Bartending seems pretty cool, doesn’t it? You’re sitting on your couch 4:30am, after a long night of partying, inhaling Cheetos, toking a bong, and wishing you hadn’t sucked down those last two shots of Jager. The TV is glaring and - wouldn’t you know – Tom Cruise is spinning bottles, without spilling a drop of precious booze – go figure. “Cocktail” is on again. You’re captivated by this ultimate display of Flair and enthralled the “the good life” bartending can offer… a playboy lifestyle on a Caribbean island, and endless string of doting groupies – ready to rip of your clothes, travel, fast cars, easy drugs, blaa, blaa, blaa.
You want to be a bartender above all else. Screw the post-graduate work, your parents ambitions for you, law school, or whatever. You’ve got your eyes set on getting behind the stick. I mean, how hard could it be? Any monkey can pour drinks, right? Let’s find out…
Myth: Bartending is a 24/7 Party
Reality: Part of the job is facilitating, and making it appear as if you’re part and parcel of the festivities. The reality is that you’re working and are responsible for thousands of dollars of the bar’s income, and hundreds of your own. You cannot get afford to get sloshed. It’s unprofessional but more importantly, completely impractical Quite often, particularly at corporate management group-owned bars, you’re forbidden drinking at all. There is routinely a ton of work to do… and that isn’t restricted to simply serving drinks and macking on the lovely lady who strategically has her bosom bent over the bar, and pointed in your general direction. More often than not, you’re getting off work when the sun is nearly on the horizon. You’re sweaty, grimy, sore, bleeding from a random fingertip, bruised at the hip, and your shoes are squeeking from having waddled in murky, gray mystery floor water all evening.
Myth: Bartenders is a means to an ends. It’s a transient occupation.
Reality: Bartending can often be a career for many. Yes, it’s true that in NYC in particular, the field is filled with 20-something year old actors, models, and other folks who haven’t quite yet figured out what they’d like to do in life. But it’s also rife with industry professionals with decades of experience – folks who live, breath, and shit their craft. I for one, actively chose the profession and it’s been quite good to me and my family. It’s enabled me to buy my own home, several cars, a couple of motorbikes, and sent and my family on the occasional vacation. It’s funded my kids’ educations in parochial school and generally, puts bread on the table. I have no shame. I’m proud to be a career bartender. I’ve known dozens of graduate-degree holding former financiers lawyers, accountants and other professionals who wound up abandoning their “traditional” jobs (many by choice) in order to sling hooch. Many use bartending as supplemental income – a second (or primary) job when they simply can’t get the job done with another. That’s actually pretty common place in New York.
Myth: Bartenders are all tattooed, uneducated, sexually deviant, socially unfit alcoholics and drug addicts
Reality: Many Bartenders are tattooed, uneducated, sexually deviant liberal, socially unfit alcoholics and drug addicts. Many bartenders don’t fit the white picket fence crowd’s “traditional” view of productive society members. Maybe that means they twist their mustache, sleep late, rock neck tattoos, gig out in band (as opposed to buying friends at the Greenwich country club), ardently support pot legalization, and avoid committed relationships like the plague. So fucking what? Most of them are productive, tax-paying, often Bohemian, artistic, fun-to-be-around, creative types who contribute to the world going round and round. Nothing makes their suburban, cubical-loving, starched-shirt and pressed slacks-wearing, Bimmer-driving counterpart any better or worse of a person. They’re both people… people with different visions of happiness. Diversity makes the world great.
Myth: Bartenders don’t pay taxes
Reality: The overwhelming majority of bartenders pay extensive Federal, State, and local taxes and are often “in the hole,” having to write a check to the government come April 15th. Almost all bar/lounge/club/restaurant owners these days are under extreme scrutiny from The Man. That not only includes the Health Department but the IRS and municipal Taxation & Finance departments. Among other things, these gestapo routinely investigate employee comings and goings and all books and records. In particular, they like to pay attention to gross revenue. As a result, many owners will report their bartenders’ individual income as a percentage of sales – whether you got tipped or not. In the old days, most bars would operate under the “$40 dollar per shift rule.” In other words, at the end of your shift, you’d simply take $40 bucks out of the old-school, mechanical NCR register and call it a day. Well, those days are long gone. Practically everyone, from the smallest pub to the largest multi-bar hotel chain, makes use of Point of Sale systems to track every single aspect of sales, inventory, buy-backs, revenue, hours, payroll, and taxes. I don’t know one bartender that is still paid “off the books” as it was before.
Myth: Bartenders get paid by their employer
Reality: Yes, but they receive nearly nothing in compensation. New York State law mandates that employers pay their tipped staff a certain rate anyway. That rate typically varies between $5.00 and $8.00 (on the high-end) with a “tip-credit” of $2.25. Basically, the state is trying to ensure that all workers receive a minimum of $7.25/hour in compensation. They key here is that servers and bartenders are defined as staff that works for gratuities. They are not salaried, nor hourly compensated workers despite the preceding. The state expects that the overwhelming majority of their income be derived from tips. As a result, that small hourly rate translates into a zero dollar paycheck most of the time. That tiny sum of money goes right into the Federal and State coffers.
Myth: All you have to do to become a bartender is memorize drinks
Reality: Wrong. Memorizing drinks is the easiest requirement. In just about all NYC bars, you’ll need a working knowledge of about 100 or so standard cocktails. Most establishments will require you to commit to memory their own cocktail menu (usually 10 – 20 unique concoctions) in addition to what you already know. As mentioned, that’s pretty much child’s play. What is much more difficult to learn, is (a) how to determine when you’re being scammed (b) how to cut off drunks (c) when to intervene – if at all – in an altercation (d) how to prioritize customers in addition to the service bar when you’re neck deep in drink orders (e) how much of your personality is called for and what level of engagement is needed for various customers (f) how to deal with irate customers of varying degrees (g) what to do when the Point of Sale systems takes a crap on Friday night at 11:30pm. The list goes on and on. I can’t possibly detail everything you’ll need to know, and that experience will teach you. Most importantly, your upbringing, street-sense, awareness, dexterity, observational powers, thick skin, and the like must be born of a particular mold – an adaptable one that allows you to learn and constantly be on point. Bartending is not about making drinks. If it were, they’d use vending machine. Bartending is all about people management.
Myth: Bartenders just make drinks
Reality: It really varies with the type of venue you wind up in, but bartenders have a shit-ton more responsibilities than simply pouring drinks. Let’s list some of them, shall we?
- Re-filling double-dipped ketchup and mustard bottles (yes, really. I always opt for the fresh bottle when I’m dining out)
- Marrying liquor bottles
- Counting, sorting and handing hundreds/thousands of dollars at the till and in tips at the end of the evening
- Wiping down mirrors, sticky bottles, filthy speed rails, milk-encrusted back-bar coolers, sugar-laden bar tops, glass shard-infested beer bins, etc.
- Repeatedly lifting and maneuvering 160 pound kegs in cramped walk-ins
- Sorting and stacking hundreds of disgustingly dirty, empty beer bottles for recycling
- Completing seemingly endless paperwork such as cashouts, checklists, and inventories
- Committing to memory and preparing sometimes 4, 5 or even 6 different drink orders while having 2 other orders being shouted at you
- Bussing 50 pound dirty-dish bus bins then emptying their gross contents in the dish-room
- Washing glasses - all night
- Taking out trash
- Dragging out rubber floor mats, hosing them down, and bringing them back in
- Stocking cases of beer, wine and liquor – often carrying them fairly long distances and up several flights of stairs
Myth: The staff has eaten everything on the menu and dine like kings
Reality: Thought bartenders and servers may have been privy enough to once sample a few menu items or the day’s special, the idea that we partake of the house’s finest noms (like Porterhouse and Lobster) is ludicrous. The venue could never stay in business if that were true. Typically, we get a “Staff Meal” either before or after our shifts. The Staff Menu typically consists of a limited number of (relatively inexpensive and quick to prepare) menu items. Alternatively, some bars/restaurants prepare a “Family Style Meal” for their staff – a cold-ass buffet of cheap eats that passes for food. The nicer venues, large hotels, may even have a staff cafeteria. On the downside, a lot of these places will impose a $2 or $4 “penalty” on their employees for the privilege of being fed. Working a 10 hour shift without eating can be difficult. As a result, and despite the rules, many staff members will pick at what they will via illicit kitchen hookups or simply placing an order. They’ll then crouch, hide in an alcove, or whatever and inhale whatever they can.
Myth: Bartenders are all Douchbags
Reality: Douchebags do not achieve longevity. The overwhelming majority of restaurant/bar management groups have extensive By-Laws. Part of those By-Laws are almost always, the Employee Handbook or something of similar description. Bartenders are usually required to read through it, study it, and be able to pass a resultant test (or not be allowed to continue working). Those manuals always contain things like: Sexual Harassment Polices, Dress Codes, Disciplinary Policies, Scheduling Policies, Media Contact and Confidential Information Policies, and – you guessed it – Guest Policies. Guest policies almost always dictate the who, when, where, why, and how you are expected to interact with Guests. Typically, they favor the guest in almost every situation - even when said guest has been clearly acting like a total asswipe. That said, there is often a marked distinction between what is written/accepted/lawful, and what is actually practiced. The degree to which the Guest Policies are enforced will vary between types and sized of venues. You simply have to learn it on the job.
My point is, douchebag bartenders do exist – particularly at high-volume, low-customer interaction nightclubs. They’re governed, however, by two things (1) the preceding diatribe and much more importantly, (2) money. Douchebag bartenders will flounder and earn far less money long-term. That is, if they are routinely assholes for no good reason. That last part is key. What guests often fail to realize is that bartenders are dealing with the retail public; a public who has the added lack of inhibition of “liquid courage” combined with the full knowledge that ownership/management will typically bend over backwards, and give them a blowjob, to placate them in the event some sort of disagreement. Many guests attempt, sometimes sometimes unsuccessfully to take major advantage of this situation. All these factors sort of build ruffles on bartenders’ feathers, you know? It’s not that bartenders aren’t always far from friendly, but we’ve learned to “read people” and react to the public in certain ways. Though bartending opens many doors, establishes great relationships, and teaches you that most people are pretty cool, it also has a way of making your more and more defensive and leery of folks. Sad but true. Bartend for a few months and you’ll see what I mean. Don’t equate defensive and cautious with douchebag. Even when slammed, the most hardened bartenders will easily open up and be responsive to nice folks. You get what you give.
I’m far from one to dissuade anyone from pursuing their ambitions. If your ultimate goal is to follow in my footsteps, then more power to ya. Just keep in mind that it’s not all prancing through the flower-covered green hills by the brook. You actually have to bust your ass to get paid.
