Every one of us have had that horrible shift behind the bar. You’re tired, fed up, the customers are never ending and every single one of them is the worst person in the world and every other member of staff seems to have disappeared from existence. I genuinely believe serving staff have access to another dimension, Twin-Peaks style, that they can slip into the second you’ve got four dockets on and the bar’s filling up and ONLY REAPPEAR WHEN YOU’VE DONE LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE YOURSELF (It is possible I have some residual anger about this exact situation last night, apologies).
Here, we’re going to talk about the Golden Rule, and briefly touch on the best way to prevent things getting to this point. Over the coming months, I’m hoping to create a lot more content in this field. As I’m prone to saying, we’re all in this together, so if anything helps you or might help someone else, pass it on- that’s the best thing we can do for each other.
I'm going to deal with worst case scenario first- a full bar with no help, I’d like to think there's a bartender somewhere that hasn’t had to deal with this problem at some point in their career, but I’m obviously lying to myself. We’ll all have that shift, which is a helpful thing to remember too- we’ve all dealt with this before, and we’re all still here. This rule is your break-glass-in-case of-emergency rule, but it's a good rule for day to day service, and it honestly has changed the way I look at bartending. We’re serving food and drink, nothing we do (unless there’s something very wrong happening) is life and death.
The Golden Rule
Say this out loud-
I’M IN CHARGE, I’VE GOT THIS
Every single customer in your bar wants a drink now, and you’re the only one serving- that’s a lot of pressure, and can be really daunting and overwhelming.
But.
Read that again.
Every single customer in your bar wants a drink now, and you’re the only one serving. You. You’re the one they all want something from. Without you, they're just a bunch of people getting annoyed at an empty bar. You have all the power, all the control and all the time you need to get this done, and done right. Try and keep this in your head- no matter how snappy or impatient your customers can be, you have the deciding power in who gets served when. There’s no rush, only the one you put on yourself. That's not to say feel free to drag it out, but don't be hard on yourself if it all seems to be taking too long. If you run out of stuff, so be it, you run out- deal with that later.
When the bar’s three deep is not the time to go grab some more peroni or change a keg- triage that stuff.
If a customer is giving off, politely point out you’re on your own and you’ll get to them when you can (don't apologise, it's not your fault everyone decides they want a drink at once), and if they still give off, to the back of the queue they go. Don't take crap for problems that aren't your fault.
Once/if the cavalry appear - they always do, eventually- get them on the bits you need done so you can keep serving, glassware, ice, stock, fruit, whatever. Then, once everything is back on an even keel, go out the back and scream into the ice machine for a minute.
Kidding, obviously.
Mostly 🙄
Just give yourself a moment, get some fresh air, a smoke, whatever, just a wee two minutes of peace (a little bit of controlled breathing goes a long way) to reward yourself for getting through it.
Well done, you survived it. Now go get back to it, those tips aren't gonna earn themselves.
Prevention is all about my favourite word - PREP. I BLOODY LOVE PREP. There’s a whole article about it here.
Long story short, think about what you can have done in advance to brace for a bad night- overstock the night before, get the morning team to cut a ton of fruit and fill your ice wells early to give your machine a chance to refill. The more of this stuff you have done in advance, the easier it is to deal with the other curveballs your night will throw at you.
Just for luck, say it once more.
I’m in charge, I’ve got this.
-you totally do.
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