What NOT to do while Bartending

Lessons Learned While Drunk

As you may or may not know, I was in Texas this past weekend for one of my good friend’s weddings. It was really great to be on the OTHER side of the bar for a change and drink heavily and enjoy good company!

Well, one of the benefits of stepping outside of your bartending position and putting yourself into the shoes of your customer, is you get a REAL feel for what defines a GOOD Bartender. Well in this case, I was easily able to identify what defines a BAD bartender.

Why this Bartender Sucked MORE than “Meet The Spartans”

Excuse the obscure movie reference, I can rant about my disdain for that film in another post, but none of the groomsmen and I liked this bartender one bit! Ya he was old, creepy looking, and lacked any real personality or energy (everything that a bartender should have) but here is where he sent me over the edge:

My buddy Drew and I walk up for our 3rd Margarita in less than the first thirty minutes of the ceremony (in my defense, it was hot, I was thirsty, I like tequila…what?!) and here is what our friendly, neighborhood bartender said to us:

“Alright boys, you’re on the clock” (As he handed us number three)

I exchanged glances with my drinking buddy and decided I wasn’t going to just walk away from this one with a curtesy smile.

“I’m sorry…what clock would that be?” (Ya, I’m a sarcastic drunk)

Well, the bartender proceeded to tell us how he had noticed that we had been drinking rather quickly and that we were on his “watch list” (wtf?). If we kept drinking at this rate, he would have to “cut us off” WOW! The three words that NO patron ever wants to hear…and he just went there! Oh Snap!

Ok, ok, so even though I was proud that someone had taken notice of my drinking talents, I was still perturbed by his comments…thus he was labeled by me and Drew (and all the groomsmen) as a BAD BARTENDER.

So, What Should you NEVER do?

Before this post looks more like a big whiny complaint from a guy who actually had an amazing night (I later bypassed the whole bartender thing and found my own bottle of tequila, it never left my hand…”classy!”) there is something of value here that I want to share with you….really…

Do not condescend your patrons and convey your opinions of their drinking habits to them-especially in the first 30 minutes of the party! You are the LIFE of the party-not the DEATH of it! Now don’t get me wrong, “cutting someone off” is serious business and when it needs to be done, only a select few bartenders can effectively do it without any confrontations. And when it needs to be done, it should NOT be avoided by any means. BUT, for someone to warn you, and threaten to cut you off is GRATUITY SUICIDE!

In short, if you say “I’m going to cut you off,” you better just go ahead do it right then and there!

More NO-NO’s

Well, while we are on it, here are a few more things that a GREAT Bartender should never, ever do. Most are quick and easy and you probably already know them! I would LOVE to hear your comments, please feel free t add to the list!!

• Never Count your Tips in front of Guests
• Never turn your back to a guest while making his/her cocktail
• Never chew gum/eat food while working (I didn’t say drink!!!)
• Never leave your bar a mess-I hate that!
• Never use the glass to scoop the ice!
• Never arrive un-groomed and untidy
• Never talk politics or religion
• Never bring your baggage/BS Drama to work
• Never be the DEATH of a Good Party!

…I dunno, that’s all I got for now, anybody else?

Hope you enjoyed the post…cheers!

James Wedmore
www.BartenderforProfit.com

How a Bartender made $1,000 in Tips in One Night!

…I know I’m being “bragadocious,” but there is a lesson here!

Well…last Saturday happened to be another successful night for myself! I was hired to bartend a wedding reception of over 125 guests. I brought with me another bartender and we had a tip jar out. Within 5 hours, that tip jar had seen $987.00! Needless to say, it was a great event!

In this article, I am going to discuss some of the principles and techniques that I put into use in order to make this ordinary night into an extraordinary one.

It’s a Wedding

Most importantly, this was a wedding and they can be your most lucrative events. Why? Because everyone is happy, loves to drink, and you can almost always expect to have a tip jar present. At this particular event, I had a large tip jar on the bar that I baited before hand, and never let get more than ½ full!

A Second Bartender

To handle the large crowd of 120 drinkers, I brought along a second bartender (of course I charged extra for this). But there are two reasons why a second bartender will help you: first off, he/she will take off a lot of the workload and the wait-time for drinks will be much shorter. This means you don’t have any unhappy (and thirsty) customers!

But more importantly, if you choose the right bartender, you can have a partner whose energy you can bounce off of! When you have someone else who is also outgoing and very personable, your confidence levels will increase and you will perform much better behind the bar.

Establish Rapport

By establishing rapport, we were able to loose the image of “hired help” and become more like another guest at the party. There are several techniques we used to do this, including using names, physical contact (handshakes, high-fives, hugs, etc) and coming out from behind the bar to talk with our guests.

We would prepare a bunch of shots for our guests and then make a toast for everyone and drink! This works well because it really brings the group together and creates a sense of belonging. We are controlling the environment by ordering the shots, calling the toast, and drinking first.

We also strike up interesting conversations with our guests that show we are very personable and (hopefully) intelligent. Either way, our guests are impressed and can’t leave the night without showing their gratitude one way or another!

Shameless Solicitation

If none of the above worked, we would resort to what I like to call “shameless solicitation.” We would say things to our guests such as, “If you think your drink is good now, just wait until you tip us…I’ll hook you up!” Nine times out of ten, the guest would reach into his/her wallet/purse and hand us cash!

Or, if someone just tipped, we will make a big scene! We grab his drink and add more liquor, or a few extra limes, etc and make sure the rest of the guest sees what we are doing! “This is what you get when you tip!” In this instance, we are setting the social norms for the party: if you want a drink, you gotta tip!”

Flair/Magic

And lastly, we performed a few flair and magic tricks at our event to keep our guests entertained. The flair is all easy and quick moves that you can do when you are slammed at the bar and can actually help you work faster.

The magic is designed for times later in the night when the line at the bar is slow and the guests are drunk. Both the magic and the flair are excellent crowd pleaser’s and always result in added tips into the jar!

In Conclusion:

There really are a myriad of principles and techniques that I implemented last Saturday, and this is just a brief summary. If you are interested in learning more about the methods described above plus many, many others, you can discover more on my website: www.TipAttraction.com. This is a website for bartenders who want to learn more about how to increase their tips!

I hope you enjoyed my post and that you can use some of the principles suggested during your events! If you have any great tactics, techniques, or tricks that you use to get more tips, don’t hesitate to post them in the comment section and share them with the group! Thanks!

Cheers,

James Wedmore
Bartend-4-Profit
www.BartenderforProfit.com