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FaceEater: Dive bar, falling maybe somewhere between "empty" and "hipster-cool" with occasional forays into "popular" (with assholes) but only sporadically/when God feels like having a laugh at my expense As for 86's, one guy threatened me after I told him he needed to leave for the night which at that point had happened just one too many times (to the tune of at least 50+ times in like 15 years of coming in. Sorry man but your ability to handle yourself and your liquor can in fact diminish when you get older.) Another guy puked all over himself and the bar for the second time in a couple of months. Meh. Unremarkable I guess, but they both happened on my shifts so I'm not sure what I'm doing right/wrong to provoke people into getting themselves barred by managerial decree for life. And my employment has been in fits and starts forever. Walked into a new place I saw in the process of opening in the dead of winter only to speak with an owner as they were installing sinks, started behind the bar on day one, making staffing/layout/ordering decisions with, uh, very little prior experience and a lot of recommendations and ideas from the previous thread. Thanks, thread. Also did some catering bar work simply because I said I wanted to. A little confidence and some hosed up sense of good timing and an apparent ability to talk my way into things have landed me in a lot of the places (I thought) I've wanted to be. So much of the few places I've tended bar have simply been due to luck, honesty, and hard work getting noticed. And yeah, barback. Quietly, with a strong back, and figure out how to move around a bar. Listen and do, and if someone seems mad/unhappy with you, see if you can ask them why, after service and after money's been counted of course. Girly drink: Does a White Russian count? Or an occasional shandy? Made off a draft pour with real lemonade, not that pre-mixed Leine's canned poo poo you heathens. Unless it's Stiegl Radler Grapefruit. That poo poo is DEEEEEE-lish! Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Aug 12, 2012 |
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Aug 12, 2012 04:23
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Daric posted:I've never had a shandy, but with the temperatures hovering around 110 degrees right now, it seems like something I might enjoy. Shock Top is possibly one of the worst beers I've ever tasted. Maybe I got a bad beer or something but it tasted terrible, like old wet molding shoes mixed with the silt from the bottom of a slightly dirty ash tray settling at the bottom, with a little bit of chemical cleaner aroma. The taste of my buddy's wasn't any better. In a word, bad. If you can, replace it with Hoegaarden if you can, or, for German wheats, Widmer Hefe, or maybe a Erdinger or Hofbrau Hefe, or christ, just about any other wheat beer that anyone makes. Maybe Shock Top moves at your bar but I wanted to laugh in our rep's face when I overheard him thanking my bar's owner profusely for taking a couple cases of Shock Top's Lemon Shandy earlier this year. We sold cans for $2 and I earnestly felt bad for everyone tempted to bargain hunt that night 
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Aug 13, 2012 09:25
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Bash Ironfist posted:I'm curious about something. Lets say a customer comes in and orders a rum and coke. The coke part is obvious, but how do you choose which rum to put in? Does the manager/owner tell you what the go-to rum is for something like that, unless the customer requests a specific rum? e;f;beaten like a heathen whore at an Inquisition. Short answer: Yep. Long answer: Yep. It'll be in your "well," known also as your "house" rum or "rail" rum/whatever liquor. And it will probably have some silly-rear end name on the bottle. Bellows is what we got here. Bellows Light Rum. I rarely, if ever, encounter a customer that asks me what my house pour is, but I work in a dive bar so I don't think people really care about that sort of thing here. In other atmospheres, where upselling might matter (more on this I'm sure to come) like the catering bar I worked at, I would always ask something along the lines of "Would you like X or Y rums?" where X or Y are NOT our low-priced bottom-shelf "rail/well/house" pours, but are either call or top-shelf booze, perhaps Captain Morgan or Kraken (for call) or maybe for a vodka drink like a Gray Goose or Belvedere (for top-shelf). Upselling is a strange thing in environments where price matters and where you'd hopefully like to be selling lots of drinks to the same person. Upselling will line your manager/owner's pockets quickly as you'll be selling the high-priced stuff, but won't get you serving as many*, thus possibly stunting your tips. That is, if you got Customer A ordering a well/rail/whatever rum and Coke, and tipping a dollar every time, and that drink costs him $5, and he's only got $24 bucks on him, he can get himself 4 of em and you get 4 bucks. Customer B is a bit more discerning, and you decide to hit an upsell with the False Choice. "Pusser's or Pyrat?" B also happens to have $24 bucks on him, and asks what the price is. Say it's $7 / drink. Well that might just start to cut into your tips a bit, but your owner will love your salesmanship. Dude buys 3 drinks, tips a buck a drink, has a buck left in his pocket. You net $3, your owner sold $21, and $1 is still out there. *This all also can be total bullshit. It depends upon where you work, who you're serving at that given moment, whether or not they're big tippers anyway, whether you personally have an opinion/earnest recommendation as to why you'd serve X over Y rum, and what your specials might be for the night. Also if you've been jaded into just getting as much cash as possible into your pockets at the end of the night. Also, read the old thread, and pick up a copy of the Bartenders Black Book for cheap on Amazon and read the first pages. Not the recipes, as those come later, but just read up on some really tried and true stories and advice about the work. I still keep my copy with me in my bag behind the bar at every shift. And don't used spiced rum in a rum and coke, yeah. Just plain old white rum. I guess I just couldn't really think of enough call/top shelf examples for rum so I started listing whatever I could. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Aug 16, 2012 |
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Aug 16, 2012 05:57
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odiv posted:Ha our "rail" is Bacardi Superior, Smirnoff Red Label, Bombay Sapphire, and Crown Royal, but only because that's almost our entire selection of liquor. Yeah, well my soda gun is completely cracked apart on the handle where the part where the gun meets the flex hose, meaning the soda hoses are totally unprotected and are one good squeeze or irregular twist away from leaking all over everything until the syrup runs dry. And Jesus Christ that's a nice rail. You don't happen to have Posi-pours on those though, do you? Also, just got the management call today. "....start managing the place, ordering, more work more work more work..." UUuuuuugghghhhhhghghghghg. I am not a leader, or even smart. I'm a worker and I work and talk to people. Sometimes I make a drink in that process. But how much do I really want to give that up for less pay, more work, and infinitely more stress? \/\/\/\/ No, right, I know. It's weird that I got the call right in the middle of the thread turning that direction pretty recently. And yeah, I won't. I can't. I'm already having a loving breakdown and grinding my teeth in my sleep because of both on and off the job stress, and declining this "promotion" once it's officially "offered" in a couple weeks is also stressing me. It's a small place so it's gonna cause ripples and headaches for others. Whatever, e/n bullshit. e2: Jesus does the whole thread have the night off? Let's party. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 06:31 on Aug 16, 2012 |
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Aug 16, 2012 06:19
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E: tipping discussion, asked and answered. Just loving tip unless you hated your service or want to be ignored. That's the way it is. If you don't like the system, drink at home.
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Aug 18, 2012 20:37
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Rotten Cookies posted:Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!! Beauty of a thing, isn't it? I and the thread and all certainly wish you many, many more like this. They can be hard to come by but they can keep you always coming back for more. Hell, I'm jealous. Haven't had one of those in a while, seem to come maybe once per quarter for me. Anyone else? Dirnok posted:Welcome to it. It only gets better from here. "Better" is relative, but it certainly gets more storied. Like tonight, when I earned a whopping 15% for all the poo poo I put up with including the following: - Spent a half an hour duct taping a sewage (sink drain) pipe, then re-taping it when it would eventually leak again, oozing its poo poo-stink fetid slurry through the goo of the tape. (I got it stopped. Yay me... Pyrrhic loving victory, it's gonna be a serious (several $k) repair/replace.) - Warned other staff about a dude whose name I recognized on a tab as the same from high school as a known psycho. Big dude, former football player in HS. This guy got so amped up before a football game against a rival school that he slammed his own head through a window of our team's bus on their way to the game. Didn't know him at all personally, simply by bad reputation alone. Rings up a huge tab, tips 7.5%, threatens to beat my rear end, my door guy's rear end, the asses of everyone standing in front of the bar, refuses (then agrees) to pay his tab, and just acts like a shitkicker. gently caress that. Waste of time babysitting his stupid drunk rear end. - Spent an extra 1.5 hours after close with our door guy reviewing camera footage of the night to find exactly at what point a microphone was stolen from our karaoke section. gently caress. That. Noise. Instead of bartending I spent most of my night...well, bartending, I guess. gently caress, sometimes it sucks.
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Aug 19, 2012 12:38
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Ugh. After soul searching and a few pretty long, slow nights in thought and lots of smokes, in 6 weeks I'll be looking for a new place. Willing (and would probably be happy) to start at barback. I swear I'm not too white for it!
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Aug 23, 2012 05:29
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JawKnee posted:Serving shift today. 13 table section out on our patio. If there weren't any trainees in today, nor were there any absentees/no one called in sick, your manager is an rear end. Even then, jesus. gently caress that.
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Aug 23, 2012 07:29
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Sheep-Goats posted:Grandpa party Man with the longest whitest rattiest oldest beard I know drinks CC; man with the oldest push-broomiest mustache I know drinks Absolut. Both are 70 years old. GRANDPA PAAEERTY
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Aug 24, 2012 16:14
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I've met all my beer and liquor reps personally, and while I'm 90% sure that most of them don't have a clue who I am, I believe them all to be mostly decent people and honest tradesmen. That said, this thread has told me that I should be on alert for them trying to gently caress me 10 ways from Sunday, dry, straight up yo/my rear end, with the whole bottle. I'm not making supremely massive stadium-sized orders from any of 'em, as I'm ordering for my small dive bar. What kinds of communication should I have with them? How should I be talking with them? I mean, dialogue is friendly, and as of late (I've only done the orders twice now) I usually just shoot the poo poo with them for 30 seconds, then tell them "Well, yeah, got an order for you this week" and then tell them what I'm going to need to restock. Is there something I'm doing wrong here? I know everyone says that they are trying to gently caress me and maybe I should push them in one way or another, but what do I press them on? Price? Volume? Freebies? he;lp edit: I honestly don't much care what I get out of the deal. I'm not really looking for too much to be free, but is there something that they'd easily include/discount if I only asked? Also, \/ interesting follow-up... Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 02:52 on Aug 29, 2012 |
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Aug 28, 2012 23:37
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Thanks for the advice/pointers on talking to reps and our vendors. I'm done with the ordering for the foreseeable future, and while it's good experience I'm sure, God drat I will not miss the paperwork that went along with it, nor the awkward buddy-buddy style conversations when all I want is my drat beer in my drat bar.
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Sep 5, 2012 23:27
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Anybody in Chicago need somebody? Anyone? I can clean up nice I swear! Also, Campari is dyn-o-mite. Nicely chilled it's sippable all day eerryday. Campari, soda, and a fat lemon wedge is my favorite hair of the dog usually.
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Sep 7, 2012 18:50
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rrrrggghhthhthrhrhghg and then there's Sunday nights, where the industry and the best regulars on the planet come out and end up tipping me 40+% of the entire night's ring. gently caress ME leaving this bar is hard. And god bless everyone posting and lurking in this thread (including myself) and everyone that works as a service employee for being awesome customers, generally great people to serve, and most often being pretty understanding of when they gently caress up and when I have to call them on their bullshit and in the end STILL tipping and being polite the rest of the evening. Thanks, from a dive bartender. \/ I had that too, but got lucky that they self-regulated the really hosed up ones right out the door as soon as I told them that "I will be back in 2 minutes, but if you don't all relax a bit or otherwise stop being so aggressive and making everyone else in the bar so uncomfortable, I'm going to ask all of you to leave." They kicked out the bad apples and stuck them in taxis without me having to say another word, and the ones that stayed behind were really pleasant people. Woo. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 12:02 on Sep 10, 2012 |
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Sep 10, 2012 10:06
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Coolguye posted:Alcohol question time. I loved Mendocino's Festbeer/Octoberfest/Marzen/Harvest. They changed the name of it a couple times, but check it out on BeerAdvocate. Sort by most recent posts and it'll let you know what's up with this year's naming. It can be a bit hard to find though. And don't let whatever the opinions on that site sway you. It's a good beer. I said so. Last year I went nuts and spent like $200 on these stupid 1L mugs with a 1L can of Paulaner's Festbier inside. I think the first few sips were good-ish, if a little coppery, and then I don't remember much after that. Avery's The Kaiser is a great strong beer. Have a little glass, and let it warm a bit. Great for a finishing beer. I also liked Bell's Octoberfest Beer. Pretty easy drinking and "simple" for a Marzen and I'd advise having several of them ASAP. Also Ayinger's Oktoberfest is really, really good. Higher on the booze content and a little sweeter than standard. Apparently BA agrees with me on that one. I liked Dogfish Head's Punkin Beer this year too. I normally hate pumpkin flavored beer but this one with its slightly more aggressive ABV (like 7%) is really pretty well balanced. I especially liked it after like 20-30 minutes after it had warmed up from cooler temp a bit. AVOID Blue Moon's Pumpkin beer, it's disgusting.
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Sep 11, 2012 19:17
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Der Luftwaffle posted:I've been mercifully free from major injury but there was one time I reached down to the rail for a bottle of rum and came up with only the top half because the barback had previously slammed the bottle down too hard. Our bar is also in the middle of a kitchen hot line so I'm waiting for the day when I'm drenched in boiling oil like the poor girl in that Canadian workplace safety commercial. Jesus CHRIST you could not pay me enough to work that bar. The amount of poo poo I have seen/have heard of that has injured kitchen staff at the couple of places I've worked is enough to keep me away from a bar that's somehow (magically?) placed on a line... How the gently caress is that even possible? I'm trying to conceive it and just can't picture how that must look. Describe this bizzaro bar-tchen. Or Kitch-ar, please. I've been lucky (knock on wood) to avoid bloody injury but I think I've got a hernia from being a hardass and re-organizing our walk-in keg setup by myself, throwing around full kegs in a very, very tight space and stacking them and soforth. Going to the doctor on Thursday! Wee!
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Sep 17, 2012 08:44
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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
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Sep 19, 2012 21:23
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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 |
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Sep 22, 2012 03:53
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leica posted:Anyone have any bartendning geared resume examples? I'm thinking about shopping myself around, and it looks like most of the jobs available (on CL anyway) are wanting resumes. Guess it's a new thing, never had to it before. Also noticed a few adds wanting pictures and links to facebook pages what the gently caress. Having photos and whatnot is something I've seen on CL ads since I started getting into bartending about 4 years ago now. It's just something those ads want. Honestly, as that old wisdom in the thread goes, if you want a decent turn-around time or actually know a place you want to work at, just go in in person with a resume or whatever you've got. I've been interviewed on the spot a couple of times when I did this. And it was with a fairly standard looking resume. Descriptions were short and sweet of what I did at a given place, what POS I might've worked/lack thereof, some jargon here and there, and a handful of gloat pieces (implemented/planned specials menu and saw xyz nights grow in overall popularity/revenue, whatever) that were actually true. I dunno. It worked for me, but I work at a goddamn dive now so my input may be pretty much a dead end. Edit: also did the CL route a couple times. I got replies (no joke) four to six months later. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Oct 5, 2012 |
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Oct 5, 2012 17:40
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Coohoolin posted:I meant running out of draught for the day, like. No kegs left at all. Maybe it's a British thing but anything smaller than a pint is for ladies and pubs are supposed to be for manly men with hairy chests carrying hams under their arms wearing hats all the time just so they can take them off whenever they have a strong point of opinion to make on a topic they know nothing about. 16oz is just under a half liter. Coohoolin, you work in a parallel universe to mine. The dialect and the nuance changes, but that's EXACTLY where I work, just on the other side of the pond and with fewer silly words. I have my regulars, the old guys getting pissed talking today's poo poo music, annoying technology, crappy cars, good ol' cars, vacations, and wives. Great. Then I've got something of a different animal. Where you've got Neds, I've got something on a slightly different train. They're something approximating "bros," which are just twenty-something idiot meathead Miller Lite crushing collared shirt wearing cross eyed loud mouthed misogynist white fuckups looking to gently caress everything that has a pulse and looking to drown themselves in Jager as fast as humanly possible, while throwing poo poo around the bar and putting their arms around each other and talking sports or female conquest in a language only known as "High Broglish." While I do get many a pure "bro" in the bar, I generally have to cater to a uni graduate/late-uni student that has aspects of both "bro" and something a bit more... lame. Like, the "bro" reject. They're the children of yuppies, never learned a loving ounce of manners, and love to vomit before they get to the toilet. When in groups, they are absolutely abominable, and consistently forget their credit cards when they start tabs, thus loving me out of any chance at the lovely tip they would have otherwise left and making all the labor it takes to corral and monitor their dumbfuckery a simple exercise in further loss prevention and collateral damage management. They can be humble when alone, but rarely, and are generally totally thankless. They have white collar middle of the road jobs in boring loving offices, and suck. They are educated, but only in the sense that their parents paid to get them a degree. So close to a Ned, but not quite. Fun story from the weekend: Girl orders two Miller Lite bottles. FE: That's $8 please.  : *hands over a credit card* Close it please.FE: I've got a $10 minimum on a credit card, I'll start a tab for you then, okay? : $10 minimum? Okay, give me 12 shots of Rumpleminze and then close me out.*beat* FE: ...k. edit: I watched 2 of those shots just sit untouched on the end of the bar all night, and I think other people drank 4 of them after the girl and her friends only drank six. Meh. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Oct 9, 2012 |
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Oct 9, 2012 17:40
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Just dropped a resume and had the 2 minute drill at a place set to open in a couple days. I don't think I impressed. They barely even looked up.  Attire was a step up from what I'd expect to be wearing there. Ah well.
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Oct 9, 2012 23:15
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nrr posted:To be fair, if they're opening in a couple of days and don't have their hiring done already, then you probably don't want to work for them anyway. They did. "All full on staff, but we'll take the resume and a handshake. Come back and pop your head in in a week just to see how things have been going and say hi if you haven't heard back from us yet." Going to do so. This time a little less hungover.
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Oct 10, 2012 16:01
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Bellows everything. The "blended whiskey" is colored and flavored, and I always feel awful pouring a shot of it for someone.
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Oct 14, 2012 23:31
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leica posted:No, breaking a window with her bare hands, bleeding profusely trying to get to you in a locked apartment is though. Or in the same vein, coming in after being 86'd a month prior, sitting down, pale as hell on a really slow Sunday night, staring blankly straight ahead, meekly placing a purse on the bar, and upon being asked "Are you all right?" giving the reply with the weakest voice I have ever heard from a grown woman, "I don't know. I just took 8 Xanax and a few drinks." .... Don't just throw the drink, throw the whole goddamn glass at me, if it means I'll never have to deal with attempted/toying with suicide sitting at my bar.
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Oct 23, 2012 19:54
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Between $5.50 and $9 for a pint or snifter of crafty and/or Belgian strong/tripels/specials. Standard domestic bottles at $4, up from that at $5. Well/rail is $5. Call is $6/7 depending, and top is $8. Fancy cocktail place nearby is 10-12, local beer specialty joint is between $6 and $10, and punk "dive" is $1 cans on Monday. Downtown is a whole 'nother can of worms that I have honestly never ventured into. I should start seeing what else this city has to offer besides my usual haunts. Meh.
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Oct 24, 2012 07:23
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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF So THIS is what it feels like when I don't have to work and go out to other bars on Halloween. ...ow ow ow
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Nov 1, 2012 22:58
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$200
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Nov 9, 2012 06:46
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The old thread here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2682759 (requires archives! grrrr must've just happened) Using the tips and really the mindsets espoused in that thread I've nailed every interview / offer I've ever had in this industry, despite being on paper at the time horribly underqualified. Probably worth the Archives access if you don't already have it. Otherwise, Bartender's Black Book for the stuff in the first several chapters, and the recipes in back when you need em.
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Nov 9, 2012 19:18
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Dirnok posted:
Dude on the Truth About Bartending has a post about girls and credit cards. And gently caress them. gently caress you if you're one of them. Get the gently caress out of my bar. No, I seriously don't want your money because I seriously don't want your god drat attitude when I tell you I have a $10 minimum on a card and you ordered a $7 drink. You're wasting my time, you're wasting everyone else's time, and god damnit, you're going to turn around and try to order another god drat drink in about 35 minutes and pull the same poo poo. Just open a tab you moron. Or really I'm the moron for getting to you before anyone else that may have had cash cause at best there was a chance they wouldn't stiff me, and at least they wouldn't give me some lovely entitled attitude about how they don't want to order another drink now and don't want to do a round with friends. Got me all riled up cause tonight sucked rear end for that issue. Also lol horsepiss Arizona Iced Tea jug whiskey. That's not even bottom shelf. That's mixed in with my mop water at the end of the night, and god drat near strips the varnish off it's so good!
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Nov 10, 2012 11:51
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Perdido posted:Weird. I always tip, even if it's for a glass of water. I've never had someone say 'No, that's okay, you don't have to tip me,' ever and was really taken aback by someone saying that. One more indulgence into the field of tipping: Man, I had 4 different dudes tipping me $1 on each plastic cup of tap water for a solid 2 hours this weekend, and yes, I did at one point openly tell a couple of them that their gratuity on the first glass was noticed, and thanked them. They kept doing it. And they also never waited more than 30 seconds (I imagine) for refills on water.
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Nov 12, 2012 19:46
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navyjack posted:Not a tipping comment, but my pet peeve are people who try to usurp the whole waiting process with "I JUST want a glass of WATER!" It's still a drink, I still have to make it, and since it comes out of the guns about a quarter as fast as soda or coke, it takes longer than to make a pair of vodka sodas. Water tippers are, of course, awesome. I get ya. I think I take it for granted that one of the first 5 things I do on my "walk in at 10 PM on a Friday for my shift checklist" is fill up pitchers with ice and water and plastic cups and place them within arm's reach of both drink station and beer faucets. And when THAT nets me tips, it feels almost like stealing. Aka feels good man. James Woods posted:Bummer, I can't even reopen it to bring it out of archives. If there's anything that should be re posted let me know. 1) The links to the posts that you've got in the OP in this new thread, including nrr's contributions and the other couple of links that you had in there to posts and guides and docs and whatnot. Those seem to be the questions that re-appear throughout this thread (like An Old Boot's post above re women in the industry / acquisition of first time bartending jobs) that have been answered and beaten like the contents of a lovely mojito. edit: plus your frickin' stories brah. Required reading. 2) I don't like having water pitchers spilled all over me/the bar/everybody that might be leaning or near the bar at the time by stupid drunk people, so we keep them pitchers away from people generally speaking. Also the space immediately below the bar top on our side of the wood is drat near inaccessible to clean and dry should anything of significant volume spill all over it, so, again, no water pitchers for you. And you take that drat pitcher of beer away from the bar and pour it at your table, sir/ma'am/drunk person.
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Nov 14, 2012 02:05
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leica posted:Just smelling well Tequila makes my gag reflex go off. In order for me to drink tequila it has to be at the least Patron and chilled, even then I have to fight the urge to puke. I don't know what it is about tequila that makes it so hard for me to drink, I can do shots of rot gut whiskey all day long Recently discussed with the owner a policy of just not allowing people to purchase shots of anything from the well. He suggested that no, we should, but charge double what anything on a higher tier might cost, and when they inevitably balked at the price, explain that the overage was going to a barback insurance fund where backs or lower-tier bartenders (i.e. me) would get combat pay for each bit of puke they cleaned from insta-voms resulting from shots of well anything. Also, heard the story of one of my fellow bartenders order himself a well tequila-based drink, and another one literally rip the drink away from him explaining "We have paint thinner in the back, you moron, don't drink that" and then proceed to buy him a drink with Don Julio in it instead. Good bartender, that one.
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Nov 30, 2012 06:25
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Home on a Friday night because it's so dead that I would feel like I'm literally stealing from the staff that's supposed to be there from 7 PM til close. God willing it picks up in the next hour and I get to go in. I need to eat.
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Dec 8, 2012 05:30
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Shooting Blanks posted:I thought you had a fairly lucrative gig? Was. Dried up about 5-6 months ago and never got wet again. As of 3 months ago I was casually looking, but by January I might really have to get a bit busier on that front Vegetable Melange posted:Protip: better that everyone loses than just you. Over staffing sucks but its your job, g. Get the money. Just made the call and told them I'm coming either way. One of 'em wants to go home anyway. Better to come home with something than nothing, yeah. 'Tis my job.
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Dec 8, 2012 06:25
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Vegetable Melange posted:Are you support or relief? I learned real quick to take care of my staff when you're high up in the points. If you're relief it's a different game but still, dolla dolla bill, yo. Traditionally I'm support, but as we go longer and longer without big bidness, it turns into de facto relief because somebody usually figures they want to go home anyway. Can you give an example of what you mean when you say the things you say? Better shifts? Only calling in relief when you + who's there can't do it alone? Shooting Blanks posted:What's your e-mail? fe8675309 AAAAT gmail
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Dec 9, 2012 23:05
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Duey posted:Oh man, I had no idea this thread existed. I've only been bar tending for a year now at a 'speakeasy' style bar. Best part was I only got the job because the head bartender quit and they needed shifts covered so I got thrown in and told to figure it out on my own after having only bar backed for about a month. Now I'm practically in charge of the place and the owner gives me carte Blanche to do what I want. Doesn't that mean you're effectively running it? Quit running it poorly! And if you're going to say it's poorly run, give us anecdotes! Clearly you realize this thread lives for that poo poo.
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Dec 12, 2012 21:48
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e: post number 1000 woop woopRisqueBarber posted:You typically don't want your guests to know that you're out of something. In the last 3 months, I cannot tell you how many times I've had to tell people "Sorry, we're out right now, but how about....." Something with the ordering has been hosed for some time now and it's just exhausting to keep managing people's disappointment when there's no Stella or whatever. Daric posted:gently caress yeah guys, I get to go up to work today (my day off) to go through the paperwork and find out why my other 2 bartenders on Tuesday night stole money from me. Go through the paperwork, check CC receipts, check your totals on the ring, and if you guys have detailed hourly totals or readings or whatever, even better, calculate out 20%, then split it up. Be sure to take into account the fact that maybe you worked the slower hours and didn't actually earn all that fat cash. But if you find even one shred of evidence that you did or should've, contact them calmly (at first) and ask them what happened with the tips Tuesday. You'll probably know pretty quickly when you ask that question if you're about to get a real answer or not. Or they'll blame the other guy, which is just as bad. Get the story from both of them separately if you can. I've had a similar thing happen to me once, and it turned out (seemingly) innocent and I got the rest of what I was owed without raising much of a stink, but rather just by asking if the night was actually $5/hour bad or whatever. Also, ShootingBlanks, what did you want to email me? Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 19:52 on Dec 13, 2012 |
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Dec 13, 2012 19:47
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Shooting Blanks posted:Somehow I got you confused with Daric and thought you were in Houston, was going to ask what part of town so that I could ask around if anyone is hiring. Aw nuts. Was hoping you had some Chi-city contacts that could get this ball rolling in my direction. Perhaps a move to Houston is in order... (not). That said, do not let anyone ever make you a Negroni with too much vermouth. Too much vermouth is the worst thing there can be too much of in the drink. Just put a pour spout on that poo poo and count it right if you're not going to jigger it. Ugh. edit: \/ yes, exactly that. to be fair he'd done a fine job the last time i ordered one from him. i think it slipped this time. "oops." Also, shooting Jack is for campfires and weekend warrior Harley-looking businessmen trying to get tough while they're away from "the old lady" but still have their company BlackBerry in their back pocket. Liquid razorblades. Ugh. Ally McBeal Wiki fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Dec 14, 2012 |
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Dec 14, 2012 07:22
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On the discussion of wounds and such, I've got two nasty knocks on my knuckles right now, both of them from our shitkicker ice bin. How does NewSkin liquid bandage hold up in bar sinks? Will it just melt off/dissolve into the water? I ask because I'm headed back in (after 18 loving. hours. yesterday) in about 3 hours and need these little guys all closed up!
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Dec 16, 2012 22:47
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JawKnee posted:E: Whoa, new page. Well then, have a quote: Yes. Go. Unless they are going to pay you a billion dollars (read: an hourly wage at least 20% higher than whatever you would be as just a bartender) when they inevitably ask you to stay, just carry on. As for myself, I've got a departure date in mind, but I just need to find the right spots that I'd like to move on to. Or the right friend to ask for an in!
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Dec 17, 2012 20:39
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 19:17 |
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Expected to see these kinds of stories here today. The usual. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Me? Our "champagne toast" was watching the local news countdown with THREE non-employees in the bar. We had 3 customers at new years eve. gently caress this place.
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Jan 1, 2013 23:10
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