|
See, now this might be a bartenders' school worth paying for!
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 04:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 06:17 |
|
|
Bar Hazards 456 - Citric Acid Laser Beams and How to Avoid Them* *Don't flirt with the help
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 05:37
|
|
|
BRT 133: Introduction to Plumbing
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 05:53
|
|
|
Acc 101: not giving away the bar Acc 105: counting the money when your BAC exceeds .5. Choom, I hate you a little and hope you got glitter bombed. I was supposed to meet reserve at maison but got trashed on Mezcal instead.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 07:47
|
|
|
So here's an interesting conversation that came up at work today. I'm a programmer by trade, so obviously I work with a bunch of people that are very, very technical and love to automate things. One of my co-workers was floating an idea of a bar where robots did the pouring. There's some precedent for that due to the fancy-rear end soda fountain machines that have like a million sodas nowadays. Presumably you could make a similar machine and program a micro-controller to dispense mixes and liquors all auto-magically. The technical challenge here isn't difficult at all really, but from what meager sense I've gotten from lurking the first 100 page thread and most of this one I think there's some very critical things missing in the calculation. So I've got some questions for the bartenders and managers here. 1) How much of an expense, REALLY, is a bartender's pay? 2) What intangibles would change beyond taking a bartender out from behind the bar? 3) Even if the bartender stayed, would a bartender even like having a machine that they could just tap a few buttons and have a drink produced? 4) I had wondered aloud during the conversation if a jury-rigged machine like that would actually out-pour an experienced booze slinger - how many common drinks can a decent bartender produce per minute? I'm not talking about snooty complex cocktails, I'm talking about the poo poo that actually gets ordered in a bar. Rum and coke and so forth. Alternatively, how many drinks do you make at once, generally? 5) Is the reason a bar fails an expense problem, or an income problem? My own comments/some background on the conversation: The edge my co-worker thinks this would give him is not having to pay a bartender, and increasing volume because customers don't feel the need to tip a machine. Something about this doesn't add up to me since a bartender's actual wage is below poverty limits. Higher volume due to cheaper booze doesn't really equal sustainable to me, either. Overserving would be a huge problem unless you made cutting people off a barback's job, and even then how would you enforce it? The machine is supposed to be right there for the customers to use, the second the barback goes to get more glassware the douchebag is going to refill his drink. Overserved customers are unattractive customers, and that kills the atmosphere that drives repeat business in a bar. I also think that people still like the aesthetic of chatting with a bartender after a long day, and you'd lose that attractiveness by replacing it with a machine. I really have no idea if a machine would make a bartender's job easier or harder, though. I can see it as nice that the various liquors are now just fed from big tanks in the back office. No more reaching down to the rail for the rum, and no more hurried scuffles to the back to get a new bottle when the Captain dries up. No more arguing with dumbasses about how you shorted them, a ready reply to the 'HEH HOOK ME UP BRO' locusts. But by the same token I realize how much of the bartender's job is muscle memory and rhythm, and I have no idea how that would gently caress with it. Anyway, it seems to me that so many bars fail not because they're not operating efficiently or they cost too much - opening a bar isn't cheap by any means, but the equipment it uses is well known, widely available, and not exactly specialized. I don't see how cutting cost corners helps you that much, failing things like rampant theft or embezzlement. You might save a few bucks here and there but if you have a problem with your bottom line it's probably because you're not busy enough. When I barhop at the dives around my neighborhood, the ones that have some obnoxious gimmick like live local bands are always the ones that are gone next time I want a drink, and the ones that stick to the fundamentals of an attractive atmosphere, chill people, and decent booze are the ones that are typically at least half full and doing brisk business. But I'm nothing more than a joe who likes an occasional drink away from my home, so I kinda feel like I know gently caress-all here. Coolguye fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Sep 19, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 17:36
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:So here's an interesting conversation that came up at work today. These machines already exist, and I believe they're quite popular in some applications like big casinos, where the drinking is something of an afterthought. Regardless of whether it saves money, it can never take over the job of actual bartenders in terms of recommending drinks, providing a show, making sure people are cut off when they need to be, and you'd still require the same number of servers to pick up the slack. This isn't even to talk about the cost of such a machine and the maintenance that's required on it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 18:04
|
|
|
I am not a bartender but from the "How much to open your own place maaan" comments earlier in the thread, I'd bet that most bars fail for the same reason most small businesses fail: not enough starting capital. loving over and firing staff is the kind of thing lovely businessmen do to cut costs right before their business fails anyway because that doesn't make up for not being able to afford basic business infrastructure like rent and utilities.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 18:10
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:So here's an interesting conversation that came up at work today. That is a long-rear end post, but here goes: 1) I've never had access to the books for anywhere I've worked, but as you noted bartenders (and most FoH folks) get paid very little. How much of a drain this is depends on revenue which differs by venue. 2) The quality of both your products and the bar experience would change, I don't trust automatic espresso machines to make a better Latte than a trained barista, and I wouldn't trust a robot to mix a complicated drink well. Beyond that, the Bartender (good ones anyway) are a part of the entertainment in the bar; most people are going to a bar to socialize and not just to get drunk, which they can just do at home. 3) No, but with a caveat: personally I bartend because I like mixing drinks, and reducing my job to an assembly line position would be hellish. However I might be okay with a machine that doled out simple drinks (ie: rum/coke) provided it was unobtrusive, easy to use, and could pour faster than I can. 4) Doubtful. I can bang out about 8 to 10 simple drinks a minute in a rush, provided there's some overlap and no special attention or details needed - a machine like you suggest would either need lots of simultaneous input spaces, or be able to handle multiple orders at once - which is what makes some tenders so fast. 5) I've never run a bar, but would suggest that it's a mix. Bars and restaurants run on tight budgets with little room for fuckups - how would such a place handle implementing and handling potentially volatile new technology? My guess is such a thing would get tossed the first time it broke down. Honestly this sounds like a terrible idea.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 18:13
|
|
|
Hey guys, I was wondering if I could trivialize the job you do and get a hand trying to make you all obsolete...
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 20:33
|
|
|
First thing your bartending robot is going to need to be able to do is go and get some ice mix
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 20:35
|
|
|
Barbackbot
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 21:09
|
|
|
PT6A posted:These machines already exist, and I believe they're quite popular in some applications like big casinos, where the drinking is something of an afterthought. Regardless of whether it saves money, it can never take over the job of actual bartenders in terms of recommending drinks, providing a show, making sure people are cut off when they need to be, and you'd still require the same number of servers to pick up the slack. This isn't even to talk about the cost of such a machine and the maintenance that's required on it. I used one of these machines in a recently-failed bar in a college town. Search YouTube or Google for Berg Controls Laser System. I will not link to them because gently caress them, gently caress their system, gently caress the whole thing* Customers did indeed think it cool, for a time. The novelty of anything is always appreciated for a time, and then it wears. And while I had gotten pretty quick with it, it still absolutely felt slower than me with bottles and a speed rail. I think that may have had to do with the fact that the maintenance these things require was underfunded and unappreciated at the place. The triple sec, for example, never, ever, EVER poured me an accurate amount. I brought in some metered glassware and sure as poo poo it was short, and it kept getting shorter as it was neglected longer and longer. Not the fault of the machine, but with thin margins already at the bar, maintenance wasn't something we could keep affording. I guess this speaks to your under-capitalized theory. I remember ripping one of the bottles off the wall during a particularly crazy night, shoving a speed pourer I kept with me in my pocket in and getting my god drat job done. Had the machine been working properly, and had we kept up the massive numbers we posted a couple months after our grand opening, perhaps it would have a place in a bar of that size (we once did about 220 in the place at one time, easily above legal occupancy). But on slow nights, I wasn't able to properly do my job (i.e. schmooze and entertain patrons) because often enough I'd be working out some kink of that robot innovation system that had gone wrong over the weekend while we were putting it through the paces. But hey, at least it recorded all the attempts we made to use it, and logged them all so that management could be sure that we weren't pouring away their bottom line! ...they closed 6 months ago. I feel bad for one of the owners, but the rest, meh. Good luck. *in a non-insane volume setting. I watched a guy use one of these things at a divey casino in Vegas and he was quick with it, it showed me exactly where it would shine: Service bartending. NOT front-end "Hey how are ya sit down with me and have a drink whydon'tya?" bartending. This guy using it didn't talk. He just filled a service tray with about 40 tiny glasses with drinks from a bigass list laid out in front of him, then separated them out by cocktail server onto other trays, and that was the extent of his job, as there was another bartender actually working the bar in the traditional sense, smiling, cracking jokes, chit-chatting, free pouring and mixing drinks. He looked happier. I think people on both sides of the bar deserve to be happy. tl;dr: bar robot user not happy bar user rgrghghghgghrrrr
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 21:23
|
|
|
A machine designed to dispense with good staff and make sure you're not being generous to customers who are paying a huge markup anyway. What could possibly go wrong?
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 21:31
|
|
|
FaceEater posted:Customers did indeed think it cool, for a time. The novelty of anything is always appreciated for a time, and then it wears. I'm honestly not even sure I like it for service bartending for the same reason. Sure, if it can fill 6 drinks at once that's pretty cool, but when the measuring sensor gets dirty and it starts shortchanging everyone, the entire joint is going to complain that their drinks are weak, which will gently caress up the entire flow and cause serious headaches until you shell out 60 bucks an hour, 2 hours minimum to get a tech on site to fix the widget. So you save paying one guy a barely livable wage for let's say a year, then in two days you suffer more lost business to reputation damage and general headaches than that one guy's yearly salary. Halloween Jack posted:make sure you're not being generous to customers who are paying a huge markup anyway
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 21:54
|
|
|
There's also an art to interacting with a bartender - an art that if you're good at you can make your whole evening more enjoyable. No robot can replace that. gently caress robot bartenders how can i be served by he who know naught...of the draught.
|
|
#
?
Sep 19, 2012 22:31
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:So here's an interesting conversation that came up at work today.  eriddy posted:There's also an art to interacting with a bartender - an art that if you're good at you can make your whole evening more enjoyable. No robot can replace that. gently caress robot bartenders how can i be served by he who know naught...of the draught. Truth. I don't go to a bar to get absolutely perfect pour-by-numbers drinks. I go to bars so I can pay someone to pretend to care about me.* (*Actually surprised by how many of them really do care) I miss my old bar. We had no taps, nothing but low-quality domestics, and rails that literally had white labels with nothing but "GIN" and "VODKA" on them. But goddamn it was fun learning the ropes there. anuj fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Sep 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 00:32
|
|
|
anuj posted:(*Actually surprised by how many of them really do care) This book was suggested to me by the guy who taught my bartending school course. Turns out the tldr of it is to smile, and be genuinely interested in the people around you.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 00:38
|
|
|
There's this liquid handling robot that we've got in the lab. It's essentially a set of syringes, racks and an XYZ-axis robot arm that's all (badly) computer-controlled. With one of the racks replaced with a vortex-mixer and some reprogramming, it could make a martini. But, the price for microliter accuracy on the vermouth is that it will be slower than any human bartender. On the other hand, if you are doing some sort of combinatorial molecular gastronomy project and need a 96-well plate of different variations on a manhattan to have people taste and rate in search of the perfect cocktail, it's your robot. Just hit the go button as you're leaving after closing and it can have a couple hundred variations ready to be thrown on some ice by opening. When it misbehaves on the research project, I threaten it with being sold to a local bar. There's the other aspect of this, a bartender doesn't have a start-up cost in the tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just the software upgrade for this robot was $2K.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 01:54
|
|
|
Frozen Horse posted:There's this liquid handling robot that we've got in the lab. It's essentially a set of syringes, racks and an XYZ-axis robot arm that's all (badly) computer-controlled. With one of the racks replaced with a vortex-mixer and some reprogramming, it could make a martini. But, the price for microliter accuracy on the vermouth is that it will be slower than any human bartender. On the other hand, if you are doing some sort of combinatorial molecular gastronomy project and need a 96-well plate of different variations on a manhattan to have people taste and rate in search of the perfect cocktail, it's your robot. Just hit the go button as you're leaving after closing and it can have a couple hundred variations ready to be thrown on some ice by opening. When it misbehaves on the research project, I threaten it with being sold to a local bar. The sad truth is that a machine even if it were completely free would be much much more expensive than a person, because a bartender only usually costs the company less than 3$ per hour. Even if this machine was also the first energy neutral device ever, the need to add support staff, and to provide security would undoubtedly go up since there are laws that must be obeyed and you need enough staff to enforce rules. Bouncers cost a hell of a lot more than bartenders for the company. Then there is the question of how much do you need to charge per drink, because I dont think that people would pay full price for long.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 10:25
|
|
|
They have these in casinos both where customers can see them and where they can't. They don't take the form of a soda fountain though. Instead they're a gun with buttons that say LIIT or V.Cran or Cosmo or whatever. There is tubing that runs elsewhere to little drums of the required liquors (which are filled from bottles). Do they make a bartender faster? Depends on the bartender. A good high volume man can certainly match it, but like the tale of John Henry and the steamhammer this is going to be a case of the best man kind has to offer killing themselves to keep up to a machine. Do customers like them? Most are totally oblivious, some think it's cool, but the ones with influence (not the soccer moms and stinky nerds) often don't like them and, once out of earshot, will make fun of the bar for having them. This is especially true of other service industry people. What do I think? They're pointless and dumb. If you're having issues with your staff not keeping up with volume then put another set of hands back there. It's not like that costs you anything anyway and it's far better for the all-important image of your business. Never sacrifice anything that's going to gently caress up your image (so long as you're not insane and have some unprofitable idea of what your bar will be). raton fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Sep 20, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 11:37
|
|
|
So, had my first shift bartending today which was an experience in maintaining my cool. You'd think they'd start someone with no experience in a glassy/barback position but no, apparently throwing you in the deep-end it the way to go. Trial by fire it seems.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 12:59
|
|
|
You've gotta admit though, temperature-controlled single-glass pump-the-bottle-with-argon wine dispensers are cool as hell. Wine can't oxidize when there's no oxygen in the bottle!
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 13:07
|
|
|
Sheep-Goats posted:They have these in casinos both where customers can see them and where they can't. They don't take the form of a soda fountain though. Instead they're a gun with buttons that say LIIT or V.Cran or Cosmo or whatever. There is tubing that runs elsewhere to little drums of the required liquors (which are filled from bottles). But practically speaking I don't doubt that there would be a "Margarita" button that will serve up basically what you get at a family restaurant complete with "house mix" containing who-knows-what.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 14:02
|
|
|
MisterOblivious posted:You've gotta admit though, temperature-controlled single-glass pump-the-bottle-with-argon wine dispensers are cool as hell. That is drat sexy and is something I've been wanting to get a tank of argon, a regulator, a needle, and a cannula and do at home (except for the blue/UV lights, those will do nasty photochemical aging (AKA why beer in clear glass bottles goes skunky quickly) to beverages). It's the same approach as what we do to transfer solutions that do things like catch on fire when exposed to air. Set the regulator (usually also with a bubbler for pressure relief) to a couple of PSI, attach the needle to it, and jam that through the cork. Now, take the cannula (a double-ended needle), and jam it through the cork too. Argon is flowing through the whole thing so no air can get in. When you are doing this with chemicals, you'd push the other end of the cannula through the cork of the flask that you want stuff to go into, but for now, just think of it being pointed into the glass you want to fill. When the first end of the cannula is pushed in further so that it's below the surface of the wine, the argon pressure will build up in the bottle until it pushes the wine through the cannula into the glass. Reverse the above steps when you've poured the desired amount. And that is how to pour wine without taking the cork out.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 16:39
|
|
|
MisterOblivious posted:You've gotta admit though, temperature-controlled single-glass pump-the-bottle-with-argon wine dispensers are cool as hell. Yeah but you only need a Frenchman to work a wine bar and even they can do that on half a bottle of Ativan.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 17:06
|
|
|
Frozen Horse posted:[lab robot] Sheep-Goats posted:Do they make a bartender faster? Depends on the bartender. A good high volume man can certainly match it, but like the tale of John Henry and the steamhammer this is going to be a case of the best man kind has to offer killing themselves to keep up to a machine.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 17:17
|
|
|
Coolguye posted:Yeah, but unlike the steam hammer though this entire idea has a lot of human integration problems that I'm not sure you can overcome with good engineering. At least not in a cost-efficient way. To really be useful you'd have to do something that enhances the bartender's ability to interact with the customers without interfering with their normal flow. And since the normal flow ideally involves pouring your customer's liquor your drat self the only thing I can think of that might remotely be useful is a sort of auto-gun for sodas and sours so the bartender can focus on pouring the liquor. You can already get sour mix on your standard soda gun - it's not premeasured, but frankly that stuff is so cheap there's no need to add an extra layer of complexity to the system. If you spill some on the mat, no big deal.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 18:26
|
|
|
I went to a thing in SF called BarBot earlier this year, a bunch of hackers and artists build bartender robots and set them up in a room one night to serve nerds. It was pretty enjoyable but the bartenders were incredibly slow and much of the fun was talking to the builders/handlers as the robots poured the drinks. One of them was pretty neat, you had 6 points per drink and you could spend them on ingredients, so like 2 vodka, 2 sprite, 1 pineapple, 1 orange juice etc. An elderly woman was in front of me in line and did like 5 vodka 1 soda, it was really boss.
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 18:47
|
|
|
Good news everyone! Our new dining room manager has a vision and some loving teeth. She persuaded our GM to bring in 2 dedicated bartenders and allocate more labor hours to make sure we aren't consistently short staffed. No more doing everyone's drinks and running a section! I can do one or the other! Hooray for good leadership!
|
|
#
?
Sep 20, 2012 20:33
|
|
|
OmNom posted:Good news everyone! Our new dining room manager has a vision and some loving teeth. She persuaded our GM to bring in 2 dedicated bartenders and allocate more labor hours to make sure we aren't consistently short staffed. No more doing everyone's drinks and running a section! I can do one or the other! Nice one. Now you can either enjoy being a barman or a waiter on any given night. Being the flexible guy should help you get the shifts too which is nice.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 00:57
|
|
|
Well I'm attempting to change jobs. Landed an interview after 2 days of looking around at a neat little punk rock/indie kind of vibe licensed cafe in East Vancouver named Perch. I'm not too sure how to dress for this - almost every bar job I've held involved uniforms of one kind or another (at the very least, blacks or black and whites), but I'm hesitant to just show up in jeans and a t-shirt. Anyone got any advice for this? Usually I just try and dress a level above the employees - so nice black jeans, and a
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 04:03
|
|
|
JawKnee posted:Well I'm attempting to change jobs. Landed an interview after 2 days of looking around at a neat little punk rock/indie kind of vibe licensed cafe in East Vancouver named Perch. I'm not too sure how to dress for this - almost every bar job I've held involved uniforms of one kind or another (at the very least, blacks or black and whites), but I'm hesitant to just show up in jeans and a t-shirt. Anyone got any advice for this? Usually I just try and dress a level above the employees - so nice black jeans, and a Our dress code is jeans and a t-shirt, so I'm fine if someone shows up for an interview dressed like I am. Polo and black jeans or khakis and I'll make a mental note that they tried to step it up and be more professional. Anything dressier than that makes me uncomfortable and I think they're trying too hard, which leads me to wonder why. But that's in my divey college bar and my feelings on it as a guy who only owns one button up shirt, so. I'd say a level above the employees is a good baseline.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 05:58
|
|
|
Have something on that says "I too am an Indie gently caress." I mean, mostly dress like it's a job interview but have one something on that shows you're part of their demographic. Some bars are looking for "a certain look" and of you show up in plain Jane interview clothes they'll pass on you. So employees plus one plus a piece of flare. Some of those places are just going to hire whichever girl comes in with the most tattoos but that's less common than what I outlined above. It's hard to know ahead of time what they want, too, so sometimes you loose a shot at a job at a place like that after guessing wrong for the interview. Oh well. raton fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Sep 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 12:21
|
|
|
Last couple of places I've worked, I showed up dressed like the employees, whether that's vest, or tie tucked in, basically look like you could step behind the bar and start killing it. For management, different story, but confidence is everything, and for me that's being all go-time from the get-go.
|
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 17:49
|
|
|
looking up that Berg system led me to this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2tiUma64Gc What do you guys think about this level of managerial interference and monitoring? Would such a device significantly harm your tending? Crazyeyes fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Sep 21, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 21, 2012 22:47
|
|
|
Those godawful plastic spouts are intrusive and would literally make me incapable of doing my job.  I've never dealt with those levels of controls, but it has always striked me that places that need to have that level of control on their product are either A) in trouble and the staff will find ways to get around the system regardless or B) some lovely chain that you really don't want to be spending a lot of time at anyway. Looking at this supposed foolproof system, I see potential ways to exploit it.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2012 01:15
|
|
|
The biggest issue I'd have is whether or not they'd pour consistently. If they do that, and they're not too expensive (spouts get lost, broken, or damaged constantly as is - add electronics and it just gets worse), then I have no problem with the system. That said, I still maintain that a well run bar will net good money for the owner, manager and employees alike - eliminating reasons to steal for anyone but habitual thieves. I don't think a system like that should be necessary, but if it's cheap enough I can see the attraction.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2012 01:41
|
|
|
edit: /\ the system I describe below was definitely cheaper than the one in the video, but cost of having the dudes come in to fix broken electronics and the stupid ring-thing inventory box machine was absurd. The loving ring was broken for at least a month of the 6 I worked there.Crazyeyes posted:looking up that Berg system led me to this! To the second question: it did. For human reasons, or perhaps because the system was not being properly used or maintained, but that's still a reason to say my work was getting hosed up by a system (not properly maintained, most likely). My old bar also had a slightly different system (another one by Berg, shocking huh?) where you had to slide these specialized pour spouts into a magnetic ring that was mounted under the bar, press a button for the measure of booze you wanted out of that bottle, and then it was set to magically come out at exactly that measure and no more when I turned the bottle over. So every time I poured a drink, this loving magnetic circular ring thing (think of like a small heavy medicine bottle with the top and bottom cut off of it or something) attached to a cable that was hooked to a box under the bar recorded my pour and also prevented me from over (or under) pouring. I couldn't work down a row of shots or something if it was too far away from my stupid little docking bottle station. And on the other end, my bottle, completely upside down, and when/if I wanted another pour of the same measure, I had to snap the bottle downwards (with the ring/collar over the bottle tip) and hope for the right measure to be coming out. If it was something sweet or sticky at all, though, say amaretto or butterscotch schnapps or whatever silly poo poo was supposed to go in a shot, you could forget about that. More times than I could count, the motherfuckers caused me significant, significant underpours. I'm talking I'd set the bastard to pour an ounce and it wouldn't get me even half. They required (again) a level of constant cleaning and maintenance to both set up and keep from gunking up that we would've needed more staff to keep the fuckers working, or at least more hours worked to give them the proper maintenance required. Not something I was/am against, but I or the staff need(ed) to be compensated for that time, which was not made clear apparently to all the staff. I ended up doing a lot of the work on the thing just because it seemed like I was the only one that would, and management was content to let other bartenders fumble and make a horrible mess out of the system. I guess both of my gripes about both kinds of systems like these add up to this: Great for owners that want everything by the numbers and don't care that patrons' opinions will turn against them, but also require more staff to help with closeout/set up/maintenance of the system. I don't know that I would've hated either system as much if everyone would've just followed the proper procedures to get them to work. And management needs to be willing to step up and both train staff to do so and maintain that level of adherence to the system. While it's an automated system, it still requires human maintenance and, you know, giving a poo poo about making it work right. I mean, I still would've hated it from a practicality standpoint as they were slightly cumbersome and prone to breakage beyond things that would've constituted maintenance issues, but to lay it out plainly, and some commentary on this part would be good, as this is the cleaning regimen demanded of this system: End of the night, doors closed, locked, cleaning up. You have to cut the shrink-wrapped bands off of the top of every single bottle (which you earlier in the day used a heat-gun to shrink wrap on...and will have to re-shrink and re-apply new plastic collars in the morning (hours)) (and oh, the collars cost $100 for 1000), remove the mag-tips from each bottle, trying not to splash and splatter the precious precious booze inside as you remove the 3" plastic metering tube that went down into the liquor from the base of the bottle tip. Then get those tips and tubes soaking in soda water, oh, but only after you've cut off and removed all the sticky heatgunned plastic collars that you cut off moments earlier. Don't forget to label (somehow) every individual tip, as each one is calibrated and calculated to its specific liquor. Wouldn't want the Grey Goose tip ending up on the Apple Pucker bottle, would we...? Then cap all your liquors for the night so you don't get fruit flies drowned in the bottoms of all your bottles. Then make sure you cover all the tips you have soaking in soda water overnight too, because fruit flies will also love to get into the now diluted liquor-soda combo cups you have scattered all over your backbar. (You DO have room for all this, right?) loving irritates the hell out of me just typing this. I did this poo poo (and I was like the ONLY one who did) for months. And then I just stopped when I realized no one there cared what the actual liquor readouts were. Whatever. /end edit 2: \/ you just wrote my own tl;dr, thanks S-G. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Sep 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2012 03:53
|
|
|
I worked at a place with that same ring-on-a-rope thing, it was turds. Most customers didn't really notice (they never notice anything like that) but the ones that did just swithched to ordering beer. I think it was mostly that they didn't like the whole "put the bottle in the ring" thing, it's just not a cool thing to see happen behind a bar. =========== Bar owners need to be careful when industry reps try to sell them poo poo to remember that any time they see a pitch where "CONTROL YOUR BARTENDERS, THEY'RE NASTY LITTLE THIEVING SHITS" comes up that customers don't feel that way. Your customers like your bartenders. That's why they're in that particular bar -- if a customer doesn't like the bartender they'll often leave. Customers like that their bartender sometimes has a heavy hand, that he's a spirit-of-the-law not letter-of-the-law kind of guy (or girl), that he knows being fair means sometimes breaking the rules. You have to be very careful about putting restrictions on your bar staff for that reason -- making your bar staff say "I'm sorry, I can't" too much is a huge hit on the feel of your place. No one goes to a bar to reaffirm that they live in society of rules and regulations that are insurmountable. So yeah, these systems can save you money, probably. Maybe for sure. But they're going to cost you some money too. Be conservative when you estimate how many customer-hours you might lose vs. the cost savings in controlling pours. And keep in mind that this is flexible. If you have one bartender that's a particular problem but that same person is also a lynchpin contact person for your spending regulars and/or attractive people faction you might see bigger negative impacts from implementing a pour registering system than you thought. Even "just ring it in and we'll comp it out later" can have a chilling effect. IMO the best way to control over pouring or cheating is to have bar management that was previously actual bar staff (not waitstaff). It's also important to talk to your bartenders and remind them that customers often don't tip on their comped drinks. If a bartender gives away every fifth drink (or whatever) is he really making any more money for himself than if he'd just charged for every one of them? raton fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Sep 22, 2012 |
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2012 04:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 15, 2024 06:17 |
|
|
IMO it should be common sense for any good bartender to know when it's cool to comp drinks, pour heavy/light, etc. If you need one of those stupid rear end systems it just shows you're a tightwad and/or don't trust your bartenders and reflects badly on your establishment. Nevermind the fact it's loving cheesy.
|
|
#
?
Sep 22, 2012 05:41
|
|