Make It Work

A bar staff veteran provides her insightful —if lighthearted— perspective on how owners and managers can create the best possible working environment for their employees. From the horse’s mouth, advice for the jockeys.

This article is meant for all bar/restaurant owners and managers, not as a diatribe, but as a source of knowledge and understanding. Are you constantly questioning your establishment and wondering why your work environment is less than satisfactory? Well, here’s the inside line, the scoop, the real truth right from the source. As a ten-year veteran of the service industry, I have experienced a lot of different people, places, and work environments. I, along with some of my co-workers and fellow bar staffers, am about to give you the key to a successful establishment. This is straight talk. Today is your lucky day. As an owner/operator, you know that we employees all have our usual complaints: don’t over-staff; stop yelling at me; let me have another cigarette break. But there are far more important things that tend to slip past your upper-level eyes, and that is what I will explain to you today.

So I offer you this: Ways to Keep Your Employees from Rising Up and Torching the Place (or, Things to Consider When Managing Your Bar Staff).

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  • 10. Trust Issues. They factor into every relationship, whether between friends, lovers, or family, and it applies to bosses and employees as well. For example: I’m standing at the register changing a $50 bill when I feel this Jurassic Park-like breath on my neck. Why, when I’m trying to do my job, are you hovering over me and invading my personal space? Not only is it rude, it’s unnerving. If you feel you have to watch every move an employee makes, they probably shouldn’t be working there in the first place. Perhaps a more tactful move, like installing cameras around the bar, will put your mind at ease. If that doesn’t satisfy you, maybe you should consider changing careers and finding a job in which trust is not a necessity—investing, or stock broking, perhaps. But the bar business—albeit a business—is one of the most personal. Do not show employees that you don’t trust them. If you are being robbed, the numbers will speak for themselves. Remember, figures figure.


  • bar_management_hiring.gif9. Hiring Practices. I know it’s hard to hire good employees in the bar biz. A lot of people have hidden agendas, secret drug problems, weird idiosyncrasies, herpes, etc. But there are ways to screen a person before you hire him or her. Please, for the love of Jameson, don’t ALWAYS go on looks alone. A hot girl partying at the bar, flirting with you after five Red Devils (p.s. if you’re reading this, don’t ever order this drink again. I hate you.) and swinging around on a pole with multicolored hair extensions while her ratty thong sticks out three inches above her jeans—chances are she’s probably not a good candidate for hiring. All she’s trying to do is get free drinks that night, and I can almost guarantee that, should she be hired, all she will do behind the bar is stare at herself in the mirror and give your bar away to her similarly attired friends.


  • bar_management_shifts.gif8. Shift Assignments. When assigning shifts, DO NOT PLAY FAVORITES. Be fair with all your employees and treat everyone with an equal amount of respect. For example, that “hot” girl you hired (see “Hiring Practices”) really shouldn’t get set up with a Saturday night shift her first week on duty while your loyal, tenured employee gets slotted for that bumpin’ Monday day shift. Honor your charter members, who have been with you from the beginning. We’re loyal to you, so it’s only fair to be loyal right back.

  • bar_management_power.gif3. Power Struggles. Ok, this one is for the managers. In my years of experience, I have met a lot of different managerial personalities—the military bitch, the drunken irresponsible, the high-strung OCD, the talks-to-me-like-I’m-an-idiot—but there always seems to be a common denominator among them (again, this is exclusive to my personal experience and research). Each and every one of them has had a substance abuse problem. That substance? POWER. They all abused it at one time or another—that “big fish in a small pond” syndrome.

    Remember—a manager is the liaison between many parties: employee and owner, customer and server, owner and server, produce provider and kitchen staff; the list goes on. True, managers have a tough job. They get flack from all directions and are constantly under pressure from everyone else. That being said, this does not give you the right to treat the servers like small, mentally-challenged possums. Speaking in an ultra-slow, English-must-not-be-your-first-language sort of tone is not going to help you score points among the bar staff. With that attitude, you will end up being stoned to death by the staff, or they will complain about you to the owner until you’re fired…again.

Bronagh Lawe is a ten-year service industry veteran who has tended bar throughout New York City. She currently resides at The Beach House, in Long Beach, New York.

Click here for the full article on Top Ten Things to Consider When Managing Your Bar Staff in the January 2010 DIGITAL EDITION of Bar Business Magazine