r/bartenders

A while back in March, I was at a Mexican restaurant with friends. This Mexican restaurant had a full bar and a cocktail menu that listed cocktails other than margaritas. I try to gauge what I order based on what they have listed on their menu and the kind of establishment it is. The way I think about it is that cocktail menus are there to sell the cocktails they serve as well as set expectations for what they can do. They had proper mojitos, aperol spritz, I see Hendricks and other good gins on their back bar. We were seated at a table. I ordered a mojito from menu to start, both out of consideration for my table and for the server taking the order. For my second drink I ordered an aperol negroni with a double of Hendricks since a lot of bars around here don't seem to have campari these days. I also stuck to reordering the same drink the rest of the night to make things easier on the server. Ever since, at least one of my friends never lets me hear the end of this both for ordering off menu and for speccing out my drink. He equates what I did with going to a restaurant and ordering an entree that isn't on their menu. Usually for the trouble, I'll tip 25-30%. My friend thinks I'm basically a nightmare customer. The situation was made to look worse because our server was nowhere to be found most of the night except for when you could see him visibly flirting with some guy at the end of the bar. None of my friends are cocktail people so I'm guessing this seems odd for that reason alone, other than I was also waiting on condiments and another one of my friends couldn't even eat his food for a good five minutes because he had no silverware. Are my friends making a big deal out of this and if not, how far out of line am I?

I was out waiting for some friends at a new bar that just opened near me….I ordered a drink and took a couple sips then let the bartender know I was stepping outside to call one of my friends because it was kinda loud inside. When I got back to my seat I noticed she had thrown out my drink and made me a new one only this time she put a sticker over the top of the glass. I asked if something happened while I was outside and she said kinda nervously while noticeably scanning the room “Oh ah n-no I just made it wrong”….i had taken a sip before stepping outside so I knew that wasn’t true but I decided not to bug her about it and just enjoy the night. Later when I got home I had time to think about it and now I’m curious about why she looked so nervous and why she replaced a perfectly fine drink…..I’m new to the whole bar thing so I really don’t know any unspoken rules or anything like that.

Hi, I'm newish to bartending. Need some advice and I hope this is the right place for it. I'm not sure if most of you experience this too, but I get really bad back pain from being hunched over my well all night. I've been doing consecutive shifts and LOTS of OT lately so I'm pretty sure that's a factor but its been a recurring problem. Everything I do at work ends up triggering tight knots between my shoulder blades and lower back pain. Is this something that just gets better with time? There’s no way I could do this forever.

I try to do exercise but I'm really tired after every shift, so it's barely enough to make a difference. Have any of you experienced the same? How did you deal with it?

I am getting married in about a year and the food and the bar are probably the two most important things for my myself and my fiance.

I worked in the restaurant industry for years so I have a decent enough knowledge of cocktails, spirits, beer and wine etc but do not have really any experience behind the bar with service and that flow.

The venue is BYOB so I had planned to do as close to a full bar as possible and but also have 6-7 drinks on the cocktail "menu" (Negroni's, Last Words, etc) that I would pre batch a few days before the wedding and then have bartenders add citrus the morning of.

I thought having these drinks pre batched would speed up service since they would just have to pour a predetermined amount in a shaker or mixing beaker and be done. I hate waiting in line for 45 minutes for a single drink at weddings and thought this would speed things up.

If you were working a catering or off site event would you appreciate or want this set up? Any other things to consider to make service smoother/easier? Is 7 drinks too many? Is 3 bartenders (or 2 and a bar back) enough for 100 people? I wanted to get the opinions of some professionals here so let me know what you think.

(PS if you are in the mid/south NH area and want to make some money on June 2027, shoot me a DM)

I just didn’t want to encourage people at this beer and wine encouraged open bar to start ordering mojitos. I’m sorry.

Fucked up a little then fucked up a lot today. Share your worst mistakes and I may share mine.

Look I gotta gauge how bad I did okay

Edit: okay let's just pull the trigger.

Slow day. Guest comes in for a glass of champagne to go. It's resort/ranch situation so no biggie. I've popped champagne before no biggie right? Nah. Wasn't paying attention and it ricocheted off the wall and near the guests feet. No one got hurt.

Well, a manager I literally just met today, who just got transferred here (yes this happened today) instantly starts berating me in front of the guest before I even had a chance to recover and it just went off the rails. Ended up putting my foot in my mouth because I was losing focus with him just being up in my grill. Accidentally put her champagne in a glass, couldn't find the vacuum cork so of course he lorded that over me. I know I do better work than that and tried to own the mistake but homie just wanted to drag it out. Rattled me.

I didn't even get a chance to apologize and acknowledge the guest. Just charged her room and got her signature while he kept interjecting. It really sucked and sucks more that that's this guys first impression.

Should see the first comment and stop caring that much about it

I've been a bartender for 30 years. Everything from dives to craft cocktails. I'm exhausted. I love my current spot and have been here for years but I'm 51 and have no idea how I'm going to keep doing this. Today my barback called out and I had to put away the beer order and stock the bar. It wiped me out. (it's like a city block to bring beer up from the basement). I also literally couldn't change a keg the other day because i physically couldn't move full kegs out of the way. It makes me feel like an asshole to ask the younger stronger staff to do some of this stuff. The bar staff all seem to like me a lot and nobody has complained but I feel like I have an expiration date and don't know what else I can do. No degree, no other work experience besides serving and bartending. Have any of y'all moved into another field? Doing what?

Edit: shoutout to the ladies behind the bar!! Spoke to my female bartenders where I learned this happens to the ladies on a constant basis. That’s crazy but then again not so surprising that a lot of men still have the audacity to tell you how to be better at your job. Im sorry yall. People suck and I hope that It doesn’t suck the fun outta of the job and you can just laugh and blow these idiots off.

————————

17 years and this was a first for me.

My Bar currently has been sitting on “Hello Soju” cocktails for months. Like i have not sold a single can so we decided to fire sale them at $2 to get rid of them. They are now flying off the shelves right?

Yesterday at this very casual gaming event, one guy ordered 5 for his friends and himself. I jokingly said, everyone’s a big spender tonight, referring to how cheap the drinks are, trying to make good light..

Then this guy goes….

“Let me give you advice bartender to bartender” and then proceeds to tell me how to “upsell” and what he did and how he managed to upsell to a bottle this one time. Or something cuz i wasnt really listening. I was still stuck on giving me advice?! Then I realized he was dead serious…

He was bragging to my manager on how he “teaches bartenders etc”

I absolutely started laughing and just said whatever bro and kept pushing on but wtf?!

We came to a conclusion he must be a bartender school teacher cuz aint no way, you just went up to another tender and gave unsolicited advice. Wtf does that? There was zero percent this guy would last in a real bar setting gauging his attitude 😂

We had a great laugh at his expense.

Just wanted to share this lil bit that made my night.

I get drunk really easily, so when I go out with friends I sometimes stay mostly sober or alternate drinks with water. Sometimes I’ll just order water all night while everyone else is drinking.

I always wonder if bartenders secretly hate this or think I’m taking up space/not tipping enough. I still try to tip and be polite, I’m just not a big drinker.

Do bartenders care when someone orders water only? Or is this more common than I think?

Like just call me a bartender? that’s not a gendered word. I’m not a maid. I’m not cleaning up behind the bar, I’m tending to it, also none of my male coworkers are “bar men “ nope they’re all referred to as bartenders like it’s just screams misogyny like why am I being framed differently for the same job?

(bartending in the UK)

Been getting really tired of people "inputting" their order and being confused and/or irritated when I have follow up questions. The other day a girl was kept shouting "no, stop!" at me, about four times, because she thought I was making her drink wrong. Finally I snapped "it's not yours!" and her whole entourage took a step back. It's like they really thought I would just stand there and be shouted at without reacting.

A woman ordered a gin and tonic with the question "does it come in a big glass?" Ma'am, do you mean "could you put it in a big glass?" It doesn't come at all unless I make it

Thanks for letting me vent :)

Particularly in a bigger city or an otherwise popular, busy environment. What does a typical evening look like and what's the typical crowd like? (I know this does vary based on where you're located). Is it fun or more stressful than anything?

Just wondering what the experiences have been like.