September 23, 2006
How to get banned from a bar without throwing a punch
or how not to run a bar.
So my friends and I are out at Buffalo Billiards having a good time. We're ordering food and getting drinks. We arrive at about 7 so the place is full, but not crowded. Service is good. The Shufflepuck tables are new and fast. Everybody is happy.
As the night progresses, the bar becomes considerably more busy. Yet, the bar, which is about which has probably about 300 feet of total bar space, still only has 2 bartenders. Not only are these bartenders serving people sitting at the bar, they're also serving people coming up to the bar for drinks as well as waitresses who need drinks for their customers.
Naturally, this results in inordinate wait times. In order to get the next round of drinks, we need to wait about 20-25 minutes. This basically means, whoever is up next to get the round of drinks has to go up as soon as he gets his beer.
Because there is no formal line or queue at the bar, the bartender can intentionally or unintentionally skip people or serve people in an order of priority other than the order in which they got to the bar. While this might be great for the couple people the bartender does "jump the line for", it also pisses off the other customers who see this happening and who are waiting for 20-25 minutes to just close a tab.
So I go to close out the shufflepuck and food tab. I was happy with the service so I pay the 20 bucks an hour for shufflepuck, food, and a 20% tip. Next, I head over to the bar so I can close out my tab.
What i expected to take 5-10 minutes top becomes a 20 minute exercise in patience. So as the minutes tick buy I'm progressively getting angrier as I watch the performance by 1/2 of the two man bartending staff assigned to serve 500 people:
If you order rum and cokes: One will have 2/3's glass of rum, second will have 1/2 glass of rum, and the third will have a splash of rum.
If you order a black and tan: The bartender will forget that he's making you a black and tan, and just later pour some guinness on top of a full glass of bass to add color.
If you order a drink through a waitress, not only are you getting your drink, you're also getting whatever was printed on the receipt that was stuck in your drink to indicate it was done. It probably also contains whatever was on the waitresses hand that was used to fish out the slip of ink on paper in your carefully crafted beverage.
If you're waiting to get a drink: there might be a good chance that even though there are only 2 people manning the bar, one of the team might think its a good idea when he spots a friend to drop what he's doing and go chat it up for 5 minutes.
If you're not a regular: be prepared to watch other people drink. Possibly the most annoying is watching someone gets two rounds of drinks while you don't even get an "excuse me" acknowledged.
So when I finally do get my bill, I decide to let the bartender and management know exactly how I felt about the service.
First I tipped three cents. A definite indicator not that I was against tipping or had forgotten, but that I was extremely upset with the service.
Then I wrote on the receipt, "Waited 20-25 minutes to close tab. Hire more ____ waiters." I'll spare you the expletive that the alcohol inserted into there.
Then I go over to my waiting friends to gather them and leave. I explain to a friend that it's ridiculous the amount of waiting we have to do here, and he agrees and we probably shouldn't come here any more. On our way out a guy comes over and explains that he's the manager. He then produces my receipt and asks me if I had written this. I said yes. At this point, I was actually impressed, I thought that my note had worked and that I was actually going to get to talk to management about my service experience. Instead, he told me I was being kicked out and that I needed to leave.
First of all, I was taken aback. They provide me with bad service, they receive some criticism and then as I'm getting ready to leave I get kicked out?
So as I'm being shoved to the door we have the following conversation:
Me: Is this how you treat your customers?
Mgr: I want you to leave the bar.
Me: Why don't you just hire more bartenders so your customers don't have to wait 20-25 minutes to get a drink?
Mgr: Get Out.
Me: We had to wait several 20 minutes several times to get drinks and then 22 minutes to close a tab, isn't that ridiculous?
Mgr: Is this how you treat your bartenders?
Me: Is this how you treat your paying customers?
Mgr: You should have spoken to a manager about that.
Me: I'm sorry, I was too busy waiting to do anything about it.
Mgr: You need to get out now. (Growing quite upset)
Me: I already was on my way out. This is no way to run a business
Mgr: I don't want your business
Me: How do you sleep at night?
It was kind of amusing to get kicked out of a bar. I always imagined that it would be as a result of a fight or brawl and that it would have been somewhere I was not currently exiting. It kind of felt like being the guy at work who points out problems and then decides to quit, and then the pissed off Manager decides that you can't quit because you're fired.
While I do understand that it was not the most elegant way to handle the situation, I still can't believe that their crappy service and me rubbing their noses in it resulted in me getting kicked out. So while its a shame I won't be playing shufflepuck on their nice tables any more, Buffalo Billiards will not be sorely missed.
Posted by Bryant at September 23, 2006 08:35 AM
Comments
Just wanted to say that you should not make the bartender pay for something that you should blame management for. It's not their fault that the place was understaffed. You could have politely said to the bartender "excuse me" instead of getting upset after waiting for so long. I guess now you know what not to do.
Posted by: Jeffrey at April 9, 2008 05:16 PM
You express your dissatisfaction at the first point of contact, and you expect the establishment to respond positively. Obviously, Buffalo Billiards is about taking the short way out and not about customers.
Posted by: werer at June 13, 2008 03:38 AM