My daily job is to smile at strangers, hence the title of this blog i stand and serve the general public all day 5-6 days a week. It has taught me an awful lot.
The saying 'the customer is always right' is definitely not true i'd say about 70% of the time its just not. A lot of people eat out and can chose to complain about the stupidest of stuff, now unless your a chef about 80% of the time a harsh complaint isnt true and is just your general taste, theres no need to get angry, the chef can change it but dont piss them off by telling them they have done it wrong considering they are trained at this!!
For now im going to give a few major rules i believe people should live by when at a bar and talking to the bar person!
1. Do not approach a bar if you do not know what you or the 6 other members of your party know what they want to drink. Most of us hate standing waiting for you to pick, especially if its busy. Know what you want before coming to us. And fyi its a bar we have alcoholic drinks and soft drinks and pretty much every type of juice you can imagine please dont ask us to list them, they are all on view just use your eyes.
2. Sticking to that theme if you cant see a brand of beer you wish on any of the taps on the bar chances are we dont have it. We dont keep hidden taps just for luck of people asking if you have 'carling' when we have rival brands of fosters and becks vier on tap in full view. What you see is what you get...
3. When ordering food at a bar or drinks please just put it all together and pay on one card or pool cash. Its boring and long winded for the bar person. Chances are your food wont be delivered to the table at the same time either. You can easily head to a cash machine and sort that out later.
4. Rules are rules. No we do not serve food on the grass, do i really have to explain this rule to you, im sorry some establishments like to keep somethings just a bit simpler. Its health and safety, just find another table that we do serve food to. Arguing with your server wont get you anywhere. Remember its just their job to pass along the words of the rule. They have not themselves implented it or made it up on the spot for fun. Having a go at them wont change neither will the persons age of wanting for whether your 2 or 80 the rule still applies.
5. DO NOT STATE THE OBVIOUS, we arent stupid. When a bar is situated in a glass conservatory and its hot outside, YES the chances of it being hot in there are very high, NO we do not need it stated to us by every customer we serve that day. Im fairly certain you can see the sweat that is dripping from my face and probably into your pint. We also dont need to be told its busy! Having served all the humans, well yes we know.
These are just general annoyances that i have had recently and are probably not felt by all bar staff although im fairly certain that most in this industry would agree! Next up for waiters/waitresses the dos and donts for future customers.
Kelsie
Twitter- @_kelsiebee
