Don't blame the bartender

May 19, 3:51 PMBartender ExaminerKathleen Neves

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Have you ever walked into a bar and gotten upset with the bartender because you thought ten dollars for your Long Island was too expensive or you didn’t understand why there was a two dollar upcharge on Red Bull drinks? Or what about the time you went into a bar, ordered a shot of Patron and the bar didn’t have it? When the bartender offered you Don Julio instead, you had a fit and whined. Or my favorite is at 1:45 AM in a busy, huge nightclub here in California, security personnel makes their rounds around the club collecting glassware because of the statewide law that says that there can’t be any alcoholic beverages served or out on the floor past 2 AM. Every now and then someone gets lippy (and sometimes violent) because they take it personal and can’t understand why they’re having their drink taken away.

Drink prices, inventory and bar policies established by bar management and the ABC are things that are out of the bartenders control. Yet customers always seem to take out their frustrations against bartenders when it comes to any one of these things.

Maybe the general population doesn’t understand so please allow me to make this clear: Bartenders don’t determine the bar’s drink prices. Bartenders generally aren’t responsible for ordering the bar’s inventory. As far as the rules and regulations go when it comes to selling and serving alcohol, that is in the hands of California’s Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) and certainly not up to individual bartenders.

Now I can understand a customer’s frustrations if they are dealing with a bartender who has a bad attitude or is ignoring the customers at the bar. A bartender is the life of that party at that bar. It’s the bartender’s responsibility to make sure that everyone is having a good time and taking care of all of the customers drink requests in a prompt manner. When it comes to things that are out of the bartender’s control such as drink prices, products in or out of stock and various bar and ABC policies, it’s just not fair to get upset and blame the bartender.

So why do bartenders get blamed for these things? My guess is that drunk people aren’t always going to be the most rational people. Therefore, when a drunk customer wants something that they can’t have, they take it personal and out on the only person there, the bartender. The drunk customer never takes into consideration that there may be a valid reason why they can’t get what they are asking for. For Example: I know that you really like Bud Light, but it doesn’t matter how many times you ask for it. If I don’t have it, I don’t have it. Asking for it a million times is not going to make it magically appear.

The next time you and your friends are out for a night on the town, and someone in the group can’t have something that they want and they start to get upset about it, instead of blaming the bartender, put yourself in the bartenders shoes. A bartender doesn’t like to tell their customers no so if they have to, it’s probably for a good reason.