The Customer is Always Right... until they're not (pt 2)

In my previous post I said that the customer is not always right when it comes to their relationship with alcohol. Sometimes we as bartenders have to put their best interests in front of their actual desires, especially when it comes to their safety and the safety of those around them. After reading it (if you haven’t, seriously go back and read it) you might be thinking, “Alright Dave, I will give you that point, the customer is always right, with the exception of when they need the bartender to act as their better judgement in terms of drinking too much. But outside of that one instance the customer is always right.” And I’d have to say I agree with you. The customer is always right…

…except, again, when they’re not. The customer is always right when it comes to the manner in which they want their restaurant experience to be exactly that a restaurant experience. They control the way in which their food and beverages are prepared, the timing by which they would like to order, the section in which they would prefer to sit, and many other aspects of their visit. They should never be shamed for ordering a muddled old fashioned, a steak extra-well done, a non-alcoholic drink while sitting at the bar, or any other service industry faux-pas. People are allowed to like what they like.

Customers also shouldn’t be made to feel bad for sitting at a table for longer than expected, or for tipping under twenty percent. These things are just part of the grind. Someone may tip us poorly or take up our section for too long, and that might make a normally profitable day less profitable, but there will be other days. Getting hung up on these things is a rookie mistake. As far as money is concerned, you have to look at your overall average not your day to day. Feeling anything more than a mild disappointment at a bad day will drive you crazy if you can’t find a way to let it roll off your back.

Where the guests preferences stop being meaningful is when their wants conflict with the culture of the bar more generally. Any bar or restaurant has a certain kind of broad identity, maybe it’s a sports bar, maybe its a fine-dining Italian restaurant, maybe it’s a pub that specializes in whiskey and dessert. Most times the broad identity of the bar is apparent in the name, the menu, and the décor, and most customers will be coming in and getting what they expect. There is a more narrow aspect of a bar’s identity, however, the unofficial rules of place, made up by the people who work there. It is in this space that the customer will sometimes further try to extend their personal preferences, and it is important that we as bartenders establish some boundaries.

To understand why these boundaries are important lets start with something small. When it comes to the ambiance of the the bar, the lighting or the music for instance, the personal preferences of the customer have no real bearing on the matter. If a customer asks me to change the music I will more than likely refuse even if I have it in my power to, and even if they suggest something I would like to hear.

If need be I’ll give an excuse like the music is chosen by my managers, or its preset company playlist. The reason for this is simple, if you take one request, you have to take them all. (See Figure 1) Setting the precedent that you will change the music allows for the customer to begin to have control of portions of the restaurant that they should’t have. And I can tell you from personal experience its these same customers that want other extras, the kind that start costing you money. Having small things like the radio or television be in the hands of the bartenders (or The House more generally) paves the way for more important rules.

Restaurants and bars have always been shared public spaces. That is why the term ‘bar' is often synonymous with words like inn, tavern, public house… etc. People from all walks of life will come into a bar and the mingling of all those people is something that the bartender has to keep in mind. The bartender has to enforce a narrow identity of the space that makes everyone feel comfortable and safe. And sometimes that tone, that identity, will clash with some of the customer’s wants. 

In just the same way that the bartender has a moral responsibility to the customer to be their better judgment in terms of alcohol consumption, the bartender also has a moral responsibility to monitor customer interactions with each other and the space more broadly. As people drink they get a little loose. They may get louder, more volatile, more forward or touchy feely and we, as the people facilitating these changes, owe them, and more importantly the people around them, our efforts keeping everyones behavior comfortable.

The way we can do this is to have some rules in place that we can fall back on in the event of an uncomfortable interaction. One rule I have for any bar I work for is no one can buy a person (they did not walk in with) a drink without going through a few extra steps. Buying people drinks can be a random act of exuberance or camaraderie, but more often than not it is a way to force an interaction with someone who otherwise would not have wanted to have it. In this case it’s a predatory action wrapped up to look like kindness. I cannot tell you how many times a guy has come up to the bar and said, “I’ll take a beer, and… (scans the room for an attractive woman) and I want to buy whatever that girl is having.”

I can tell you, without any uncertainty, that these two are not waiting for you to buy them a drink.

During my years as a bartender I have come up with a few rules to navigate this situation. If someone would like to buy a stranger a drink they must first introduce themselves, ask the stranger if it would be okay to buy them a drink, ask if it would be okay if they kept the stranger company for the duration of the drink, and let the stranger know that they will be perfectly happy to leave the table should that person change their mind about the interaction half-way through. This is usually a thorough enough proviso to discourage the behavior, but if they go through with it, at least it shows some amount of good faith.

I’m sure that to some of you this sounds like overkill. I am also sure that this rule is not always necessary. There is every potentiality that someone might like a stranger to buy them a drink and strike up conversation. The fact of the matter is this rule makes people rethink imposing on others, and it also informs my patrons, whether they have the purest intentions or not, that the bartender is actively invested in the safety and interactions of their guests. Personally, I’d rather be know as a little overzealous in protecting my customers than not thorough enough. My bar space should be known as a place where people feel safe.

When you are behind the bar you have a real say in how the restaurant is run, this narrow identity of the bar. You have a certain amount of authority in setting the vibe of a place, and you owe it to your customers and to yourself to take that responsibility seriously. I’m not here to tell you how to run your bar, thats for you to figure out. All bars are different. For you it may not be a big deal changing the radio station and it may not be necessary to be as strict when it comes to people buying drinks. What is important is that you engage with the situations as they arrive, and when you do I have often found it is useful to have some guidelines already in place. So I suggest thinking up a few. That way when something comes up, you’ll know whether or not the customer is, in fact, always right.

The Customer is Always Right... until they're not

The customer is always… go ahead, I know you know the rest. Go ahead and fill it in. The customer is always right. The truth is that phrase is not just a reasonable sounding bit of folk wisdom, in fact most companies I have worked for have that exact rule, or a similarly worded one in the employee handbook. There is always something in the book about “the guest experience being the most important part,” or “the guest being in charge of the experience,” of the restaurant. And for the most part I agree. When the customers dine with us they should feel comfortable, at home, and very much taken care of. After all, we are the service industry. We are, very much, at their service. In short the customer is always right…

…right up until the point that they’re not. The customer is always right within reason. There are a few instances when the customers’ wishes should not just be left unfulfilled but should be completely contradicted. I wanted to pen a little something here because navigating where and when you should ignore or contradict the customer is a hard thing to judge. This is especially true for new bartenders. When I was first starting out I would constantly be worried about whether or not my decisions would make the customers, or even worse, one of my various bosses angry. One instance where you might need to act contrary to the customer’s wishes is when dealing with alcohol.

When it comes to the frequency of ordering alcohol and the quantity expected to be imbibed I’ve found people’s decision making processes to be suspect, even before they start drinking. In my years behind the bar I’ve had to, on occasion, cut people off. And I can tell you from experience it is never not weird. One reason for this is that you are dealing with an intoxicated person, but I would assume another more pervasive reason is that we have been taught to bend over backward for the customer, regardless of how nonsensical their requests. So its a jarring and somewhat contradictory experience to suddenly give the customer a hard no.

I think its important to note that I am not trying to give you strategies on how to prevent over-serving. I won’t be outlining the signs of drunkeness, nor giving you a calculus of how much a person can drink in relation to their body mass index. There are plenty of resources out there designed to give you that precise information. And many of you, I’m sure, have already taken classes or attended training on how to safely serve alcohol. Those types of classes always felt only marginally useful to me. They tell you when to cut someone off, but they don’t tell you what that really entails. They don't mention that when you cut someone off they might swing on you, or call you all manner of foul names, or threaten your life. So instead I want to chat a bit about what that side of the business looks like.

Aside from the big stuff like slurred speech, or loss of motor skills, figuring out where the line is can be a difficult. What constitutes drunken behavior is culturally contingent. What gets someone cutoff in Detroit is vastly different from what gets someone cutoff in New Orleans. And depending on where you work the rules can vary a bit. And let me say up front most times when you cut a person off they will comply quietly, even sheepishly. Sometimes, however, they’ll get angry and/or combative and may even try to bargain with you. It is important to hold your ground in these moments, especially if you are the only person on the floor. If the customers think they can push you around, they will. (This is where the threats and shouting come in.) To be a good bartender you have to find that balance between being firm and emotionally detached. It won’t do you any good to get worked up. It’ll only result in goading them on, and raising your own blood pressure.

Exactly why people have such a push back against being cut off is something I am still trying to figure out. I imagine it has something to do with our cultural relationship to alcohol. On a fundamental level we believe alcohol is inherently valuable. One look at a cocktail menu will tell you that. A drink generally costs more per ounce if it has a higher percentage of alcohol than a lower one. But it is not just monetary value that we are talking about. Generally it’s considered better to have a high tolerance than a low one. We poke fun of people who “can’t hold liquor,” or we feel the need to comment on someone being a “cheap date,” when they don’t drink.

Alcohol is used to demarcate both celebration and mourning, to toast our successes, and drown our failures, to christen new endeavors and to pour one out for the homies. Think of how many people use it every week for religious purposes. Alcohol may be considered a vice, but these examples prove that it is also important. Given that importance and pervasive quality we give alcohol, I suppose it makes sense that when people are cut off they would have a certain amount of push back, but I imagine the more severe behavior, the threats and the insults, are due to something we as bartenders should always keep in mind. Alcohol is an addictive substance.

We as alcohol purveyors are in a unique and somewhat contradictory position. Alcohol is an addictive substance that can alter moods, lower inhibitions and if overindulged in can be very destructive. Bartenders are in the business of making people unable to operate heavy machinery, give consent, or in some cases walk a straight line. We are in the business of making people, in a word, vulnerable and as such we owe those people our vigilance in making sure they are safe, and are not making bad decisions.

The House (the organization you work for) and the culture more generally, will give you this contradictory role most likely without ever acknowledging the contradiction. They tell you the customer is always right, that we should bend over backward to satisfy them but also that we should never over-serve them. They will pressure you to up-sell but also pressure you to never put more than one drink down in front of someone, or not to serve them more than one an hour. Side note: This is cuckoo-bananas. If I had to sit in a restaurant for an hour to get a second drink, I would walk out.

We are supposed to give out a substance that makes people unable to drive, but send them home when they get too drunk. In many states we are the ones liable if those people go out and get in a car accident. As bartenders we are like the ring master of a drunk circus, and we need to make sure that we are always striving to keep things running smoothly. Do our job too well and people get out of control. Don’t do it well enough and The House will be mad at you for not making the sale, and alienating the customers. 

To be a good bartender, you will have to be one-part salesman, and one-part caretaker. And threading that needle means you have to be alert, gauging your customer’s condition, and second guessing whether what the customer wants is actually what is best for them and the bar more generally. In other words, in relation to serving alcohol, it is not the customer who is right, nor The House with its split agenda of pleasing the customer, making the sale, and not over-serving. Rather I would argue that when it comes to serving alcohol, it is the bartender who is always right, because it is we who are legally, and more importantly morally, responsible for the results of that alcohol.