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Bar staff
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Work & Study
I've just started a new job on a bar of a fairly large country pub. I have told them several times that I only have a little bar experience from my old job, but they still seem to be under the impression that they can throw me in at the deep end :nervous: I went in for a couple of hours today just to be shown the bar, but I start my first proper shift tomorrow! So I guess I need some advice. My main source of bar knowledge is coming from going out drinking myself! I only really know the obvious drinks! I have no idea how to do a port and lemon, lager top or anything more complicated than a vodka and coke Anyone have bar tending knowledge that they want to share?
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I've trained up loads of bar staff and the best way is to get them on the bar and just show them as they go along, otherwise you'll never remember it all
whatever you do..DON'T PANIC! :eek: when it gets busy dont get yourself in a huff so relax, otherwise you make more mistakes. if someones being a nobhead to you :mad: , dont serve them. make them wait . as for the drinks you'll learn as you go along, but stuff like lager top is easy..leave a couple of centimetres at the top and pop some lemonade in. finally..dont be afraid to ask the customer what something is if you dont know, explain that your new and your fine
btw..atleast you had some experience, i was chucked in at the deepend with no experience at all!!
Hope thats helped
Port and lemon - never served this but I'm assuming its port and lemonade? Port is served in double measures, as is baileys and something else which I can't remember. Ask which ones are double measured
If you get it wrong and anyone complains just apologise and tell them its your first shift. They're normally nice then and will try and help but if they're not then don't be afraid to tell your supervisor/manager/other bar staff because you're not being paid to take abuse from people.
:yes: If its busy you will NEED to come up with some kind of way to remember who is next otherwise people will get pissed off and its very infuriating for the customer. When you're serving drinks keep glancing back to the bar to check if anyone new has arrived. If you have a round of 5 or 6 drinks then by the time you're poured these and rang them through the till loads more people will have come to the bar and you won't have a clue who's next. Remembering what people are wearing/hairstyles etc are good for making a mental note who's next. Don't be afraid of serving one person and telling another they will be next, or giving a little nod to show that you have noticed them
I don't recall serving this when I was bar staff, but just be warned it might be port and BITTER LEMON which is usually the one in the little glass bottles (like tonic water, tomato juice etc). Best to check
I used to work in a very traditional old restaurant with a bar like a country pub so I'm working from that....
Bitter - spout touching the bottom of the glass, long hard quick-ish pull should fill the glass half full; slower one to top it up. If you've got a bitter plus other drinks to do, do the bitter first and leave it on the bar to settle while you do the others.
Bitter shandy - I was taught to put half a pint of lemonade in the glass, stir it round with a swizzle stick thingy then while it was still spinning (think water going down the plug hole) put the glass under and up the spout, spout touching the bottom of the glass and top up the glass with bitter VERY slowly.
Guiness - don't know if all the taps are the same, but we could just flick the tap and leave it running to 3/4 full, then switch it off, do something else then go back to it to top up. No tilting of glass required.
White wine spritzer - check first if the customer wants it with soda water or lemonade.
V&T, G&T, B&C, if your tonic and Coke are sold in little glass bottles - check if they want ice. Ice in, spirit over it, you take the top off the bottle, put in a dash and put the bottle next to the glass on the bar. Then they can add as much or as little of the mixer as they want.
Don't be afraid to write the order down if it helps, and see if you can maybe tell them to find a table and you'll bring the drinks over if you don't want them watching you (check if your bosses allow that; some do, some don't).
Will come back with more later if I remember them.
That was very helpful thankyou! Are there anymore I should know? I think I knew most of those already but it's good to have them confirmed. Because it's an old place, they also serve old ales brewed themselves, is there any special way of pulling them, or just keep the glass tilted as you would for lager? Also, with bitter, do you mean the spout all the way inside the glass? And should it be pulled out when I push the handle back up? And guiness and black, is that just the same as lager and lime, but with blackcurrant obviously? . . . :chin: think that's all my questions at the moment...
Main thing I go by....the custemor is NEVER right. If they complain about something trivial, ignore them. Serve someone else.
Be prepared to get called 'luv' and 'darling' alot.
For the bitter and ale, put the glass under the spout and lift it back up until the spout clinks on the bottom of the glass and hold it there as you pull it. No need to move the glass between pulls; just take the second one slower than the first.
Not sure about the Guiness and black - don't think I've ever done one, but I would assume the same as you, that it's blackcurrant cordial.
Yes, half pint tall glass. There are sometimes promo glasses to be used which will say the brand on them. Like we had Gordons glasses for Gordons gin and Bombay Sapphire glasses for BS gin - never serve one in the others type of glass! Sometimes you get women wanting half a pint of bitter. We had fancier glasses which were equivalent to half a pint, but didn't look like a mini-pint glass (you know with the bump near the top). Have a look around the bar and see what glasses they've got
The owner of where I worked was a whisky genius and had over 40 brands of whisky on the shelf - some of which I couldn't even pronounce! We had Grants and Bells on the rack with the spirit measure attached, and anything else was measured out by hand. The boss knew all the regulars and they'd make a point of "after dinner drinks" where they would drink their way through the specials at about £5 a shot!
I would do the lemonade/Coke mixer topup in front of the customer and literally ask them "How much?" and they'll tell you when to stop.
Ew don't do that with larger or the pint will be flat
They will tell you which glass to use. All pubs are different and some are very particular
i've got told on a few occasions that its the best shandy theyv ever tasted!! haha. each to their own
Unless the lager is flat to begin with, flat lemonade shouldnt be a problem.
As for working on a bar, best to get chucked in the deepend!
As for spirits, just learn them (and smell them, so when someone asks about them, you know what flavour they are). The most important thing is the learn what is what. I can't tell you the number of people who don't know that Bacardi is rum, for example. Generally a small pub will only have two options. But as a general rule, if a customer is ordering a spirit with tonic or on its own, then you can offer them the more expensive stuff. If it's with coke, just offer them Smirnoff or house. Remember you've got white and dark rum too, so if someone asks for a rum and coke, find out what sort they want.
The other thing to figure out quickly is your white wines. Dry, medium and sweet. Find out what your pub sells as each straight away. Some pubs don't do sweet white wine any more though, because it's almost exclusively shit.
Every Carling I pulled came out with zero head, even without tilting it. How much head should there on Carling anyway? And I was serving a group of farmer types, one of which kept whinging he would refuse to drink his pint because it was 'flat'. I'm guessing that means no head? Also had trouble with the head on my ales, there was hardly any. Every shandy I did however had a couple of inches of head! Which I had to keep tipping off and half of which ended up on the floor. I definitly messed up the till, but hopefully they won't notice :nervous: it was more of a case of not knowing where a certain button was, so charging them the button I could find. A guy on the other side of the bar, who I'd never met before but apparantly works there, had to come around a change a barrel for me evern though had already been shown, and he had to pull a pint of ale for after 2 attempts and no head. So went pretty red faced, especially as the bar was pretty full and everyone was watching the comotion.
All in all, not a successfull shift
Quick tips for next time. With the lager that's getting no head or is flat (flat means there's no bubbles, not no head, though the two often go hand in hand), swill it around the glass quickly as you're pouring it. Or you can hold the glass further down so that the lager has to fall further from the tap before it lands in the glass.
Also, don't try and tip the head off've a glass when you've got too much. All it does is pour the drink out, and the head stays on top. Just hold the glass straight and continue filling the glass until the head pours over the side (if it's particularly gassy, it might take a while, but I guarantee you end up with less waste this way). Either that or just wait for it to go down and top it up.
Never done ale myself, so I can't help you there though.
I've been doing this for 3 years (not full time, but enough so that I should know what I'm doing), and I've had all of the same problems that you've mentioned tonight. I had to get someone to show me how to change the barrel tonight. What? I only work on a bar a couple of times a month, so I forget. I also didn't hold the cocktail shaker tightly enough and covered myself in sex on the beach.
Everyone has these problems for their first few bar shifts, so don't worry about it. Some of us have these problems long after that.
you were on your own for your first shift? thats pretty bad
sounds like you did ok! to get more head on larger pull down the glass, or jiggle it around (even though people say you're not meant to do it then it saves people from complaining about flat pints)
Couldn't agree more. I was better at waitressing than bar work so when I finished full time and just went back to work on the weekends or every other weekend I concentrated mostly on the waitressing and hated being put back on the bar!
Like everyone has said, swill the lager round in the bottom of the glass or hold the glass about six inches below the spout so the liquid has futher to fall and gets more air into it. I don't drink lager - maybe lager drinkers have a different opinion! - but I think it's about 2cm of head.
Bitter, I think it's the first quick pull that makes the head so try to do it a bit quicker and see if that helps.
Do you drink in the pub too? It might be an idea to go in and loiter at the bar if the other staff are friendly enough to let you watch them at work. You'll be more relaxed and then you might pick up a few more tips
When is your next shift?
At the pub I used to work at, when they said 'and one for yourself' we usually just took 50p or so out of their change as that is much cheaper than asking them to buy a J2O or an alcoholic drink that you could have at the end of your shift, some did insist on buying us an actual drink though. Seeing as your boss doesn't allow this, then it should be fine for you to say 'thanks very much, do you mind if I have a Coke?' or whatever, as long as you feel comfortable saying this to your customer.
Also, we could always print off the receipts for drinks customers had bought us, have them signed by the superviser and then use them to get a drink on another day. Not sure if other places allow staff to do this.
Firstly I'm still pouring flat lagers, I do everything in theory, make sure the glass is cold, slosh it around a bit and do it from a bit of a height. But still some of the guy customers are complaining Just to check, when they complain it's flat, that is my fault isn't it, not the tap or something like that? Never heard them have problems with anyone else. What's going wrong? I get this on a few of the pumps too, but I guess I just need to pump a bit harder. It's so much easier getting rid of head than creating it!