What your bartender is secretly judging you for
Bar etiquette is something that, despite being important in every pub or cocktail lounge, isn’t something that we often see late at night.
Your evening may start off with the perfect intention of acting politely. But then you begin to spill a few sips down your outfit after someone bumps into you and without realising, you’re forgetting your ‘please’ and ‘thank yous’ to the person serving you who’s been on their feet for 7 hours.
We’ve spoken to five bartenders, mixologists and nightlife heroes to hear what they really think about the people ordering at the bar (but with fake names, so you still think to tip the next time they serve you).
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“I’ve been asked what I studied to end up being a bartender, to see how my life ended up getting here.” Ava
Ava has been working in hospitality for over five years and has had their fair share of problematic encounters with the public. ‘I hate when customers are trying to find out work gossip and ask questions about other staff. ‘Ooh he fancies you’, no he doesn’t! Stop trying to fuel work drama. I’ve been asked what I studied to end up being a bartender, to see how my life ended up getting here, whenever people have had a bit to drink.
‘I hate people who click to get your attention. I’ll make a point to ignore them and not give them any attention. It happens all the time. It also annoys me when customers try to make me make a drink that’s not on the till. They say we have the ingredients so we should be able to do it, but then we’d have to charge per individual ingredient. If we say we don’t have baby Guinness, then we don’t have baby Guinness.’
And when it comes to leadership, people are even less likely to take female staff seriously: ‘Let me speak to your manager? I am the manager. People expect it to be an old man. Don’t fight me or I’ll fight you back. Especially when we’re doing last orders and we’ve told everyone, but they still demand service and to talk to the manager. The license is up and I’m the manager, so no, I won’t serve you.’
“In pubs, there’s a specific vibe.” Beca
If you see something creepy, you’d hope that people would call out bad behaviour. Unfortunately, that’s often not the case, as Beca shares: ‘I know who annoys me the most. Older men, under the guise of banter. It’s usually an excuse to be offensive and creepy. In pubs, there’s a specific vibe.
‘It’s a certain type of old man who, maybe at one time they thought it was okay to act that way, but it’s not. I’ve worked in a few pubs and hospitality before and any sort of celebration; weddings, stag dos are normally when people it comes out.’
“I don’t want to have to put up with you trying to get a hookup.” Charlotte
‘What I find, especially over Christmas periods or really busy Friday and Saturday nights, is when you have a group of guys (it’s usually guys) order a round of shots and will want you to do one with them,’ explains Charlotte. ‘So, I’ll ask ‘do you want six Jägerbombs?’ and they say ‘yeah, but can’t you do one with us?’. I get that a lot, customers always want you to do a shot.
‘I’m always polite and say no because I’m working, but sometimes people are really pushy with it and expect you to do a shot with them. That really annoys me. I don’t mind them asking once and as soon as I shut it down, they move on, but you get some customers who are so pushy about it. I’m working, I’ve said no, and I shouldn’t have to justify that. It makes the whole interaction kind of awkward.’
And while that daring look across the bar can sometimes be a sign of sparks flying, it’s not always the case. If you’re sharing your order with a side of unwanted flirting, cut it out, explains Charlotte: ‘I get a lot of creepy customers, especially after a few drinks when they’re trying to flirt at the bar. It happens all the time. And sometimes it’s okay if it’s being reciprocated! There’s definitely been times when I’ve flirted with people that I’m serving, but there’s people who are very clearly trying to flirt with you and you say no and they get quite creepy about it.
‘I’ve had that a few times, people won’t take no for an answer. At the end of the day, I’m there to do my job and serve you drinks, I don’t want to have to put up with you trying to get a hookup out of it. It wouldn’t happen at any other job.’
“I went home and cried.” Debbie
Debbie’s first job was working in a pub as a teenager, and it left them with some unsavoury memories: ‘When I was 18, there was this one guy who was really tall and really ginger, he was about 36. He was obsessed with me. He kept asking if I had a boyfriend, which I didn't, but I was lying and saying I did have a boyfriend. One time he said, ‘of course you do, you’re sublime’. Like, it's gross, but it's funny now!
‘The weird, aggressive management culture,’ also doesn’t help when dealing with customers, explains Debbie. ‘I was a teenager, and it was my first job. I wasn't confident and I wasn't perfect, obviously, but it was like if you made the slightest mistake, then that was almost an excuse for the manager to then berate you over nothing. On more than one occasion, the manager would lose their rag over the tiniest things. Like if you forgot to say this person didn't want ice in their drinks, you'd get called an idiot. Now I'd tell them to f**k off, but when I was a teenage I never would.
‘Usually, older customers expect you to be their personal waiter. It didn’t matter that you were working in a busy pub, where you had to serve loads of people at once. They'd ask for their bill, and I'd say I’ll be back in five minutes, but maybe it took me a bit longer because I was serving other people.
‘There was one time with this local couple, I took longer than usual to get their bill because it was the Euro football finals at the time, and they had made me sit down and listen to them say ‘this is not good enough, we come in here and we expect better’. I was a teenager and that just ruined my night. I went home and cried. I was so sorry.
‘So just be nice! If you can see that the people serving you are young, it's probably their first job and they're probably confused.’
“You never know who you’ll meet.” Eva
‘I always felt on display behind the bar,’ shares Eva. ‘Interactions don’t end after you pour the drink - between orders, you’re also a listening ear to the lonesome regulars nursing a pint or five. You meet some interesting characters, but it can also feel like being a sitting duck - the mahogany bar a boundary, but also a cage of sorts, forcing you to engage with drunken fools - or sometimes a stage - performing polishing glasses as locals stumble over to critique your pouring technique or clumsily hit on you.
‘One memory that stands out is a middle-aged man crawling army-style across the sticky carpet to sneak behind the bar and slip me his son’s number. He was obliterated, and his son wasn’t even there - so it wasn’t exactly the meet-cute of dreams. There's always that mix of excitement and anxiety before a bar shift - you never know who you’ll meet. But I don’t miss it.’
The dos and don’ts of the pub
Do apologise if you break a glass
It’s natural, it happens to everyone, and it’s likely greeted with a cheer of ‘whey’ around the bar. Everyone breaks a glass at some point, even if they don’t intend to. Make sure you let the bar staff know, share a fair amount of apologies and offer to sort it out if you can.
Don’t click your fingers to get someone’s attention
If you’d do it to get a pet’s attention, then why would you do it to get the attention of someone behind the bar? Clicking or whistling to get the attention of a stranger you don’t even know is rude and disrespectful. Anybody who does so is asking for a bad drink to be poured and not a welcome invitation back.
Do leave your glasses all together
Who would want to be scrambling around for an evening, weaving in between drunk people to collect empty glasses? It’s the work of champions, and by leaving all your glasses together it makes the job less exhausting for bar staff who just want to throw everything into a dishwasher so they can get to bed quicker.
Don’t leave a mess behind
Dirty napkins and empty salt sachets from that last round of tequila littered on the floor aren’t a pretty sight. Sort your table out before you leave! We’re not asking for you to get the yellow gloves and anti-bac spray out but giving a wipe down of that spilt drink or leaving everything in a cleanable pile can be a relief to manage.
The golden rule is that if you’re leaving such a mess that a staff member will have to get on their hands and knees to clean up, your behaviour isn’t up to scratch.
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