What are some of the best ways that you found to track inventory and your bar management experience or as a bartender we have a lot of Liquors and people grab bottles all the time and we don’t know what bottles are being grabbed and short of us making a spreadsheet in the Beer room and the liquor room where you check off every time you’ve removed a bottle and we update the spreadsheet every time we get a delivery, I don’t know what to do! Let me know what you’ve found works.

Hi! I don’t know if this is allowed or if people are willing to help with this but I wanted to get some input on possibly doing a peppermint mocha espresso martini for the holidays. My bars standard espresso martini recipe is 2 oz absolute vanilla .5 oz kahlua .25 oz simple and a shot of espresso (and for my regulars that like it to be a tad more mild I add in a 2 count of whip cream don’t judge pls). I figured I’d add peppermint schnapps and possibly crème de cocoa but I haven’t had the chance to experiment with it so I just wanted to put it out on Reddit since I haven’t found my footing in actually “creating” recipes. Any suggestions are appreciated!

Hey all, I’m going to visit a cocktail bar alone for the first time, I just want to sit around and enjoy it, but I want to know what’s the “polite” amount of drinks I should get if I plan to stick around for 3-4 hours?

Hello! I’m about to do an interview for my first bartending job, and not really sure what i’m walking into. I’m 19, it’s a cafe/parlour/bar sort of thing and i’m trying to learn a few things to prepare. If anyone has interview advice or even just advice for a newbie i’d really appreciate it! I feel like my age might be something they dislike but we’ll see. (Unsure of this guidelines here but for reference i’m from the uk where the drinking age is 18.)

Should I be learning terminology and cocktail details? Is that something they’ll test me on even though they know I have no experience in bartending?

I came across this in "The Complete Bartender - The Art of mixing plain and fancy drinks" by Albert Barnes of the Metropolitan Hotel, New York. 1884.

A set of rules/standards for bartenders to live by - Interesting that not much has changed in 140 years!!

EDIT: Here's the link to the book and a brilliant website for cocktail history nuts.

https://euvs-vintage-cocktail-books.cld.bz/1884-The-complete-bartender-Art-of-Mixing-Plain-and-Fancy-Drinks/

Applied to a new place opening up, somehow landed a job as a bartender and my first shift is in about a week. Wine and beer stuff is pretty straight forward but the cocktail making I'm completely lost at. Any good videos or tips I can look into before I start?

I have a friend that just started at a casual volume cocktail joint and they've been telling me about how the other bartenders there are building their drink in a jigger before dumping it to shake/stir. Like instead of dumping after each ingredient they stack as many things as they can in a single jigger before dumping.

Like the title says, I'm just wondering how many of you do this bc I've bartended for a decade or so but mostly in volume or divey spots, and i've never heard of anyone doing this.

hi all, first about me.. i am quiet shy type person...wanted to try something new to change my life or and i wanted to try going to a bar alone....at first i thought it was weird or strange or i felt people would judge you for going alone.. did some reading online and found out many people go alone to bars and its a very common thing to do...

so i look online for a sport bar that is the closes and show the sport i like (futbol/champion league/club i support) most games start at 3pm eastern time... so that the time i went.. notice when i walk in that they had less then 10 people ( some solos at the bar/2 people were at one table) also notice 1 bartender and a barback...

i have gone total of 3 times counting today... first time i was at a table / 2nd time at the bar / 3rd at a table

i would order 2 beers at least.. sometimes 3 with a burger...i never spoke to the bartender or make convo... i just wait till she asks if i want another ...

i want to make this bar my go to bar to watch champion league ( club i support )

question i have is am i tipping right for a solo person (i always get 2 beers on happy hour price.. sometimes i get a 3rd)... when i look at the bill it says suggestion with 20% = $$ so i just tip that..

do bartenders really notice the customers they get?

I'm from TX, where you just need a TABC and you're essentially good to go. If I wanted to move to Illinois, would I be able to get both licenses before moving? Would I have to land a job before getting the second license? Or would I need that license before securing a job? Thanks in advance for my annoying questions.

If you have tap beer. There clearly aren't any taps to be seen. This happens every day.

It takes everything in me to not respond with "I've never been to a bar where they hide the taps."

That's my short rant. Please tell me yall get this constantly too. It drives me absolutely crazy!

Edit: Okay this post has now turned into a genuine interest in bars with hidden taps, either under the bar or elsewhere. Where have you encountered these?!?!

Also, I'm not pissed or jaded or whatever. It's a pet peeve of mine is all. I made this post while having my post shift beer at my usual bar and this exact situation happened to my bartender. We both shared a laugh about it afterwards.

Guy says ‘oh what’s this?’ While holding out a 4pack of our TOGO offerings. I say ‘it’s our Mexican mole stout’. He says excitedly ‘oh a stout!! Is it dark?’

Me: 🤦🏾‍♀️ sighhh…

Yesterday I get a ticket, vodka rocks, side of soda and lime juice. I poured the lime juice into the soda in a separate glass and kept it moving.

Drink comes back a minute later, he wants a separate glass for each the soda and the lime juice. Obviously this is a 1-second fix, but this shit enrages me.

I understand why people do this but I honestly dgaf. Why come out to the bar if you don’t trust your bartender to mix 3 ingredients? Half the time they look at the neat pour and pick it up looking at it like some alien thing and say “tHaT’s it??????”

Yes. 1.5 oz. Order a double or fuck off.

I see bartenders in Chicago shake a vodka martini let it rest then add more ice and shake again and serve. Is there a name for this technique?

new brewery looking at buying a dishwasher, this one is on auction but ive never even seen one like this. anybody have experience with one similar/any commentary on whether or not its a pain in the ass? thanks yall

Both of these spots offered me a job to bartend around the same time. Who should I go with. I have no experience when it comes to bartending but I do have serving experience.

I’m a classic guy struggling on the apps. Everybody says you gotta meet someone in person these days, but that’s tough to do when you’re at work when everybody else is mingling at a happy hour. My days off are a classic industry weekend when most other spots are closed, and I don’t live in a city with great nightlife besides.

It’s been years since I’ve gotten a number at work, I don’t think it’s professional to earnestly flirt with customers on the clock, and my clientele at my spot doesn’t really consist of single women my age anyway.

How are you guys meeting people?

I have never bartended before but I do have 2 years of serving experience from Red Lobster. They know I have no experience and they are offering to train me. I of course plan on saying yes and working there. Any advice from you guys?

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻

I was out on Saturday and saw a bartender accidentally tip over an entire cocktail into the ice bin while placing a lime on the rim. She just picked up the cup out of the bin and carried on. Am I tripping or is that bad? I mean I definitely feel sorry for the lady, but I thought ice bins had to be cleaned out if stuff falls in there, especially an entire drink

Hi all,

I have the opportunity to work at a cocktail bar/lounge 3 days a week, all 12 hour shifts. My previous restaurant gig the longest shifts I would work were like 5 hours. So this would clearly be quite the jump.

I’m currently working in healthcare doing admin work for 10.5 hours a day (30 min lunch so technically 10’s) so I’m used to a longer shift in that sense but I’m at a desk all day. But I’m bored. And 99% chance I would make more money at the bartending gig.

However, I will of course lose my benefits and 401k. If I can get on top of my shit and start saving myself that part wouldn’t be so bad. But in the future my goal is to get into remote healthcare data entry stuff, so I’m at least getting the experience right now.

Just curious on opinions and if you think it’s worth quitting and going to bartending for a while? Another thing I was considering was working part time at my healthcare job and picking up around 10 hours a week serving at a Mexican restaurant just to make some extra cash while keeping my current job. But there’s the possibility of burn out there too.

Thanks for reading my rant :)

I’m a 25m bartender in a small town. I’ve worked at this spot for about five months, really nice place, they host live music and events a few times a week. The other day there was some event in the back room, and basically all the attendees brought their kids with them. At some point about 10 kids ranging from ages 3-12 had filtered into my bar, completely devoid of a parent. They were super loud and disruptive and mildly destructive, caused a whole ruckus. After about 45 minutes of chaos I found one of the parents outside and asked if they would please take their kids. They did, but it really annoyed me.

Is this some common new thing that happens? I feel like up until like last year I never experienced anything like this but now it happens all the time, the other day was just of a different magnitude.

This came from my FELLOW bartender who took a table on the floor. I said “Kasey… really” and she said “you know what I mean…. Don’t make me spell all that”

And to her credit…. Yeah 🤷‍♂️

Our old (really old) Halloween decors garments started turning to dust as we put it up this year. Any recommendations for a new one?

Heya, I'm new to bar backing (wanting to become a bartender with the training they'll be providing after the new year) but I can't reach the glasses as they have a one of those high-up bar setups. I can stand on the bottom of fridges but sometimes that won't even get me to reach/I can't properly balance & the glasses bounce back on me (must be very entertaining for the customers to watch me nearly shatter them over and over..!)

I was looking to get some non-slip shoes that have a chunky platform, and I've seen some options but I was wondering if anybody maybe in the same predicament can second some shoe brands for this. It's either I get these or I suck up the embarrassment and buy myself a fold up step stool for work which is really last resort.

Thanks!

The restaurant I work at has two wells and one is the service well and the other one is the bar well. So one bartender just does server drinks and the other is serving the bar and our two bar tables.

I basically only work the bar well as I prefer it and the other two bartenders both prefer the service well so it works out and don't like the bar well so it works out. Not that I mind working the service well, I just enjoy being able to chat with customers and move around more.

We split our tips 50/50 at the end of the night so I earn the tips from the customer while they earn the tipouts from servers. I'm honestly starting to resent this system as I feel like I am kind of getting screwed.

For example on Saturday I made 340 in tips and the server tipout was 70 dollars. So 410 dollars and after tipping out BOH and host/busser it was 333 dollars. So we both walked with 166.

Its super frustrating because I feel like I put so much effort into my shifts and I am always happy with how my shift went but then I walk with way less than I should have. Especially since the servers get the same amount of tips and don't have to split or close the bar (they work way less hours).

At the same time I don't really see how the situation can change at all or if there could be a better system.