Friday, March 15 2013

Customer Shaming

Yeah, that's how it works. 

 

One of my favorite newspapers, the New York Post, published an article this March about rude bartenders in the city, Take This Drink and Shove It, detailing some very offensive interactions between customers and the members of the hospitality industry they encountered. While hedging their criticism by noting that there are plenty of good bars that don't intentionally insult and degrade customers, they gave some examples that are eye-popping in their unmannerly conduct. 

One spot in particular, Mayahuel has a charming bartender who declared, 

“I don’t carry vodka or light beer because they teach morons to like things that have no taste. I don’t carry Coca-Cola either. It ruins palettes. People should know where they are going and what they are doing. When somebody walks into a bar and says that he wants a Long Island iced tea, what he’s basically saying is, ‘Put as much s - - t into a glass as possible, so I can get f - - ked-up.’ They are saying that they don’t care about taste.”

Well, isn't that a relief, knowing that there is an ultimate arbiter of taste in this universe, and that he lives in the centre of his own little world? Potty mouth aside, what's he really saying here? Do people who like sweet or strong drinks have less of a place in the beverage-service world? Are patrons of a bar merely supplicants at the font of wisdom to be handed down from on high? 

In the article Jim Meehan, an author and mixologist, puts his finger on the issue: 

Part of the problem, Meehan says, is that some mixologists still see themselves as principled rebels going against the grain of the vodka-soda guzzling masses.

Everyone loves the story of a rebel, but the rebel himself? Not so much. Rebels are high-maintenance, tend to prima-donna-ism and acts that border on anti-social and can spill over and affect people who are innocent of ill motives, most of whom merely occupy the system that offends the rebels so much.

Another customer described their experience, 

“The bartender chastised me for ordering a mainstream gin, and then he sold me something that I had never even heard of,” recalls Weil, adding, “The whole thing was a degrading experience and makes me never want to go back there again.”

Suddenly he looks like a much better person

 

I initially wondered if this was a caricature of a New York stereotype, the shopkeeper who hates you and bullies you, but you have no choice except to purchase his goods--much like the Soup Nazi character from Seinfeld. I was in a place in New York last year, Katz's Deli, where if you didn't know what you wanted when you got to the head of the queue they chided you for not knowing protocol. But that kind of interaction really relies on people getting the joke, being on the inside, being included. These chaps with the chips on their shoulders seem determined to divide people into two groups, those worthy of their attention, and those who are not.

And that is a darned shame. There is no right or wrong way to enjoy the hedonic pleasures of a good beverage, and the only one who is an arbiter of your taste is you. I've had the opportunity to drink some terrifically high-end wines in my time. 

If I had those today, I could sell them and take a year off work. But I'd still just drink them instead.

 

Does that mean I think people who drink Two-Buck Chuck or box wine are unworthy of attention? Hardly. I've said it many times: a good wine is one that tastes good to you, and there is no other criteria. My beverage's house contains many mansions, and all are welcome. The same goes for any other alcoholic drink. I like single-malt scotch, and generally don't touch vodka--in fact, I can't recall having had any vodka since I was a teenager. But that doesn't mean people who enjoy it are lesser beings than I am, just different.

And that's okay. Really. I might not enjoy light beer, but there's no way on earth I'm going to get my hate on for you if you order one at my local--there are lots more interesting things to tussle over than what you drink. And just because I take ten minutes to make my favorite Martini, one that requires many steps and attention to detail, I'm not going to mock you for liking rum and coke--forcing you to drink something you don't like to conform to my ideals is the worst sort of normative, cultural-imperialist snobbery I can think of. 

I'm beginning to wonder now that if this isn't part of trendy types attempting to justify their interest in esoteric or fussy attention to booze in the face of an 'Emperor Has No Clothes' situation--if you make a cocktail that requires a two-month trip to the Amazon to gather ingredients, and can only be made in the correct phase of the moon at the right barometric pressure and stage of the tides, and it winds up not tasting very good, you'd really need to keep the pressure on to cover up your huge investment in your own mythos. 

Bartender, I'll have a glass full of whatever is in the bottom of your refrigerator

 

I recall going to an extremely trendy cocktail bar in San Francisco a couple of years ago. I'd been told a number of times that a cocktail aficionado like myself had to go there and try the drinks. When I got there I couldn't seem to order what I wanted--the bartender was selectively deaf to my desire for a Perfect Manhattan. Instead he bullheadedly directed me to order off of his cocktail 'menu', itself a piece of ephemeral art laser-etched onto organic, post-consumer recycled paper made locally. I tried three different drinks, and each of them was elaborate, over-sweet, over-strong, and over-wrought with weird combinations and offbeat garnishes (culantro in a cucumber-fennel 'mojito'? Tasted like organic window cleaner) that made me want a shot of Thunderbird or Ripple. Yet the place was packed with people. As I watched them I noticed that many patrons had a glass of (locally sourced, cruelty-free) mineral water with their drink, and with every sip they quickly gulped water immediately after, so the taste wouldn't catch up with them. 

Not that I'm criticising their drink choices: they're welcome to drink whatever makes them happy, and while I think they'd be better off with a simple, well-made drink that showcased the flavour of the alcohol and the mix, I'm not the decider. And much more importantly than that, neither is the person who is serving them drinks, because of that word, serve. 

I like to develop a relationship with my bartender. They're not therapists or dispensers of booze, they're service professionals who have a job to do. When they do it well, getting drinks right, making me feel welcome and that my business is appreciated, I tell anyone who is interested about what a great place the bar is. But a bar is a storefront that has alcohol and seats, and cannot be intrinsically wonderful (despite good architecture or other such features). It's the people who make it what it is, and good people don't judge you for harmless affectations, like your choice of cocktail, they accept you for who you are and encourage you to be that person comfortably, in a pleasant environment. 

One more thing: remember to tip your bartender. How much depends on the place, but a buck a drink is not too much, and if you order something complex and difficult to make during a rush, tip really hard--a pousse cafe when the barkeep has thirty beers to pour and six different margaritas to make requires a lot of effort to get right. And remember not to drink in places that don't make you feel welcome. Life is too short, and you have too little liver capacity to waste it on someone else' idea of what's right for you. 

Posted by Big Angry Tim AT 11:46AM

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