going to tackle a topic that seems to be slightly divisive: kids in bars.  This divisiveness can be easily proven by referring to a comment I made on my Facebook page a few weeks back that simply read “No, I do not have milk for your child.”  The responses were diverse, to say the least, ranging from “bar life is slowly being destroyed in NYC by entitled parents” to “You’re right, people with kids should just stop trying to enjoy themselves.”  I am not here trying to start an all out war, but I have some opinions.  So, here goes.

I am not going to put myself strictly on one side of the argument or the other, but I think those who know me, and those who have gotten to know me through my writing here, can probably guess which way I tend to lean.  That being said, there are people who come in with their kids who I actually like having in there.  One couple specifically comes to mind.  They have been my once-a-month customers for years now and recently, about 2 months or so ago, they adopted two little girls who I lovingly call “the ladies.”  The ladies are very cute.  They are also very well behaved, always snoring away in their little baby bjorns, one on the front of one daddy, one on the front of the other.  The second one of them starts fussing, one of the parents takes her outside and bounces her around until she quiets down and goes back to sleep.  If that doesn’t work, they close the tab and head home.

I have noticed over the years that people who were customers of the bar before they reproduced or adopted were the best customers if they chose to bring their children in, although many of them do not.  Many of them will pop in with the baby every now and again to say hi and then be on their way.  But if they do decide to stay, they are incredibly attuned to their child, or children.  They respect the bar, they respect the other customers, and they respect me and understand that a crying baby will drive customers away, thereby lowering my income and making me angry.  And they don’t want to make me angry.  I am told I can be scary.

It’s the people that weren’t customers before that are the problem.  So a few weeks ago there I was at work when this guy came in.  He ordered a beer, drank about half of it, and then said he would be back in a few minutes.  Like a good bartender, I placed a napkin over his beer so no dust or little flying friends would go in it (also so I wouldn’t forget he was coming back and dump it out) and went about my business.  About ten minutes later he walked in…with his 6-year-old daughter.  Apparently she was at a birthday party across the street at the Little Gym.  He took his seat back up at the bar and she sat down next to him.  Just as an aside, I hate it when people let their little kids sit at the bar (to the person who follows my blog who brings his kids in, you are an exception because your kids are awesome and also they write stories about me and also neither of them is 6).  I actually think it is illegal and normally I would have said something about it but I wasn’t feeling up to the conversation and also he had been there before and I felt weird about it.  So, whatever, I just ignored it.  The dad was super distracted watching a monster truck rally on TV and was not paying any attention to his daughter at all.  When they got up to leave about 10 minutes later I noticed that she had scribbled all over the bar!  There was marker everywhere!  Why did he give her a marker?  Also, being in a bar is not an excuse to stop watching your kid.  I am a bartender, not a babysitter, I will not pick up the slack unless you pay me at least $30 an hour and even then I would probably tell you to go fuck yourself, I serve booze.

And here’s another example.  Just this past weekend these 3 adults came in with 2 toddlers.  That means there were 6 eyeballs to watch 2 little dudes running around.  They went out to the back, which immediately prompted all my backyard customers to move back into the bar.  About 1/2 hour later, I hear the mother screaming “Marky! Marky! No! Put that down!!”  And she runs over to where her son was standing with a rat trap in his hands.  He had dumped poison all over himself.  She didn’t realize what it was at first and said something along the lines of “ew, I don’t know what that was.”  I happened to be standing by the back door and, putting it all together, leaned my head out and said, “yea, that was a rat trap.  You might want to take him into the bathroom and wash his hands, arms, legs, and shoes with soapy water before he puts something in his mouth.”  The parents were actually cool about it, blaming their lack of attention for the oversight rather than the fact that we had a poisonous rodent trap on the ground.

Here’s the thing.  It actually doesn’t even matter what I personally think about you having kids in the bar because the reality of the situation is that bars, and my bar more specifically, tend to not be child friendly.  This does not mean I will cast you dark glances and spit in your drinks if you come in toting a toddler, it means that there are accessible outlets, furniture with sharp edges, there might be broken glass on the floor, and, as Marky found out the hard way, occasionally there is poison.  So I might talk a good game about how they cry and it gives me a headache or people change the diapers in the bathroom and then the whole bar smells like poo (this has totally happened before!) but really, I worry enough about my adult customers maiming themselves without adding two-foot-tall curiosity machines into the mix.

So, in summation, in the words of my brother (about something completely unrelated but whatever), “just because you can does not mean you should.”  And in the words of me, if you do anyway then watch your damn kid.  Going out to a bar to blow off some steam is only a vacation from parenting when you leave your kids at home.  Don’t make me parent for you because, guess what? I won’t.

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Sometimes Firemen Drink a lot and then Everything is Terrible

3 Jun

Sometimes things happen at work that sort of resemble a car crash in slow motion.  It’s like, you’re standing there, watching, and you know what is going to happen but you are absolutely powerless to stop it.  That is what my night was this past Thursday when a group of like 25 firemen (I say men because they were, in fact, all dudes and big ones at that) showed up for the retirement party of one of their firehouse compatriots who really didn’t look old enough to retire but what do I know from fire department rules.

So, everything started out more or less normal.  BIG pile of cash that firedude after firedude threw a 20 on.  It always seems super awesome when this happens until you realize that a lot of the time they keep drinking beer and stop throwing money on the pile and then you end up, three hours later, with a bar that smells like sweaty guys and a pile of like $15 singles.  But they were nice enough and I held out hope that this time I would actually make some money (I did, for reasons that will soon become clear).  Most of the guys were drinking bottled beers: Buds, Bud Lights, Amstels.  But there is always that one dude who wants to do all the shots in the world.  All of them.  And he wants all his friends to do them with him even if they don’t want to and if they don’t want to, then he does them all himself.

So, fast forward like almost an entire bottle of Fire Ball and 2 rounds of Sapphire martinis, the second one which was chugged, later.  It was one of those weird situations where you’re like, okay, well, these guys have had lots and lots of drinks.  But they seem to be laughing and chatting and joking around.  No one is falling over (well, except for this one guy but he was mostly concentrating on standing and not worried about what the other guys were talking about).  So you think, wow, maybe these firedudes are going to hold it together!  Maybe I won’t have to make the awkward move of cutting off like 25 beefy dudes who have not officially tipped me and also might become angry about being cut off.  And then, the car crash.  The super, duper, painfully slow car crash.

All of a sudden Fire Ball shot guy and his buddy who was humoring him and doing all the shots and drinking all the martinis got into it about seniority.  Fire Ball shot guy is like, pushing the other guy who, as it turns out, was his superior at the fire house and also had driven his car to the bar which I knew because he had left his side mirror on one of the bar tables which was a source of amusement for me for the entire night. Seriously, who takes the side view mirror off their car and then just like, deposits it randomly on a table and expects NOT to forget it?  I had to yell after his buddy to get it when they were all on their way out the door in a big, drunken, angry, fighting mob.  Anyway, so this argument devolves quite quickly into one guy pushing and the other guy yelling “don’t touch me!  Don’t touch me!”  At this point, my coworker and two customers go over to try and break up the fight and there I am, all 64 inches of me (on a good day) staring at this mass of big dudes and my little coworker, afraid she is going to get punched in the face and what do I do?  I grab a big glass of water and pour it on them.  And then when that has no affect, I refill it and do it again.  None of the fighting guys noticed but I did manage to get my coworker and one of my customer-friends pretty wet, sorry guys.

So eventually the whole lot of them left and, surprisingly, left their pile of cash on the bar which was actually quite sizable because Fire Ball guy had cut their revelry short.  So I was happy.  Until I noticed this idiot law student who had previously been in the bar drinking white wine for like, ever, chasing the whole big group of angry, drunk, wet firefighters down the street yelling at them about how they shouldn’t fight in the bar.  So, in order to shut her up, one of them picked her up and then put her back down again.  And then she devolved into a crying mess who kept calling me a bitch and then, about an hour later and on the other side of the avenue, repeatedly threw herself down on the sidewalk in a full-on tantrum fit for a 2 year old.  Her boyfriend, who probably weighs all of 90 pounds, was trying to calm her down when these two passers-by stopped and, thinking he was hitting her, threatened to beat him up.  Then my co-worker, still wet, had to go over and defuse that.  Then the cops came, then the passers-by left, then my coworker came back inside and then, two hours later, the boyfriend popped his head in to see if we knew where his girlfriend was.  Apparently he lost her.  Go figure.

As I said, a slow motion car crash that I was powerless to stop.  But I did learn one thing: I enjoy throwing water on people.  I would like to try that again…when my friends are out of harm’s way.

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Tip #5 on Being a Good Bar Customer

18 Feb

And so here is the next installment of my beloved bar customer series…unless of course you are one of the people described in one of the posts in which case I imagine the series is not very beloved by you at all.  Hopefully, those people don’t know I have a blog.  Or maybe don’t take themselves very seriously.  And also don’t have access to a firearm.  Right.  So, you can read the earlier tips here:  Tip #1, Tip #2, Tip #3, and Tip #4.

So my tip for today is actually more like a 3-pronged tip because this woman was doing all kinds of things that one shouldn’t do as a bar customer.  The real take home message of this one is don’t throw things at your bartender, but I will talk about a few other infractions along the way.  Alrighty, here we go.

So on Saturday morning at about 12:30 or so, in walks a very diminutive woman.  She sat down, asked about the credit card minimum and asked me for a Brooklyn Lager.  She then mentioned a pleasant past experience she had in the bar and told me what the bartender looked like so I could tell her his name?  So I would know she wasn’t lying?  Who knows.  Anyway, she seemed nice enough to me so I served her her drink and we got into a conversation.  She started asking me all kinds of questions about myself, my job, my family, what I did in my spare time, and, once I told her I was in the middle of writing my master’s thesis, she asked me about my master’s thesis.  She then said to me what was, up until that point, one of the stranger things that a customer has ever said to me.

“You are the first normal person I have ever met.”

I still am unclear as to what that was supposed to mean but I took it in stride while also thinking to myself that this lady was obviously a little bit of a whack-a-doo.  She then asked me a question which was both insulting and also sort of confusing, partially because I think she was using big words to prove how smart she was but maybe didn’t actually know what those words meant and maybe lacked a full working knowledge of proper grammar.  I am going to paraphrase the question here because it was weird.  She basically asked me if I am so driven that I am incapable of taking other people into consideration and also incapable of understanding the ways in which my upbringing and other things have allowed me to do the things I do.  Um.  What the fuck?  So, for those of you who know me the idea of me being “so driven” is kind of absurd considering it has unnecessarily taken me going on 4 years to finish my master’s.  (I will be done this May, damnit!)  Also, that I am so oblivious as to not know that coming from a very stable, both emotionally and financially, family has had a hand in making me a balanced person is a little insulting.  Whatever.  I tried to brush it off and I said,

“Um, that’s a really weird thing to say.”

And then I walked away.  It was at this point that she attached herself to the first set of people that she subsequently scared out of the bar.  They were two women — both working in nonprofit, both super nice and interesting — who had come into the bar because they thought my outside board was really funny.*  They ordered a round, she started talking to them about weird things probably rivaling the weird things she said to me, they finished their drinks and asked for their check, giving a slight nod and a “that woman is cuckoo” eye roll on their way out.  Damnit.  Then she leeched onto two guys who sometimes come in after their run and scared them away, but not after they sort of mocked her a little bit without her realizing because she was not terribly self-aware and I did feel a little bad about that but not bad enough to step in since she was chasing everyone out.  Then this dude came in to collect money for an AIDS walk he was doing and, in the middle of me talking to this man, she says

Um, sir? Yea, you can wait. (And she looks at me.) I would like a refill on my beer.

To which I said

No, you can wait.  I am in the middle of a conversation with this gentleman.

I may or may not have then stretched the conversation out a little longer than it would have otherwise gone to try and piss her off.  At this point she leeched onto, and scared away, a third set of customers.  It was a husband and wife pair who had more than one drink (I think because during their first round she was otherwise occupied harassing the running dudes).  The husband was okay entertaining her but the wife was less than impressed to the point that, when crazy lady had her back to me, I actually mouthed an apology to the lady.  See, the thing is that this lady had been walking the line of inappropriate for a long time but had never actually crossed it.  She would say something insulting, like the question, and immediately follow it with some sort of a statement like “oh, I hope I didn’t insult you.  Sometimes I just get a little too direct.  I just have this need to know things.”  She thought she had this special talent in bringing people out of their shells.  I thought she had a special talent in being a manipulative bitch.  Anyway, back to the story.

Once the third group left the following conversation happened between me and the lady:

You are ignoring me.

I’m not.  If I were ignoring you you wouldn’t have any beer. I’m busy.

You’re ignoring me.

Listen, I have customers other than you.  I cannot stand here and entertain you.  This is the way I do my job.  If you have a problem with the way I do my job, then that’s a whole other issue and you are free to get a beer somewhere where someone does their job better.

I thought this would be it.  I thought this would be the thing I would say that would get her to ask for her check and leave in a huff.  But no.  She said

Not at all.  I was actually about to compliment you.

See?  Manipulative bitch.  But then she adds

If I had a philosophical (this word was very jumbled) problem with the fact that I have been here drinking all day, I would be home.

Um…okay?

And then she asked for her bill.  Okay.  So I decided that since she was sort of a nightmare, since she had made the first 5 hours of my shift sort of hellish, and since she had chased out 6 of my good customers, I would not buy her back at all.  Her bill came to $56.  She had drank a lot of beer.  I gave the bill to her under the taps, she looked at it, started scribbling illegibly on it, then crumpled up the receipt and threw it at me, following in close order by the pen.  Oh, you have got to be kidding me.  At this point I had just about had it.  And this is what happened next:

Me:  Are you serious?  This is how you are going to behave right now?  How old are you?

Lady: How old are YOU? $56?!

Me:  That’s how much you drank.  That is not my problem.  If you have a problem with the bill then maybe you should rethink your drinking habits.

At this point she stands up on that tiny little ledge under the bar where you’re supposed to put your feet because she was really small and this made her feel more intimidating.  She gets as in my face as she can possibly manage considering the width of the bar and also the fact that I was standing a little bit back from it and she says

Lady:  Are you challenging me?  Let’s go!

Me:  Okay, go ahead.  You want to hit me over the bar? Hit me. Go for it.

Lady: You’re challenging me!  Come on!

Me:  Honey, you are so drunk that if I tapped you you would probably fall over and crack your head open.

Now, in hindsight, this last bit seems a little like a threat but I didn’t actually mean it that way.  I really did mean that if I were to touch her she would get so unbalanced that she would fall over because she was that drunk but probably I should have just not said anything at all.  Anyway, this went on for a little while longer and ended with me telling her I felt bad for her son (really mean, I feel bad about that) and threatening to call the police if she didn’t leave and her stumbling out in a huff, barely missing walking into the door on her way out.  I then ran through the math on her bill about 20 million times.  Did I do something wrong?  I thought back about all the little tick marks on the post-it (because that is how we keep our tabs, very professional) and I realized that I had accidentally overcharged her by about $6, which I do feel badly about.  But it wouldn’t have changed anything.  She would still have gotten mad about her big bill and would still have thrown her crumpled up receipt and pen at me and would still be 86ed from the bar.  And the thing about it, is that if she had not thrown her pen at me and had instead said calmly, ‘I think my bill is too big’ I would have gone back over the bill and noticed my mistake and maybe, because of the inconvenience to her, I would have taken one drink off the bill and everyone would be happy.  But no.  She threw a pen at me and that was a mistake.  So, yea, don’t be that bitch.

*For those of you who don’t know, on the weekends I tend to use my sandwich board outside the bar to make oftentimes humorous observations.  This Saturday the board said “Hugo Chavez is apparently doing well after his cancer surgery.  That’s good new for democracy!” and “And another of this generation’s sports idols falls.  Good work, Pistorius.” Okay, that second one is more sad than funny but you get the idea.

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Tip #3 on Being a Good Bar Customer

31 Dec

Click to read Tip #1 and Tip #2 for all your bar-going needs.

So, Tip #3.  Never flag down the bartender unless you are choking on the free wings provided by your favorite local on Monday nights.  Here’s the thing about good bartenders:  we see you.  When we are bartending, it’s like we have extra special powers.  So in my normal life, I consider myself to be a pretty observant person.  I generally notice things.  I don’t tend to walk into trees or get tripped by errant dogs or kids on scooters.  But, there has been the rare occasion when, walking down an avenue, I have bumped directly into someone who strays into my path off a side street.  Or, I am directly across the street from someone I know and I just don’t see them there.  My area of awareness basically extends directly in front of me, mostly on the ground, in an effort to avoid stepping in bubble gum and dog shit.  When I am behind the bar, however, it’s a whole other ball of wax.  I am like, Super Periphery Girl!  I just, see things.  Mostly, I see you.  You and your empty glass.  There is no need to wave your arm around like a crazy person, snap your fingers, or say “excuse me, ma’am?”  Because you know what?  I have already seen your empty glass, registered it, and am likely on my way to rectify the problem.

In case I was not clear at the offset of this blog post, I am going to provide you with a few examples, just so you get the gist, of when (read: always) it is inappropriate to flag me down.

1.  If you see me walking towards you down the extraordinarily long length of my current bar.  Here’s an example from the other day.  There I was, at work.  It was really slow.  There was a couple, with their friend, sitting at the far end of the bar where they always sit.  I did a walk by and noticed all the glasses had a sufficient amount of beer, about 1/3 full, and I know the drinking habits of these people (because I remember things) and none of them are end-of-drink chuggers.  About 5 minutes later I consciously looked over again and noticed one of the beers was dangerously low. I started down the bar towards them, making eye contact with the male half of the couple.  There is no one, not a soul, sitting in the middle of the bar.  Only these three at the end, and a group of regulars near the back.  There was no reason whatsoever for me to be walking down the bar if it wasn’t to address the status of their drinks. And yet, while making eye contact, the dude waves at me and points frantically at his friend’s glass which still had beer in it.  And not just like, the spit at the bottom.  Actual beer.  Beer she could drink.  Why?  Why would he wave?  I really don’t know.  Inappropriate.  Always.  But especially right then.

2.  When you walk into a busy bar and there are lots of people all clambering for drinks.  Here’s another thing about a lot of bartenders:  we are judicious.  When I am working a busy bar, I tend to notice, and note, the order by which people enter and belly up.  I try to address people in the order in which they arrived, keeping in mind location and the speediest way for me to get their drink from a bottle or keg into their glass and in front of them.  There’s nothing worse than having a newcomer walk up to the bar and start waving their hands around.  I see you.  I will greet you, let you know it will be a minute, and then put you on the list.  You won’t get forgotten.  Patience is a virtue.  I know some bartenders don’t do this.  They get caught up and respond to whoever is closest to them.  If this is the case and you feel as though you are being ignored, don’t wave.  Simply place a 20 on the bar.  I guarantee it will get their attention and you will be served.

3.  When you don’t know what you want.  Don’t flag a bartender down, already annoying, and then, while holding one hand out in front of you to keep her attention, turn around to your friends and ask for their order.  If you are going to be so rude as to wave at us, at least have your order set.  Because guess what?  If you don’t, I will walk away and help other people and then take my sweet ass time getting back to you.  We hold grudges, us bartenders.

4.  When you want your bill but you’re not actually ready to pay.  Back to this past Saturday and that super awesome and fun couple (sarcasm – they are not actually awesome or fun at all).  Again, half-full drinks.  All of a sudden I see the female half of the couple leaning forward making those little check-signing hand motions in the air.  Only it was more a full-body thing than simply a flicker of the hand.  I breathed deeply and headed in their direction.  I gave them their tab and then I stood there, waiting, because I figured with such a panicked hand motion, they must surely be in a rush.  Catching a movie, perhaps?  I stood there and stood there.  They made no move for their wallet.  I walked away.  Fifteen minutes went by.  I returned to find the woman standing, looking up at the board clearly calculating the bill to make sure I haven’t overcharged them.  I hadn’t.  I had bought them a drink back.  (Assholes.)  Twenty minutes later they finally hand me some cash.  So, really, was it necessary to flag?  I had done a walk by their area every 5-6 minutes, and a visual check every 3ish, so if they planned on sitting there for that long, couldn’t they have just waited for me to come down and say to them “you guys doing okay?”  But no.  They flagged me.

So, yea, just don’t flag me.  Don’t clap at me or snap at me.  Don’t yell “barkeep” or “sweetie.”  I see you.  Just as well as you see me.  But the thing is, there are a lot more of you than there are me and so sometimes you’ll just have to wait. And, if for some reason I don’t see you, there are plenty of ways for you to get my attention without pissing me off or giving me the impression that you don’t think I can do my job.  I’ve been doing this for awhile.  And there is a good chance that the reason I have not given you your drink is that you flagged me and I therefore think you are an asshole.

In other news, here are some things I heard recently while at work that I wish were never said.  Or at least I wish I never heard.  Because on top of seeing you, I also can hear you.  So maybe keep your voice down?  Maybe be a little less disgusting/racist/bigoted/ignorant/all those other bad things while out in public or, at least, while in front of me?  Except for the last one.  That was funny.

1.  “This morning my wife gave me a blowjob in the shower.  Best way to start the day.  Best blowjob.  Man.  Who needs breakfast?”

2.  Said by, who else, a super old white dude:  “If I were black, I would be the blackest Republican out there because of Lincoln.  If it weren’t for him I would still be a slave.”

3.  Said by a younger white dude upon learning that I had once gone to a Barrington Levy show at BB King’s:  “What were you doing at a dance hall show?  I would never bring my girlfriend to a dance hall show.  Ever.  I bet there was security all over that thing…And anyway, how did you see over all the ‘fros?”

4.  Said by the same idiot:  “So have you noticed that they (lesbians) stay single as long (as gay men)?”

5.  “After I turned into a turtle he didn’t really want to talk to me anymore.”

And that’s all.  Have a very happy new year, everyone.  And remember:  be nice and tip your bartender.

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Tip #2 on Being a Good Bar Customer

18 Dec

(You can read Tip #1 here.)

Never argue with your bartender about the price of your drink.  Especially when your bartender is not actually in charge of setting the prices, the management is, with a fair amount of input from the cost of the bottle or the keg itself.  Bars, the good, fair ones at least, do not just pull prices out of their asses.  They are calculated considering the number of shots, neat pours, or pints expected to come out of the given bottle or keg, taking a certain amount of waste into account.  Bars are businesses, after all.  Some bars have to charge more because of their location and the subsequent higher inputs to keep the bar running.  We do not have to do that which means you, the customer, are getting a completely fair price for whatever it is you ordered.  If you want to drink cheaper, drink at home.  Here’s a story.

I just arrived at work and the bar was a little busy following an office Christmas party earlier in the day for a big group of our regulars.  (Read:  everyone was trashed and being super loud.  But that’s okay because it’s a bar and that’s what people do there.)  I had come straight from the library and had a little bit of a headache but was trying my best — not sure how successful I was at this — to come across as a relatively pleasant person.  One of the veins in my right eye was super red and pulsating.  Transitioning into the bar was going to take a little bit of an adjustment period during which time I planned on smiling at people and getting them their drinks, saving all meaningful conversation for a little later.  One of my customers was being, as usual, extremely loud.  Like, crazy loud.  Like yelling to someone who was literally 2 feet away from him loud.  So I made a joke to one of his friends, in good fun, that went a little something like this:

He is talking to someone right in front of him, right?  He’s like one of those guys from those old 90’s commercials for hip-hop compilation CDs where the dude explaining the product is like SCREAMING and you’re all like, “why are you yelling?  I’m right here!”

It was a joke.  I made it obvious that it was a joke.  But I think it pissed off one of his other friends, who had had WAY too much to drink, who was not even the person I was telling the joke to.  Anyway, this guy, we’ll call him Steve, ordered a whisky.  The same whisky he has been drinking for like 3 years.  I poured him his drink, took his twenty, put 8 of it in the register because that is what this particular drink costs, and gave him his $12 change.  He gave me the stink eye.  Even before he looked at his correct change he gave me the stink eye.  Whatever.  He felt like picking a fight.  So then this interaction happened:

Steve:  Um.  A Bulleit Rye is $8 now?

Me:  A Bulleit Rye has always been 8.  It’s 7 during happy hour, which ends at 8 o’clock, so now it’s 8:30 and so the Bulleit is $8.

Steve:  That’s too expensive.

Me:  Well, I don’t see how it’s too expensive today but it was fine a week ago but, you know, I don’t set the prices.  So, if you have a problem with the price, you have to talk to the boss.  I have nothing to do with it.  I just charge what I am told to charge.

Steve:  I hope you know that I just paid barely twice as much as what you just charged me for 4 drinks.

Me:  I highly doubt that’s the truth.  But maybe you got one for free.  Also, it was happy hour so they were a buck cheaper.

At this point I am getting more than slightly irritated but trying hard to hold my temper.  Trying to give him a little drunk wiggle room to fix the way he was coming across.  He ignored the wiggle room.

Steve:  (In the rudest most condescending voice ever) Well, you need to learn how to take care of your regulars.

Okay.  I’m sorry.  What?  So, again, I refer you to Tip #1 during which I explained how it is not okay ever, under any circumstance, to ask for a buyback.  You know what that does?  It means that the bartender never wants to give you a buyback again.  And you know what?  That’s her prerogative (totally never knew there were two ‘r’s in that).  The buyback, as I believe I have mentioned before, is a privilege, not a rule.  It is me as a bartender, and my establishment as a bar, telling you we think you are awesome and want you to keep coming back all the time.  And you know what this interaction was?  Decidedly not awesome.

Me:  (Hands shaking with anger.  Also, at this point I have slid his $2 tip back towards him and told him I am not interested in his money)  So let me get this straight.  I just got here. I have now served you 1 drink and you want me to give it to you for free?

He wouldn’t look at me.  So I turned on my heal and huffed down the bar.  And then I decided I couldn’t let it go because, really, when can I?  So I got the price book, took out a red pen, highlighted the cost of the drink he was arguing with me over and shoved it under his nose.  (This, I admit, was overkill.  Sue me.)

Me:  See?  Eight dollars.  Deal with it.

I then restormed off down the bar and seethed.  But, as a bartender, I obviously couldn’t seethe for too long so, after a few choice comments to a friend of mine, I went about my business, deciding not to let Steve ruin my night or the night of any of my other customers. I would venture to say I was more smiley than usual, to prove a point.  Then Steve called me down to the end of the bar.  I didn’t expect an apology but I expected something along the lines of “blah blah blah, that got out of hand, are we cool?” which we wouldn’t have been but I’m about keeping the peace for the most part so I probably would have lied and said we were.  But no.  In his hand he had another 20 which he then shoved toward me and said, in a snide tone,

Take this.  It isn’t about the money.

Clearly it is about him, the righteous one, teaching me how to do my job.  It is him teaching me how to treat people. It is him informing me about the way that service industry people should treat their customers, without for a second giving thought to the obligation the one being served has to treat their bartender, waiter, barista, as a human being.  I, obviously, didn’t take it.  Not when he tried to give it to me, and not when he gave it to his friends to give to me.  That money was rude, condescending, asshole money.  Not interested in that kind of money.  I only like sparkling, happy, money.  I’m picky.  Also, it made me feel dirty.  Maybe I am analyzing something through a gendered lens inappropriately, but there is something about being a woman and having someone prove their point by shoving money at you that just feels…icky.  Maybe it’s the case for everyone.  Who knows.

So we’ll see what happens next time I see him.  But, for now, I leave you, friends, with this tasty nugget:  a few years ago this same Steve was arrested for pissing on the outside of a bar after he and his friend, who were behaving badly (surprise!) got kicked out of said bar.  So, there’s that.

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Tip #1 on Being a Good Bar Customer

10 Dec

Don’t ask for buybacks.  Under any circumstance.  Ever.  Buybacks are a privilege bestowed upon you by a bartender who thinks you are awesome and who thinks you are deserving of a free beverage.  (And, let it be said, also thinks you will tip them appropriately for the gesture, maybe even enough that they can put some of said tip into the register.)  The second you request that privilege, it disappears.  Poof!  Quite possibly never to be seen again.  Here, let me give you an example about how to get a buyback.

I have a customer who comes in often, does work on his computer, drinks some stuff, leaves.  Sometimes he feels like chatting, sometimes not so much.  I pretty much leave it up to him.  He is always polite.  I like him.  He’s nice.  I never have an overwhelming urge to roll my eyes when I see him walk through the door.  Generally, I give him his third drink on the house.  Sometimes he has a shot.  If I haven’t had a lot of long-staying customers that day I might give him the shot on the house, also.  (I usually allow myself a certain percentage of the ring in buybacks, and if I haven’t bought many people things that day, I throw a little extra the way of my regular customers, you know, to say “thanks, I think you’re great please never stop coming in because you’re nice and you help me pay my rent.”)  Sometimes he leaves me 10 bucks.  Sometimes even more.  Either way I am happy.  If I feel as though the tip it too generous, say 20 bucks, I might put 10 of it in the register.  Then the bar wins, I win and the customer wins.  Everyone is happy.  So now let me give you an example of how not to get a buyback.

I have this couple that comes in on Sundays.  They’re pleasant enough but just sort of irk me.  Especially the female half.  She has this entitlement thing about her and she thinks we’re best friends.  Also, sometimes she carries around this little plastic squirt bottle full of water and she randomly sprays her hair with it.  I guess she thinks it makes her hair look better.  I think it makes her hair, and her, look weird.  I usually buy her and her boyfriend back a drink or two not because I particularly like them, or because they are good tippers, but because they are pleasant enough and, although I do have an urge to roll my eyes when I see them coming through the door, the urge isn’t overwhelming and I think that says something.  Also, my boss likes them.  That’s the real reason.  It’s like a professional courtesy.  Anyway, so yesterday.

Yesterday I got to work and found the bar a complete mess.  Apparently, the plumbers were there to replace the toilet in the ladies room and to fix the pipes in the mens room, pipes that were threatening to spew yucky stuff everywhere at any moment.  I was annoyed with the mess but was happy with the fact that they had placed the old toilet from the ladies room on the curb, giving me hours of entertainment as I watched passersby (and my own customers) pose with the toilet and take photos.  Anything for a good laugh, I say.  Anyway, when they finished working they decided to stay and have a few beers.  Okay.  I figured I would get them a few rounds because (1) they had done work on the bathroom which was appreciated (2) they seemed to want to drink a lot and (3) they were responsible for the placement of the toilet on the street which, as just mentioned, was hilarious and great.  So, okay.  I decided to look past the occasional inappropriate comments being made by the older of the two plumbers.  I also decided to try not to be annoyed at having to refuse a drink about 15 times.  I just thought “okay, he just had his hands all over a toilet (ew!), I will cut him some slack and not really talk to him.”  So, as a mature person, I just decided to avoid his side of the bar entirely unless I saw he and his younger, more polite, friend was in need of a refill.  It went more or less okay.  Then he noticed the couple I was talking about before sitting on the other side of the bar.  Apparently, the male half had given the names of these plumbers to my boss, hence the job.  So, the plumbers bought the couple a few drinks and, eventually, made their way down to the end of the bar to hang out with them.  After all was said and done and the plumbers asked for their check, they had been there, drinking, for at least 3 hours and, with their beers combined with the ones they bought for the couple, they had amassed a sizeable tab, especially considering nothing anyone in the foursome drank was particularly pricey.  I added the tab all together.  It came to just under $100 and I was fairly certain I had forgotten to write down a few things.  I decided, after taking the above listed reasons into consideration, to charge them $72.  That’s called a deal.  I walked over to where they were sitting and said,

“Hey, I got you a few rounds.  Cheers.  Oh, and thanks for the toilet on the street.”

I then walked away to give them some time to sign their tab and do all that.  As I walked away I heard the female of the couple say,

“Wow, that’s a lot of money.  I bet she didn’t give you anything free.  You have to ask her.  That’s just too much.”

I was mad.  So I decided to avoid that side of the bar in order to not have to deal with what I knew was coming.  Also, what did she know about what, how much, and for how long the plumbers had been drinking.  She herself had racked up a $20 tab, most of which the plumbers were paying for!  So rude!  Eventually, the couple called me down to the end.  The plumber then looked at me and said

“Did you include the last round on here?”

I gave him the benefit of the doubt.  I thought to myself, self, maybe he is just making sure he is being charged for all the things he ordered.  Maybe he thought his tab was too low and wanted to make sure that I had put everything on there, that I wasn’t going to charge the couple for any of the drinks.

“Yup.  You told me to put the round on your card, so I did.”

The plumber looked at me, confused.  He then looked at his company, confused.  Then the lady, who I guess decided she would help fix the situation because she is so incredibly beloved by the staff of my bar and therefore so deserving of all the drinks for free, clarified for me.

“I think he meant did he get anything for free.  Like, did you buy us all some drinks.  You know, free drinks, because we had a lot.”

Commence deep breathing exercises and a whole-hearted attempt to keep my left eyebrow, which has a mind of its own, under control.  Pretty sure my face turned pink because my ears felt hot.  Deep inhale, and

“I already told you I got you some of your drinks.  And just so you know” at this point I looked around the group of them, stopping meaningfully on each one of them, a skill I learned from my uncle, “the more you ask for buybacks, the less you’re gonna get.”

I walked away.  I might have stormed.  Whatever, details.  As I walked away I heard the lady say,

“Well, the other bartenders here are really nice.”

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously?  First of all, as I believe I have said before, there is not a magical force field that separates the bartender from the patrons, although sometimes I wish there were.  I can hear you.  Second of all, I don’t even like you!  I don’t even want to give you buybacks ever!  You give me a headache!  You expect me to make you our $5 bloody marys with Stoli and charge you the same as if I made it with the well.  Why?  Because you’re a jerk!  And you don’t understand that the bar is a business.  Am I the nicest bartender in the world?  No.  Am I a little bit surly at times?  Yes.  Have I put up with your shit for the last 4 years?  Yes.  I think I deserve a medal.

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