I been bartending for 2 months, AMA

[⠀⠀⠀]

That bar back role seems shytty. And being black it seems like it woukd be hard to be promoted out of of that role to a bartender.

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

In five years, do you see yourself still being a bartender?

I likely will if only because bartending is reliable income in every major US city from NYC to Vegas to Chicago and etc. I'm thinking of moving once I finish my degree and having 3 years of bartending experience will make it easier to touch down somewhere else whether I have my business up and running or not.

Can I get a whiskey and coca-cola pleasde?

Yup come through

Any crazy stories? You ever take a b!tch back home to the crib?

I took a cocktail server back to the crib at my 1st job when I was a bar-back and the female bartender was tryna fukk the 1st weekend I worked there. There was a taco truck a block away and she asked me to walk her over there. We got burritos and after that she offered to split an uber with me back to her place and my place. We ride the uber and a minute before she gets home she asks me if I'm tryna come up with her. She looked good but honestly I did not want them problems at work when I just started coming out of 9 month unemployment I worked under her and did not want to deal with that dynamic. Consequentially she was fake mad at me for a month but got over it because I kept it cool.

The next job was nothing but annoying ass white high school seniors and undergrad freshmen for coworkers and I wasn't fukking with the clientele at all. Ain't gon lie though, some of those private events had a couple bad ones.

I only been at this new job for a month but the clientele skews a little older than my last few gigs. The cocktail waitresses though...

 

[O.T.I.S.]

Very long read below in the spoiler w/ anecdotes about my experiences as a bar-back and bartender in the Bay Area. If you're at all interested in the industry, you'll probably want to read it.

Spoiler

I signed up for a free bartending 101 certificate program a year and a half ago called ROC The Bay after I saw an ad for it posted in the West Oakland library. The program's mission is to increase the presence of non-whites in front-of-house roles in high end bars and restaurants that are almost exclusively held by white people. The program was hosted in downtown Oakland and lasted two and a half months: It was a crash course in basic mixology that covered a mix of theory and practice behind the bar. There was a final exam on the course material covered but it wasn't anything difficult as long as you kept up with the reading. I looked up the ROC website and apparently they have chapters all around the country, if any of ya'll want to add a bartending cert to your repertoire I recommend it I linked the list of chapters below. Off rip I see LA, DC, NYC, Philly and Chicago all got chapters.

about Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United

The reason I went into the program is because I went through a 9 month stretch of unemployment. In 2016 (A year before the free bar program) I landed a paid internship right as I was coming out of a non-degree film certificate program in SF. The internship lasted 4 months: I was not retained by the company. I attempted to break into fulltime freelance/contract film work but quickly realized that I had fukked up by not investing my internship money into upgrading my film equipment. More than that though, my networking skills at the time were not really up to par which made my lack of connections in the local film scene a problem. Thankfully, I was able to move back into my mama house instead of fukking up my credit trying to hold onto where I was living at. I eventually came to the conclusion that I needed a side hustle that would be dependable enough to cover rent but flexible enough to not dominate my schedule and allow me to focus on other things during the week. Thus, weekend bartending.

A month after I finished the bartending program, I got a call from the instructor asking me if I was interested in being a bar-back at the same bar she trained me at. Long story short, I bar-backed there for 6 months. Oddly enough, two days after I landed that job, I got a call from the film program I attended a year earlier asking if I was interested in being a part time lab instructor. I went from being unemployed to having two jobs

What a job it was though...

I worked weekends on the night shift from 6 to 2 AM (which in reality is 6 to 3 or 4 AM depending on how trashed the bar is afterwards). The bar was understaffed w/ only one main bartender for weekend rushes. I was inexperienced and was not able to finesse becoming the 2nd bartender. As a result, I spent the next 6 months finding out that the bar-back is the nikka job in the establishment As in, me and the other bar-back were the only two nikkas in there. the head bartender who brought me in the place was a sista and she brought in the most regulars (this is Oakland we're talking about after all) but she had beef with the manager so the energy was always tense. Thankfully the clientele that she brought in was cool and the music we played on weekends attracted a blacker/more mixed crowd than a lot of the other bars in Uptown.

Bar-back work is very labor-intensive. Expect to be busting your ass for three to four-hour stretches non-stop when there's wall to wall customers... Expect to be lifting in excess of 50lbs regularly... Expect to not get home until 5 AM on the craziest nights. Setting up/breaking down wells, food running & bussing, managing to-go orders, glassware polishing & washing, restocking, switching beer kegs, prepping garnishes & juices, trash duty, etc. is all part of the job description. You're not there to conversate with the customers unless the bartender is too busy to take surplus drink orders. On the flipside, if you're able to do all of the above AND provide the best customer service you possibly can, you can usually finesse some decent tips from regulars.

The bar was inconsistently busy when I was working there. Best tips I ever made over there in one night was $210... that only happened on First Fridays (a big block party that happens once a month in downtown Oakland). On regular weekends, I made anywhere between $130 and $40. The bartender on the other hand was making $400-500 a night on the busiest nights ... that was 80% of what attracted me to the business in the first place lol. As a bar-back, though, my paychecks were straight status... When I filed my taxes the following year, I got a letter from the IRS because they didn't believe the amount that was being withheld from my checks.

The worst part of that job though was getting home after I was off. I was broke and had to ride the 801 (night bus) back home . only people up at that time of night is knocks, dealers, security guards and nikkas getting off work like me. The shyt I saw and smelled over that 6 month period... The Bay is known for the bonafide 51-50 dopefiend vagabond shenanigans and let me tell you, they was out there on 14th and Broadway out front of Delauer's Newstand every. fukking. Night. That shyt deserves a thread by itself.


By Winter 2017, the money significantly slowed down from the Fall. Oakland is not no tourist destination and nikkas only go out like that when it's warm/not raining. I saw the writing on the wall that I wasn't gonna get promoted to being a bartender: the manager was looking to run the only black bartender out of there and I damn sure wasn't gonna be her replacement. My potna in SF was bar-backing at a fine dining joint in SF and he was about to leave (which created an opening). After 6 months, I quit the one in Oakland and started working in SF as a bar-back again. The minimum wage was $3 higher and business was waaay more regular at that spot than at my last bar. Come to find out, these mothafukkas did hella private buyout events where tipouts were regularly $300+. Most I ever made there was $373 in one night

But... The FOH (front of house) was all white due to a concerted effort by the white female GM to hire nothing but white college/high school girls as hosts and servers, it wasn't the same restaurant that my boy worked at by the time I got there . I went into the job interview expressing that I was primarily interested in transitioning into a bartending role. Two months in though, I knew I was never gonna get promoted there either. The clientele was also all white and not like the ones in Oakland, this was the upper middle class Leave it to Beaver crowd . One day, they hosted a private costume party that was attended by middle aged and older techies. Three old white techies showed up in Hip Hop blackface and spent the next two hours putting on a minstrel show by b*stardizing every Hip Hop lyric they could think of.

Long story short, the money was right but everything else was . Unfortunately, the money was enough of a reason for me to stay there because I had just started my 1st semester at SF State after dropping out of undergrad five years ago. I worked there 9 months (my entire 1st semester and the majority of my 2nd semester), long enough for it to look good on my resume. I bounced at the beginning of Oct 2018 and put my resume out to 40+ bars over the course of a month. I had calculated my exit to coincide with the hiring boom for the holiday season in SF. In spite of that, I went a month w/o hearing from any of the places I applied to . By the end of the month since I quit the 2nd joint, I was beginning to think that the odds of being a black bartender was as bleak as the hiring statistics we learned about in the bartending program. In spite of that though I still felt good about my resume.

Then, two months ago out the blue, I got a call that led to me being a bartender at a fine dining restaurant.

Let me tell you... the difference between being a bartender vs a bar-back is night and fukking day. I literally work 1/3 as hard at my current job but make double the money. Putting it another way, I've been averaging $600 a week including tips and wages but I only work 18 hours/3 6hr shifts a week which amounts to $33 an hour As a bar-back at the other spot, I averaged $300-350 a week while working 16 hours with the exception of private events where I would make around 500 a week. The difference in the amount of labor I had to do though and the clientele I had to deal with while doing it...

The spot I work in is in the tourist section so I'm never the only black person in the building which sadly is very common in the fine dining world. Five of the 15 regular servers/cocktail servers are also black and they're all real bay area folk, I ain't detected no c00n sabotage antics aimed at me whatsoever

The money is not A1 status by Frisco standards at all - some people really out here making $600-800 a night - but frankly, this is the first restaurant/bar I ever worked in where I didn't hate it within two months. I got 2.5 years in school left and this shyt right here is the easiest money I ever made in my life other than my other job as a lab instructor You better fukkin believe I ain't letting go

If y'all got questions about the industry, liquor recs, declaring tips/taxes or any other shyt just ask.

I know its some folks on here struggling to get a side hustle going... Bartending is a very solid side hustle if you don't got a record and you can let go of the weekend warrior fukkery. I'm primarily in a creative trade and I've been seriously putting in the effort to lay the groundwork to start my own business over the last year. The bar industry has enabled me to fund my other ventures (going back to finish my undergrad degree, business expenses, etc) in ways I never could have before and I'm saying this as someone with only a high school diploma to my name For that matter, I didn't go to bartending school and didn't pay a dime for any bartending education... I took advantage of a free bartending program that was offered in Oakland. I go into more detail in the spoiler but it's offered in multiple cities around the country, if you're serious about getting a new side hustle check out what I wrote in the spoiler.

Dope story tho. I worked at a bar as a cook but often had to bar-back a lil bit so I feel you. Bartenders do make hella bread though especially if they females and bad af.

 

[Duke Dixon]

I remember I went to a job interview at a fine lodge around here in a very city. The application had no experience required so I filled the application out and got an interview.

I drove about 40 minutes to the place and waited a while for them to interview the other people, mostly if not all young white girls from what I remember. They called me in and the guy sitting at the desk looks at the paper for a second and says, "You have no experience, were looking for someone with experience thanks for coming."

My face was just Why the fukk did you tell me to come if you read my online application and saw I had no experience. It all happened so fasted I didn't even have time to get mad . I've gotten every job I've interviewed from and I'm a good 1st impression.

Back then when I thought about it on the car I thought they had to interview blacks and show they did without getting in trouble. I forgot all that even happened to me before I read your story.


My question is do bartenders make more working at bar dealing with regulars, a fine dining place, or a weekend warrior spot.

 

[FreedMind]

Congrats my dude sounds like it's paying off for you

 

[Luke Cage]

How much do you drink during a shift?

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

Dap + Rep

I had been thinking about attending bartending school to have the skill. Not to secure a job though.

Good looks.

At the restaurants that had white front staff, had you ever noticed a pattern of sitting black customers, if any, towards the back of the restaurant or near the kitchen?

At the white joint black customers usually came in with groups of white people so they sat wherever or they sat at the cocktail tables/bar because they were walk-ins instead of reservations. The vibe in that spot is regardless.

Where’s the bar? I might pull up if y’all got the high end drinks.

McCormick's in Ghiradelli Square, come through during the day on weekends

How many bytches you fukked?

I been a bartender 2 months and it's all about entertaining the guests as you see fit I've gotten a couple numbers on napkins.

Being a bar-back on the other hand is a dirty job where chances are the clientele is seeing you do the type of shyt that make them think of their dad coming home from work smelling like sweat and grease.

 

[Jean Jacket]

How do you deal with drunk racist trump supporters talking shyt to you?

Have you ever stepped in to stop a #metoo?

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

That bar back role seems shytty. And being black it seems like it woukd be hard to be promoted out of of that role to a bartender.

Yeah you gotta be in the mindset to give yourself a promotion which is really about finessing the resume. My road to being a bartender was relatively short and sweet... I only worked as a bar-back for 15 months. Being a bar-back is usually not a direct road to being a bartender and especially in cities where the ESL population dominates the role. On the flipside, it's the only role in most bars where you see non-whites and they do make tips so it's not entirely a dub. I recommend making sure you have a cert of some kind before you start applying.

 

[King of Creampies]

Very long read below in the spoiler w/ anecdotes about my experiences as a bar-back and bartender in the Bay Area. If you're at all interested in the industry, you'll probably want to read it.

Spoiler

I signed up for a free bartending 101 certificate program a year and a half ago called ROC The Bay after I saw an ad for it posted in the West Oakland library. The program's mission is to increase the presence of non-whites in front-of-house roles in high end bars and restaurants that are almost exclusively held by white people. The program was hosted in downtown Oakland and lasted two and a half months: It was a crash course in basic mixology that covered a mix of theory and practice behind the bar. There was a final exam on the course material covered but it wasn't anything difficult as long as you kept up with the reading. I looked up the ROC website and apparently they have chapters all around the country, if any of ya'll want to add a bartending cert to your repertoire I recommend it I linked the list of chapters below. Off rip I see LA, DC, NYC, Philly and Chicago all got chapters.

about Restaurant Opportunities Centers (ROC) United

The reason I went into the program is because I went through a 9 month stretch of unemployment. In 2016 (A year before the free bar program) I landed a paid internship right as I was coming out of a non-degree film certificate program in SF. The internship lasted 4 months: I was not retained by the company. I attempted to break into fulltime freelance/contract film work but quickly realized that I had fukked up by not investing my internship money into upgrading my film equipment. More than that though, my networking skills at the time were not really up to par which made my lack of connections in the local film scene a problem. Thankfully, I was able to move back into my mama house instead of fukking up my credit trying to hold onto where I was living at. I eventually came to the conclusion that I needed a side hustle that would be dependable enough to cover rent but flexible enough to not dominate my schedule and allow me to focus on other things during the week. Thus, weekend bartending.

A month after I finished the bartending program, I got a call from the instructor asking me if I was interested in being a bar-back at the same bar she trained me at. Long story short, I bar-backed there for 6 months. Oddly enough, two days after I landed that job, I got a call from the film program I attended a year earlier asking if I was interested in being a part time lab instructor. I went from being unemployed to having two jobs

What a job it was though...

I worked weekends on the night shift from 6 to 2 AM (which in reality is 6 to 3 or 4 AM depending on how trashed the bar is afterwards). The bar was understaffed w/ only one main bartender for weekend rushes. I was inexperienced and was not able to finesse becoming the 2nd bartender. As a result, I spent the next 6 months finding out that the bar-back is the nikka job in the establishment As in, me and the other bar-back were the only two nikkas in there. the head bartender who brought me in the place was a sista and she brought in the most regulars (this is Oakland we're talking about after all) but she had beef with the manager so the energy was always tense. Thankfully the clientele that she brought in was cool and the music we played on weekends attracted a blacker/more mixed crowd than a lot of the other bars in Uptown.

Bar-back work is very labor-intensive. Expect to be busting your ass for three to four-hour stretches non-stop when there's wall to wall customers... Expect to be lifting in excess of 50lbs regularly... Expect to not get home until 5 AM on the craziest nights. Setting up/breaking down wells, food running & bussing, managing to-go orders, glassware polishing & washing, restocking, switching beer kegs, prepping garnishes & juices, trash duty, etc. is all part of the job description. You're not there to conversate with the customers unless the bartender is too busy to take surplus drink orders. On the flipside, if you're able to do all of the above AND provide the best customer service you possibly can, you can usually finesse some decent tips from regulars.

The bar was inconsistently busy when I was working there. Best tips I ever made over there in one night was $210... that only happened on First Fridays (a big block party that happens once a month in downtown Oakland). On regular weekends, I made anywhere between $130 and $40. The bartender on the other hand was making $400-500 a night on the busiest nights ... that was 80% of what attracted me to the business in the first place lol. As a bar-back, though, my paychecks were straight status... When I filed my taxes the following year, I got a letter from the IRS because they didn't believe the amount that was being withheld from my checks.

The worst part of that job though was getting home after I was off. I was broke and had to ride the 801 (night bus) back home . only people up at that time of night is knocks, dealers, security guards and nikkas getting off work like me. The shyt I saw and smelled over that 6 month period... The Bay is known for the bonafide 51-50 dopefiend vagabond shenanigans and let me tell you, they was out there on 14th and Broadway out front of Delauer's Newstand every. fukking. Night. That shyt deserves a thread by itself.


By Winter 2017, the money significantly slowed down from the Fall. Oakland is not no tourist destination and nikkas only go out like that when it's warm/not raining. I saw the writing on the wall that I wasn't gonna get promoted to being a bartender: the manager was looking to run the only black bartender out of there and I damn sure wasn't gonna be her replacement. My potna in SF was bar-backing at a fine dining joint in SF and he was about to leave (which created an opening). After 6 months, I quit the one in Oakland and started working in SF as a bar-back again. The minimum wage was $3 higher and business was waaay more regular at that spot than at my last bar. Come to find out, these mothafukkas did hella private buyout events where tipouts were regularly $300+. Most I ever made there was $373 in one night

But... The FOH (front of house) was all white due to a concerted effort by the white female GM to hire nothing but white college/high school girls as hosts and servers, it wasn't the same restaurant that my boy worked at by the time I got there . I went into the job interview expressing that I was primarily interested in transitioning into a bartending role. Two months in though, I knew I was never gonna get promoted there either. The clientele was also all white and not like the ones in Oakland, this was the upper middle class Leave it to Beaver crowd . One day, they hosted a private costume party that was attended by middle aged and older techies. Three old white techies showed up in Hip Hop blackface and spent the next two hours putting on a minstrel show by b*stardizing every Hip Hop lyric they could think of.

Long story short, the money was right but everything else was . Unfortunately, the money was enough of a reason for me to stay there because I had just started my 1st semester at SF State after dropping out of undergrad five years ago. I worked there 9 months (my entire 1st semester and the majority of my 2nd semester), long enough for it to look good on my resume. I bounced at the beginning of Oct 2018 and put my resume out to 40+ bars over the course of a month. I had calculated my exit to coincide with the hiring boom for the holiday season in SF. In spite of that, I went a month w/o hearing from any of the places I applied to . By the end of the month since I quit the 2nd joint, I was beginning to think that the odds of being a black bartender was as bleak as the hiring statistics we learned about in the bartending program. In spite of that though I still felt good about my resume.

Then, two months ago out the blue, I got a call that led to me being a bartender at a fine dining restaurant.

Let me tell you... the difference between being a bartender vs a bar-back is night and fukking day. I literally work 1/3 as hard at my current job but make double the money. Putting it another way, I've been averaging $600 a week including tips and wages but I only work 18 hours/3 6hr shifts a week which amounts to $33 an hour As a bar-back at the other spot, I averaged $300-350 a week while working 16 hours with the exception of private events where I would make around 500 a week. The difference in the amount of labor I had to do though and the clientele I had to deal with while doing it...

The spot I work in is in the tourist section so I'm never the only black person in the building which sadly is very common in the fine dining world. Five of the 15 regular servers/cocktail servers are also black and they're all real bay area folk, I ain't detected no c00n sabotage antics aimed at me whatsoever

The money is not A1 status by Frisco standards at all - some people really out here making $600-800 a night - but frankly, this is the first restaurant/bar I ever worked in where I didn't hate it within two months. I got 2.5 years in school left and this shyt right here is the easiest money I ever made in my life other than my other job as a lab instructor You better fukkin believe I ain't letting go

If y'all got questions about the industry, liquor recs, declaring tips/taxes or any other shyt just ask.

I know its some folks on here struggling to get a side hustle going... Bartending is a very solid side hustle if you don't got a record and you can let go of the weekend warrior fukkery. I'm primarily in a creative trade and I've been seriously putting in the effort to lay the groundwork to start my own business over the last year. The bar industry has enabled me to fund my other ventures (going back to finish my undergrad degree, business expenses, etc) in ways I never could have before and I'm saying this as someone with only a high school diploma to my name For that matter, I didn't go to bartending school and didn't pay a dime for any bartending education... I took advantage of a free bartending program that was offered in Oakland. I go into more detail in the spoiler but it's offered in multiple cities around the country, if you're serious about getting a new side hustle check out what I wrote in the spoiler.

Everyone please dap and rep OP.

5 Star thread for sticky.

I really enjoy hearing other POC/Black experiences in different fields and how we thrive despite the negativity.

Perhaps this can inspire someone on here headed in that direction but has no intel from a POC especially who is in the same field.

I would really like to see a thread sticked with AMA for IRL professions by POC/BLACK PEOPLE on here.

Always forward for 2019.

 

[Jasonmask]

Yeah I work in the financial district that’s close to the square I’m off this weekend so i really might pull up

 

[Womb Raider]

Great read Breh.

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

I remember I went to a job interview at a fine lodge around here in a very city. The application had no experience required so I filled the application out and got an interview.

I drove about 40 minutes to the place and waited a while for them to interview the other people, mostly if not all young white girls from what I remember. They called me in and the guy sitting at the desk looks at the paper for a second and says, "You have no experience, were looking for someone with experience thanks for coming."

My face was just Why the fukk did you tell me to come if you read my online application and saw I had no experience. It all happened so fasted I didn't even have time to get mad . I've gotten every job I've interviewed from and I'm a good 1st impression.

Back then when I thought about it on the car I thought they had to interview blacks and show they did without getting in trouble. I forgot all that even happened to me before I read your story.


My question is do bartenders make more working at bar dealing with regulars, a fine dining place, or a weekend warrior spot.

Yeah bruh the interview process is all types of at most spots.

To answer your question, there's different ways to make decent money in the restaurant/bar game. I work at a seafood joint with a lot of older clientele who usually come in for lunch/dinner AND drinks. Their tabs are almost always in excess of $100 so the tipout is often $15-30 per party. I split the bar area with the cocktail servers... all the bar seats are mine and the biggest cocktail tables usually end up being mine when there's too many guests for the cocktail server to attend to at once. The deciding factor is simply how busy it gets which is usually pretty busy on Saturdays. Biggest individual tip I ever got was $100 on a $265 tab which was some business folks stopping at the bar after walking out of a banquet event. The tech money in the City is no joke.

On the other hand, cocktail lounges make a shyt ton of money if they're known for having good cocktails. Upscale cocktail lounges charge $15 a drink minimum and if you're coming in with big parties that's easily $150+ each tab if they do more than one round. Bartending is all about having the mouthpiece and the ability to work, talk and entertain at the same time.

How much do you drink during a shift?

I taste most of the cocktails I make before I serve them which probably adds up to a drink or two . The first spot I worked at the bartender would knock back a shot with me almost every shift. The 2nd spot I worked at the bar would pass the cooks 12 packs of Tecate at the end of the shift and I would take home quarts of the house sangria .

 

[Luke Cage]

Yeah bruh the interview process is all types of at most spots.

To answer your question, there's different ways to make decent money in the restaurant/bar game. I work at a seafood joint with a lot of older clientele who usually come in for lunch/dinner AND drinks. Their tabs are almost always in excess of $100 so the tipout is often $15-30 per party. I split the bar area with the cocktail servers... all the bar seats are mine and the biggest cocktail tables usually end up being mine when there's too many guests for the cocktail server to attend to at once. The deciding factor is simply how busy it gets which is usually pretty busy on Saturdays. Biggest individual tip I ever got was $100 on a $265 tab which was some business folks stopping at the bar after walking out of a banquet event. The tech money in the City is no joke.

On the other hand, cocktail lounges make a shyt ton of money if they're known for having good cocktails. Upscale cocktail lounges charge $15 a drink minimum and if you're coming in with big parties that's easily $150+ each tab if they do more than one round. Bartending is all about having the mouthpiece and the ability to work, talk and entertain at the same time.



I taste most of the cocktails I make before I serve them which probably adds up to a drink or two . The first spot I worked at the bartender would knock back a shot with me almost every shift. The 2nd spot I worked at the bar would pass the cooks 12 packs of Tecate at the end of the shift and I would take home quarts of the house sangria .

I worked at a bar during my college years. It was close to campus, and i remember seeing titties alot. Which distressed me at the time because i was in a relationship and don't need the temptation i was trying to be good.

Have you ever encountered some girls gone wild situations?

 

[FruitOfTheVale]

I worked at a bar during my college years. It was close to campus, and i remember seeing titties alot. Which distressed me at the time because i was in a relationship and don't need the temptation i was trying to be good.

Have you ever encountered some girls gone wild situations?

I seen it a few times at the first bar I worked at lol and the funny part is that the females at that spot were usually in their late 20s/early 30s so it lowkey surprised me being 23yo at the time. It was more of a cocktail lounge/small eats type of joint than a real club though so it wasn't like they was fukking in the bathroom or behind the bar all the time. Now if I worked somewhere like Parliament then that's a completely different story, the females in there fine as fukk too