Bartenders Can’t Take The Heat
An interesting article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Wine section yesterday entitled “Five drinks that bartenders just hate to make”. The writer, Bianca Antonacci (most likely a bartender), invites us to stay away from drinks like the Lemon Drop, Cosmopolitan, Mojito, and the Manhattan on busy nights, because these drinks ‘use a lot of ingredients’ and are ‘time consuming’ to make. Note to bartenders - get over it. This was probably one of the biggest wastes of space I have seen in the wine section. To honestly insinuate that a paying customer should limit their drink selection because the bartender is to busy is absurd! That’s akin to me telling my customers; ‘if you want to get in touch with me during peak hours, don’t call me, I’m to busy for you, just drop me a letter in the mail or email me, that would be great’.
If you can’t handle the pressure during the busy hours of the day, maybe you need a larger staff, or maybe you should choose another profession. Although the article did include some tips on how to be a courteous patron, the main article is completely one-sided, hammering the same silly idea. Well Bianca, that’s life, we all have parts of our job that we don’t particularly like, but we do them because that’s what we’re getting paid for.
Now where’s my Cosmo?
April 7th, 2006 at 12:07 pm
it is amazing. i will order 10 mojito’s next time. what drinks do we have permission to order? did the article also say that we should give the bartender a healthy tip for simply grabbing that beer for you?
April 7th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
You can order anything but those mentioned…. and Martini’s….. and any off the wall drink they’ve never heard of..
And according to the 10 things listed you should do, #2 addresses tipping:
2. Always tip at least $1 per drink. If you tip really well you may find yourself receiving some free drinks. Tip for those, too.
April 8th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Whoa, Whoa, Whoa…..
As a bartender/bar owner and proud member of the Bartender’s Guild, the author and her sources are way off base. A collegue of mine tipped me off to this silly article which the editors should have killed. I mean is this the same paper that gave us three full pages on the craft of local bartenders a couple of weeks ago? I would be embarassed to say to a writer that I hate to make this drink or that. The only drinks true bartenders hate to make are those that lack character and are likely to make someone sick. Such as “The Incredible Hulk” - Hypnotic Liquore and Red Bull.
April 8th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
If it’s too busy, get another gig. Making complicated drinks is part of the job. Get over it.
I couldn’t so that was one of the reasons I got out.