A year ago, I began an adventure, a crusade really, to find out exactly how bad bartender thievery had become. Even those of you not in the industry are aware on some level how it works, if for no other reason than from watching old westerns and hearing the grey-toothed barkeep bellow out, "Drinks on the house." Certainly you have experienced a bartender who has poured heavy for you or even not charge you for a drink. The problem is, nobody ever stops to think about who the "house" is.
Just so we're all on the same page, the bartender is not the house. He's not paying the vendors for the bottles that arrive every week. Could you ever imagine walking into Macy's and having the clerk yell out, "Shoes and ties on the house!" It's the most bizarre industry ever. And the majority of managers do not have an inventory management system in place to monitor it. It's madness, I tell you.
When I started this cloak and dagger operation, I felt like a Mafia goon who had painted himself into a corner and had no choice but to cooperate with the FBI and wear a wire to rat out all of his buddies. After all, these are my people, my homies, my brothers and sisters. Exposing them felt so....Dirty!
But I couldn't cover for them forever. Conformity is contagious and bartender theft is a black disease that dominates the industry, a plague of Bubonic proportions. So on September 13, 2014, I set out on my own like that guy from Into the Wild, to discover how bad it really was out there.
Like a true stat nerd, I brought a notebook (one of those dalmatian-looking Composition books I found in my daughter's bedroom) so I could record my findings. In the beginning, I imagined that 10 bars was a sufficient number to conduct my experiment. I figured that would allow me access to about 20 bartenders which would be good enough to make a solid conclusion. The problem was, after the first 20 bartenders, I hadn't found an honest one yet, and at that point I was determined to scour the bar landscape until I found one. And don't you fret, pessimists, I eventually found one. His name is #33. Ugh! That's how many bartenders I had to go through to finally find someone who followed the house rules. Apparently, finding an honest bartender is like trying to find a gas station while driving across Utah.
You'd think that would be the end of my search, but I couldn't stop. I was obsessed, like that crazy guy in movies who can't stop following his conspiracy theory despite everyone else telling him he's insane. I visited bar after bar and ordered drink after drink so that I could acquire the evidence needed to discover how bad it was. And get drunk in the process. Because I'm a good researcher.
THE STRATEGY:Remarkably my plan to test bartender integrity worked better than most experiments do in the beginning, like when they inject 6,000 rats with some horrible serum until 34 weeks later an unshaven, morbidly exhausted scientist finds a small tic in the rats behavior and yells out, "Eureka!"
My two weapons of choice when approaching the bartenders were: 1) Build amazing rapport with them, and the much more effective 2) Tip them well.
Sadly, it wasn't even a contest. The combination of friendliness and good tipping was deadly to the bar's profits, and nearly every time I received either a free drink or a heavily poured double by the 3rd cocktail I ordered. In about 1/2 the cases, it was the 2nd one I ordered in which I received the preferential treatment.
Sports bars, dive bars, lounges, corporate places, it didn't matter. And it was always the same, each one of the bartenders, both male and female, would give me a nod of the head or a wink or one of those chin thrusts people use to get you to look at something behind you. It was their way of saying, "You're in, man. You belong to the secret club."
But this secret club was nothing more than blatant embezzlement. I felt like an accomplice to the entire process, like downloading pirated music must feel like (which I can only pretend to know because I have never ever ever ever ever done that before. Ever.).
It wasn't just the free or heavily poured drinks that taking place either. In other cases, I simply watched the bartender take the guest's money, go to the POS system, ring in one drink, even though they poured three, and then stuff the rest of the money into their tip jars. Since this was my profession for 15 years, it was easy to spot the deceit taking place, and it was sickening and disheartening to watch, like being forced to watch your own child shoplift on camera.
Eventually I had to travel further and further from my area, as I was running out of bars to visit. I trudged on, and after Mr. Honest Bartender #33, things just got worse. I didn't find my next rule follower until Ms. #78, forty-five bartenders later. It took me so by surprise that I wondered if I was losing my touch. I was practically offended when she didn't provide me with free booze. Was I losing my rugged handsomeness or had I simply found an industry comrade with deep-seeded integrity. To find out, I ordered 5 cocktails in total, tipping extremely well on each. She simply smiled warmly, thanked me sincerely, poured the correct amount and rang up the drink each time. What a concept.
It was remarkably refreshing, and I should have stopped there, but I put my head down as if confronting a blizzard and continued on, determined to find the next honest bartender.
THE ENDAt this point, I could give you a case-by-case synopsis from my secret spy book, be we would be here until Groundhog Day, and if it wasn't for my wife, I'd still be chasing the experiment. She slapped the neurosis from me. Literally. Hard, and right on the shoulder (not my face, thank god).
"Christ, we get it," she screamed. "Bartenders are dishonest. Big mystery solved. It's not like you discovered a cure for baldness. Move on!"
Fine.
THE DATA:Bars Visited: 65
Bartenders Encountered 157
Cocktails Ordered (And Consumed): 472
Cocktails Paid For: 311
Doubles Poured: 150
Dishonest Bartenders Observed: 154
Honest Bartenders Observed: 3
Dishonest Bartender Percentage: 98%
When it was all over, I felt like a sweaty hooker on overtime, but really, I suppose I was more like a homicide detective, getting to the bottom of things and doing my job, but with that pessimistic feeling that the world was an ugly place.
For bar owners and managers everywhere, I only have one question for you: What are the odds that you have a 2-percenter working at your bar? Stop being the problem and start being the solution.
Cheers, until the next time.
The RB
