I have worked in pubs, bars and restaurants on both sides of the pond and now mainly train hospitality staff. I have put together a glossary of terms for bars and one for FOH in restaurants. I would love some feedback from anyone here on the bar one. It includes (over 350 entries) mainly beer and cocktail terminology plus some slang and other bar equipment terms from both sides of the Atlantic

https://thewinechaser.wordpress.com/2024/03/27/bar-terminology/

Really dude? Tell me all the inappropriate things you want to do to me whilst doing shots of rumplemintze and then leave me a rubbish tip or none at all?

So I’ve recently moved from Australia to America. I go to this bar that has $2.50 cans, and I’m a regular. I always do a tab, sometimes food and sometimes just the cans. I always tip 20-25%. Someone told me recently that I should be giving $1 a drink and not just a flat 20%. I thought I was doing good - can I get a weigh in from the bar community?

This happened a few years ago when I was working in a student pub in Cardiff, UK. Cardiff city F.C. has a history of violence within its fans and the company I worked for has a policy of not showing the games because their pubs get trashed! Guy comes up to the bar ‘can you put the cardiff game on’. I say sorry no we can’t show them, it’s a company policy thing, I know it’s silly as we are in Cardiff but we don’t even have the channel anyway! I’ll be me and he’ll be Aff (angry football fan)

Aff : just put it on, do you even know what city this is ( he thinks I’m a student)

Me: yes this is Cardiff I grew up here, as I said we don’t show the games here, we don’t have the channel to show it anyway and if we did I’d get in trouble for putting it on.

Aff: ( sees I’m the only girl behind the bar, I’m small and look younger than I am), just put the f**king game on!

Me: do not swear at me, I’ve told you we can’t put it on!

My manager comes over and explains to the guy why we don’t show the games, he’s a big burly guy and Aff apologises to him and goes back to his mates.

I go downstairs to get refills for the ice and I’m coming up the stairs with a heavy bag of ice he’s standing at the top waiting for me.

Aff: put the game on, I know you can. Why you being such a little hitler about it?

I ignore him and walk past back behind the bar, he follows me, calling me all sorts of names! This is when the rest of my all male bartenders realise for some reason this guy has decided to target me! Even his mates come up to the bar saying he’s having a crappy day as his ex girlfriend and mate have just got together and are turning up soon and that’s why he’s in a bad mood!

Aff: oi bitch are you gonna put on this city’s game or not!

Me: NO! I’ve already told you, so has my manager, I’m not serving you anymore because of you’re attitude towards me! ( I’m armed with the information his ex left him but I’m not childish enough to use it).

So I start serving other decent polite customers but he stands at the bar still asking me to put the game on, I ignore him but start getting upset as I usually love working busy bars and talking to the customers. Then he gets even more abusive calling me stupid, swearing at me, I’m trying to ignore him but as I’m pouring pints I start shaking so he’s making fun of me.

Aff: look at the state of you, you can’t even pour a decent pint or change a tv channel!!

I think to myself I could be mean and say ‘no wonder you’re ex left you, your such a charming man’ but I don’t.

Me: look you have proven why we don’t show cardiff matches as the fans tend to be very aggressive. Leave me alone. If you want to watch it that bad, the pub across the road have it on! ( it’s not the right thing to do is get rid of customers but he’s really being unreasonable now and I can see all his friends are embarrassed)

So they all leave and I ask for a 5 minute break to go outside for a cigarette and he’s outside the pub across the road yelling at me, calling me a bitch, a fucking c**t, and I think how stupid he looks shouting in the street at a 23 year old girl, he’s at least 40! I miss working that bar but I don’t miss people like him. I understand he was probably feeling rubbish about seeing his ex with his mate but don’t take it out on a young girl earning minimum wage serving pints!

Hi I am The Anonymous Bartender and I have created a blog (and soon to be podcast) documenting the stories of bartenders and servers at theanonymousbartender.com. I was reading through and saw your story and wondered if I would be able to use it. If you are ok with it being used on the website please let me know. I want to keep everything as anonymous as possible and when it get’s posted I will let you know either via reddit or if you would like to provide an email. Providing an email is voluntary and you WILL NOT receive spam or anything additional from the website. If you have any other questions please let me know. Thank you for your time

-The Anonymous Bartender, anonymousbarstories.com

previous story here: first night tending the busy bar.

So, I'm back for more and while not exactly in chronological order, I'd like to share with you why I don't and will never celebrate Carnival in the Netherlands. It has to do with some traumatic past experiences and these days, having quit ethe industry I would love to do nothing else then just straight up vanishing to some part of the world where Catholicism hasn't been and where the mere mention of carnival will evoke questioning stares of "WTF is this carnival thing, can I eat it?".

You see, Carnival in the bat outside of time is the day that makes or breaks the year. Sure more great holidays exist, it's right there and then when we decide to have a bad year, or wtf-excellent-amazeballs year.

So, for those who did not understand what I was trying to stress back there, It's war. The bar is packed, the floow is a one big writhing mass of sludge based on beer, water, other drinks, dirt, and urine.

And I had to crawl aroud in it. You see, I haven't always been the bartender, but often enough I was paid to gather glassware and deliver it to the bar for cleaining. With parties as big as these we used a resillient and hard kind of plastic beakers to pour drinks in. The public thought it was a great idea to just throw them onto the ground. And we (the people gathing cups and maintaining a modicum of order on the dancfloor etc.) were expected to pick them up. it seem sinnocent enough, but not for 10 hours straight while crawling through the worst stuff I ever faced.

For reference I grew up in the vicinity of woods with putrid swamplike water and cattle farms. I have come back home with just about every type of filth on me or my clothes I could find under the sun. I consider myslef a true captain and none it all bothers me much. the putrid sludge on the floor during this time, however, does. At the end of the night you are pretty much covered in it from head to toe (thank god for overalls during this time of year). What's worse, we ar allowd to drink during work hours (to keep in with the mood as we have other poeple who are staying sober for us) but with this party being what it is the bartenders don't have time to give you a drink, and yo udon't have time to drink anything. Meanwhile you are crawling around on hands and knees, thorugh places where people piss (yes really, I once saw a girl squatting in a corner despite us offering toilet services and toilets being available outside), spit and where filth accrues hoping desperately nobody will be wearing stillettos so your fingers won't break as people will will stand on them.

For five days straight.

Tips are scarce, so thank the everloving Odin that he has given your country the wisdom to make sure minimum wage is actually decent instead of counting tips as part of your living wage.

The fact that the guests are unfazed at what you are forced to go through at their behest makes this, to me, a very bad experience.

I promise next time to come back with a great story full of positivity.

So, first time visiting here and I am immedeately reminded of my times behind a solid beam of wood and pressurized beer dispenser. I have been tending bar sinds I could reach the tap handle and only 2 years have gotten actual real money out of it (before operating on a volunteer's wage paid in beer). These two years I have made people do tequila suicides, survived girls peeing on the very floors I was supposed to crawl around on. enough alcohol to drown several hippos inand many more hilarious, horrofying and otherwise memorable nights. These days I have found myself a deskjob that lies within my now completed studies. Lots of stories to tell, but to kick it off the first of hopefully many hilarious and sometimes sad stories about my tenure in the bar outside of time. As it is fitting to start at the actual start, I'll just go ahead and do that.

When I started it was procedure to start collecting glasses and to get to know the general atmosphere and clientele. I was hired to be a bartender, but the first 3 nights I hauled glassware (like halfpints made of half a kg of glass to make them sturdier) and made pictures of people who by far weren't old enough to drink. As if the owner really cared. But at my 4th night I was finally allowed after the more laid back bar (with nowhere near as many patrons approaching as the busybar). A couple of nights after, I got my stresstest. Before another rather new person was put to the stresstest and failed. After 2 nights of (alegedly) calling for his mother it was deemed best for everyone if he quit. the stresstest is your first time behind the busiest bar where people line up 5 rows deep all around and where some timehole opens up between 1 am and 4 am.

cue wriggly cheap flashback effects

11pm So here I was working myself up for the real deal. I knew what was expected of me but I had no idea what would happen. The bar fills with people on the verge of drinking age and whiel the DJ starts pumping the standard beats onto the dancefloor people get thirsty and my work begins.

people can see that my speed isn't up to what they normally expect and as sharks smelling blood in the water they try and see if they can get away with making my life difficult. What they don't know is the fact that I have bartending experience, it's just that I'm still getting used to the layout, the register and everything. I was deadly within 1m with the beerspatula, but to start things off all nice and easy I hold off on those urges and try to be nice (not that I kept that appearance up, but my transformation into the world's deadliest spatualwielder is a story for another time). All goes resonably well until my former colleague comes to my bar and starts chugging tequila like there is no tomorrow. Problem is that he can't really handle his alcohol all that well and soon his stomach's contents are spewn over the floor, against the bar and he makes his exit. He only mistakes the private bathroom for a good place to empty his stomach for a second time, makes a mess like you wouldn't believe and then vacates the building with the help of a friendly bouncer. The puke gets cleaned up and I never saw him again. He tried to get in a few times since, but instead found out that he had been blacklisted for this stuff. At the end of the night I got through it alive and got the worthy commendation of "Well, at least you didn't cry for your mom like the one before you...". I was angry at my predecessor who puked not once, but twice that night, but at the sound of that compliment I felt a lot better.

I see this subreddit is dead, but I figure Ill post this anyways since it fits here.

I was bar tending at a chain restaurant a few years ago and working in the service well. For those of you who don't know its where the wait staff gets their tables drinks. I made a strawberry daiquiri for a "guest" that had come back because it didn't taste like there was any alcohol in it. Kinda the point of the drink anyways. Well after remaking the stupid drink again the guest comes up to the bar complaining. I assured her that there was indeed a shot in it, but she just didn't believe me. The front bar tender came up to assist. Now he and I were pretty good friends and we always had fun on the job. He takes the drink and throws it into the sink and starts apologizing. He walks up to the front bar and makes her a virgin daiquiri. She takes a one sip and just praises and praises him for how good it is and how that how a daiquiri is supposed to taste.

She ended up buying three more of them just from him made the same way. Nothing like charging $6.95 for pureed ice and frozen strawberry mix.

A customer used to come in every monday, the "what are the specials tonight customer". He ALWAYS gave me a hard time about whatever the specials were because we got a new GM so she was changing things over and the specials changed quite often. To top it off he never tipped. Im talking took his quarters he got back and used them to pay for his next beer. He actually called corporate and filed a complaint. After that I basically ignored him serving as many people as I could before him from then on out.

Friend of mine met him at another bar and he says "Has he always been a obnoxious douche?"

Yes. Im a douche cause your beer cost 325 instead of 225 and when you dont tip you wonder why I dont give you good service. Sorry for being a "douche".... douche.

We need a subreddit logo, so there will be a competition. The winner will receive one month of Reddit Gold and everlasting glory via the mouseover text!

Please submit your applications here. The application with the most upvotes in one week's time will be the logo.

In celebration of this subreddit's forming, and to kick things off, I'm going to be holding a competition for the best story, and will be decided on 11/11/12 at 11AM EST. The story with the most upvotes will earn the submitter a month of Reddit Gold.

After the post in AskReddit, I created /r/talesfromthebarkeep

Share some stories, get a pint, and enjoy!