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for the love of everything sacred and profane, everyone, please:
decide what you're going to order before you step up to the bar; or, failing that, before you begin to place your order. you will not make a friend of the bartender or of your fellow customers if you stand there hemming and hawing and, every time the bartender brings you what she thinks is the last item in your order, you order something else as well. please place your entire order; really, we can remember it, and if we can't, we'll ask you to remind us, but at least we'll know how much stuff we're making, and so will the people behind you.
tonight i had two examples of this sort of thing. just as i was calling last orders, a couple of guys came up, and the guy doing the talking ordered a pint of carlsberg and a shot of jack daniels. i put these in front of him, tell him what it's going to cost, and he says can he have another pint, please. i pour the beer, and he says oh, and a lagavulin. oh, and a bloody hendricks. ([facepalm]! with a mad busy bar, at last call, people are ordering mixed things with names? i actually don't have any tabasco in the bar, so i tell them it's just going to be tomato juice and gin, and do they still want it? this takes a minute and a half to get across, because not everyone in the conversation is a native speaker. in fact the guy who ordered the drink in the first place did so apparently without knowing what a bloody mary is. kill me now.) so having begun with a pint and a shot of jack, we're now up to two pints, a shot of jack, a shot of lagavulin, and a glass of tomato juice with a shot of hendrick's in it. ring it up. oh, says the guy, actually can this be a double? and he hands me a glass. which is it, i ask him, because i'm not mixing jack daniels and lagavulin in the same glass, youknowwhatimean? one more shot of jack, ring out, get this guy away from my bar.
much earlier, when the place was just starting to get busy, i had an already-a-bit-tipsy bunch come up and ask for 'some pints of carlsberg'. how many pints? um ... ten pints! yeah, i hesitated a bit, and asked how many were in the group, and the guy ordering said okay, three, start with three pints. or -- i start pulling pints, and he says oh, and also some shots of whiskey. what kind of whiskey? the house whiskey is bulleitt bourbon, you just want three shots of that? guy scoffs. that's not whiskey, he says. sure it is, i say. no, he says, it's bourbon -- we want scotch! give us a single malt scotch whiskey! okay, i say, which one? we've got fifteen or twenty of them. oh, uh, he says.
you know what, i said (with a smile!), why don't you get back to me on that. and as the guy was going 'no, wait, um', i went to serve someone waiting patiently at the other end of the bar, which took forty-five seconds, and when i returned they named their whiskey and i poured it and gave them the whiskey and the beer and see, didn't that all work out just fine.
and when they were ready for another round, they sent a different member of the group up to order. :-)
decide what you're going to order before you step up to the bar; or, failing that, before you begin to place your order. you will not make a friend of the bartender or of your fellow customers if you stand there hemming and hawing and, every time the bartender brings you what she thinks is the last item in your order, you order something else as well. please place your entire order; really, we can remember it, and if we can't, we'll ask you to remind us, but at least we'll know how much stuff we're making, and so will the people behind you.
tonight i had two examples of this sort of thing. just as i was calling last orders, a couple of guys came up, and the guy doing the talking ordered a pint of carlsberg and a shot of jack daniels. i put these in front of him, tell him what it's going to cost, and he says can he have another pint, please. i pour the beer, and he says oh, and a lagavulin. oh, and a bloody hendricks. ([facepalm]! with a mad busy bar, at last call, people are ordering mixed things with names? i actually don't have any tabasco in the bar, so i tell them it's just going to be tomato juice and gin, and do they still want it? this takes a minute and a half to get across, because not everyone in the conversation is a native speaker. in fact the guy who ordered the drink in the first place did so apparently without knowing what a bloody mary is. kill me now.) so having begun with a pint and a shot of jack, we're now up to two pints, a shot of jack, a shot of lagavulin, and a glass of tomato juice with a shot of hendrick's in it. ring it up. oh, says the guy, actually can this be a double? and he hands me a glass. which is it, i ask him, because i'm not mixing jack daniels and lagavulin in the same glass, youknowwhatimean? one more shot of jack, ring out, get this guy away from my bar.
much earlier, when the place was just starting to get busy, i had an already-a-bit-tipsy bunch come up and ask for 'some pints of carlsberg'. how many pints? um ... ten pints! yeah, i hesitated a bit, and asked how many were in the group, and the guy ordering said okay, three, start with three pints. or -- i start pulling pints, and he says oh, and also some shots of whiskey. what kind of whiskey? the house whiskey is bulleitt bourbon, you just want three shots of that? guy scoffs. that's not whiskey, he says. sure it is, i say. no, he says, it's bourbon -- we want scotch! give us a single malt scotch whiskey! okay, i say, which one? we've got fifteen or twenty of them. oh, uh, he says.
you know what, i said (with a smile!), why don't you get back to me on that. and as the guy was going 'no, wait, um', i went to serve someone waiting patiently at the other end of the bar, which took forty-five seconds, and when i returned they named their whiskey and i poured it and gave them the whiskey and the beer and see, didn't that all work out just fine.
and when they were ready for another round, they sent a different member of the group up to order. :-)
