{"id":9771,"date":"2010-04-08T18:34:59","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T23:34:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artofmanliness.com\/?p=9771"},"modified":"2021-06-02T13:12:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-02T18:12:27","slug":"how-to-get-a-drink-at-a-busy-bar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/featured\/how-to-get-a-drink-at-a-busy-bar\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Get a Drink at a Busy Bar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9785 size-full\" title=\"vintage busy bar\" src=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/\/2010\/04\/bar2.jpg\" alt=\"Vintage people enjoy drinking in bar.\" width=\"400\" height=\"282\" srcset=\"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2010\/04\/bar2.jpg 400w, https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2010\/04\/bar2-320x226.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Editor&#8217;s note: This is a guest post from AoM&#8217;s resident <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/articles\/so-you-want-my-job-bartender\/\">bartender<\/a>, Mike Hagan. Mr. Hagan has previously written on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/articles\/5-classic-cocktails-every-man-should-know\/\">classic cocktails<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/articles\/guide-to-drinking-for-the-teetotaler\/\">non-alcoholic drinks.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Drunk Fella: &#8220;Hey Chief! Chief!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>My co-worker: &#8220;If that guy calls me &#8216;Chief&#8217; one more time, I&#8217;m cutting him off.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>As I write this, I&#8217;m sitting at my bar, just off of work on a Friday night. I feel sorry for my co-worker; I&#8217;m the one who got Drunk Fella that way.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Chief!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What Drunk Fella doesn&#8217;t know is that he is being ignored on purpose.<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/login.php?next=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsharer.php&amp;display=popup\" type=\"box_count\" name=\"fb_share\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<p>When Mr. McKay asked me to write this article, I had to think about it for a couple weeks. I really had to talk to a lot of bartenders I know to find out what their process is for getting their customers drinks. Do they just start at one end of the bar and work their way down? Does a regular get served before someone they don&#8217;t know? Do friends take precedence? Or do they just serve the loudest guy first, in an effort to get him to shut his trap? After talking to a few co-workers and fellow bartenders, I think I&#8217;ve got it down to a few key concepts.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Always, always, tip.<\/h3>\n<p>An elephant never forgets. Neither does a bartender (or waiter, for that matter). If you don&#8217;t tip well, or at all, you are automatically on the bottom of the list. And don&#8217;t play games with your tipping, either. If you pay cash each round, tip with your change. Don&#8217;t pull it all back and then tip at the end of the night. Tipping is expected, no matter how much you think of it as \u201cextra.\u201d If you start a tab, tip when you pay at the end of the night, or when you get your rounds with whatever cash you happen to have. Either will do! Both!<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s be honest: if you don&#8217;t have money to tip, go to a liquor store, buy your favorites, and watch the game at home. If you don&#8217;t have money to tip, you don&#8217;t have money to go out in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a tip: tip big on the very first round. I have a customer that hands me a $20 bill after he&#8217;s paid for his first drink. I take care of him until he leaves. He often gets refills before he&#8217;s even done with his last one. I take care of him because he&#8217;s taken care of me already, and no matter how busy it is, I always have time for him.<\/p>\n<p>And guys, your phone number is not a tip. Give my female bartenders out there a break.<\/p>\n<h3>2. Know what you&#8217;re going to order before you start yelling for service.<\/h3>\n<p>Hopefully, I&#8217;ve gotten there just as your group has approached the bar and I&#8217;ve asked you what you&#8217;d like to have. If you&#8217;re the one who ends up ordering for the group, I understand if you don&#8217;t know what everyone wants. That&#8217;s why I have no problem waiting for your order if I&#8217;ve approached you. But if it&#8217;s super busy and you&#8217;ve finally gotten me over to take your order, KNOW WHAT YOU WANT. There is nothing worse than hearing you call for service for a few minutes and when I get there, you don&#8217;t know what you are ordering. I can&#8217;t stress this enough. In the time it takes you to figure out what everyone is drinking, I could have filled two other orders. All that time spent yelling for service should be used for figuring out what your group wants.<\/p>\n<p>Case in point: for some reason, I always end up being the &#8220;order guy&#8221; for my group. Last time, we had a new person with us and I didn&#8217;t know his drink, so I asked him BEFORE we got to the bar. When the bartender came over, I rattled it off to her, she quickly called my price, and I paid her. She took my money, ran to get the drinks, and brought them back with the correct change. The whole thing took 5 minutes. Because I tipped well, the next time, it took 2.<\/p>\n<p>We understand that if we approach you, we&#8217;ve caught you off guard and you may not know who needs what. But if you&#8217;re yelling, waving your arms, slapping the bar, trying to get our attention, then we get there and you don&#8217;t know what you want, understand that we&#8217;re a bit unhappy.<\/p>\n<h3>3. Chief, Boss, Bro, Scout, Partner, Dude&#8230;<\/h3>\n<p>The list goes on. Don&#8217;t use them. For bartenders they&#8217;re the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. Now, I know that not all bartenders will call you &#8220;sir.\u201d But they should call you something respectable if they don&#8217;t know your name. My line is &#8220;Sir, can I get you a drink?&#8221; and when I deliver, &#8220;There you are, sir. My name is Mike if you need anything else.&#8221; I expect to be called by my name or sir, or if you&#8217;re impolite, I&#8217;ll answer to &#8220;bartender.\u201d &#8220;Chief&#8221; especially chills my spine.<\/p>\n<p>The key is not the names, but what they represent: respect. Like it or not, the bartender is in charge of the bar. You are in his territory. Waiters come to YOUR table, but you have entered the bartender&#8217;s area. Treat it, and him, with respect, and you&#8217;ll both have a good time.<\/p>\n<h3>4. Don&#8217;t stand at the server station.<\/h3>\n<p>If the bar has a station where servers come to pick up drinks, it&#8217;s a bad idea to try to stand there to get one. You&#8217;ll get mad because the bartender is there 50% of the time, yet he&#8217;s ignoring you, and he&#8217;ll ignore you because you&#8217;re not supposed to be there in the first place, so he&#8217;s hoping you&#8217;ll get the idea and move.<\/p>\n<h3>5. Be a regular.<\/h3>\n<p>Find a bar you like. Go there as often as you can. If they serve food and it&#8217;s good, eat there on a slow night. Talk to the bartender when he&#8217;s not busy. Get to know about him and let him know about you. Create a rapport. When he sees you on a busy night, he&#8217;ll make steps to make sure you&#8217;re having a good time and getting taken care of. Unless you&#8217;re the creepy jerk regular that only tips with phone numbers given to the waitresses!<\/p>\n<h3>My Method<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;m lucky because I&#8217;m tall. Not NBA tall, but tall enough. I find a hole in the bar chairs that allows me not to reach over someone&#8217;s back. I hold my money in my hand, elbow on the bar, hand in the air, facing the bartender. I look at them until they&#8217;ve made eye contact. Now they know I&#8217;m there. Now I can scan the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/people\/relationships\/where-to-meet-women\/\">bar for beautiful women<\/a>, friends I didn&#8217;t know would be there, or check the score of the game. But I keep watching the bartender. When they come over, I rattle off my drink order, and repeat if necessary. Explain drinks if necessary. The money is still in my hand. I say thank you when they bring the drinks back to me. They take the money. I say thank you again when I get my change, and because I know what I&#8217;ve already planned on tipping, I give it straight to them, saying thanks for a third time. If I need a helper for my drink load, they&#8217;re already there with me, and I start handing drinks back. Then I make my way to the spot where my group is. They next guy who is paying for a round usually ends up just giving me the money and having me do it&#8230;or we all just sit there parched while he calls the bartender &#8220;Chief&#8221; a thousand times&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Editor&#8217;s note: This is a guest post from AoM&#8217;s resident bartender, Mike Hagan. Mr. Hagan has previously written on classic cocktails and non-alcoholic drinks. Drunk Fella: &#8220;Hey Chief! Chief!&#8221; My co-worker: &#8220;If that guy calls me &#8216;Chief&#8217; one more time, I&#8217;m cutting him off.&#8221; As I write this, I&#8217;m sitting at my bar, just off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":9785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,42259],"tags":[42247],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-skills","tag-vices"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2010\/04\/bar2-400x280.jpg","aom":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2010\/04\/bar2-372x230.jpg","reactor-320":"https:\/\/content.artofmanliness.com\/uploads\/2010\/04\/bar2-320x226.jpg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9771"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/app-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}