Benefits to bartending in a nightclub

April 19, 2:29 AMBartender ExaminerKathleen Neves

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I worked in a nightclub for three years while I was in college and I loved every single minute of it. Why go out on a Saturday night and blow all my money on alcohol when I could make a wad of cash working on the other side of the bar? It made perfect sense to me. Nowadays, I prefer the comforts of bartending in an intimate restaurant, but there are certainly a lot of benefits to working in a nightclub.

Most nightclubs here in the city are only open Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, which leaves nightclub bartenders with an open schedule during the week. For a college student like me, bartending in a nightclub gave me the schedule flexibility to maintain my full-time course load during the week while making enough money on the weekends to pay the rent. Needless to say, you will be going to work on the nights when everyone else is going out. To me, not having weekends off was a small price to pay for my college education.

A typical bartending shift at a nightclub isn’t all that long either. Nightclubs open for business around nine or ten o’clock at night. Some clubs will close at two in the morning as soon as they stop serving alcohol. A “late night spot” won’t serve alcohol past two, but will keep their doors open until four in the morning, serving only water and Red Bull. Either way, nightclub bartenders rarely work longer than a six-hour shift.

Here in the state of California, it is illegal to serve alcohol past two in the morning. Bartenders only have a limited amount of time to make their money, serving drinks. Every bartender knows that the more they sell, the more they make. Nightclub bartenders essentially become cocktail factories. There is rarely any time to conversate and schmooze the bar customers. Bartenders have just enough time to take someone’s drink order and their cash before having to move on to the next customer.

If you are a bartender who doesn’t mind working late night hours every weekend, isn’t looking for a whole lot of personal interaction with the customers, can multitask and work well under pressure, then consider bartending in a nightclub. You’ll be a nice fit.

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