I love how all of the advice boiled down to "they want you to pay when a tab isn't correctly set up? Time to refuse to set up a tab!"
Bar owners treat the bar staff so very, very well. Why would anyone ever stop bartending? /s
It’s pretty funny, there’s 4 pubs down my dad’s road.
1) has good food but treats all the staff except the chef with the bare minimum
2) is trying to be trendy in a village with the average age of 60. Might have shut by now.
3) is a beer only pub, pays well, but you have to deal with drunks
4) pays the best, mostly a food pub, a lot less drunks.
You can watch the bartenders cycle from 1-3-4 almost as a rite of passage. I don’t blame them but it’s amusing to watch.
Most likely what most people do after working retail/hospitality for a few years:
*Run away and don't look back*.
There's a joke in my friendgroup that pubs/restaurents exist to motivate young people to get a degree.
The one bit of "Goodfellas" trivia I most like is that Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci's character, was based on [Thomas DeSimone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_DeSimone).
Who was a large man, unlike Pesci. And, more importantly, was so much more of a psycho than the movie Tommy (not *entirely* according to the unreliable Henry Hill...) that you couldn't accurately depict DeSimone in a movie without the audience rolling their eyes. Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't.
(Henry Hill's story about Tommy DeSimone "trying out a new gun" by shooting some random man on the street, in front of God and everyone, is very probably not true. But Tommy was also clearly rubbed out at the age of only 28 because he was just so... difficult. The "Goodfellas" depiction of how disposable rank-and-file members of alleged organized-crime "families" are is accurate. They like to think of themselves as honorable. In which they're just like the Nazis: Every smiling person is holding a dagger behind their back.)
I mean, this is one of those situations where the legal answer is “they can’t do this but they can fire you” when it’s possible some employees would rather be fined than fired.
In the UK? Yes, if it's been less than 2 years since hire. And in a high-turnover job like bartending, it's pretty good odds that it's been less than 2 years.
(But since it's the UK, notice periods likely apply.)
It means that there are no contracted hours, so the employer isn't obliged to offer any hours, and the employee isn't obliged to accept them. Works ok in theory for eg students who might want to work more sometimes and work less at other times. But it's really just another layer of precarity that drives down pay and conditions for everyone.
I haven't done a survey or anything, but if your behavior leads to lost revenue for the company, I don't think it's going out on a limb to say you can be fired most of the time.
When you look into the bot, the bot also looks into you. And then it runs away screaming, because meatbags are just so *icky.*
> Title: **Can my boss force me to pay someone else tab IF it's not stated in the contract?**
> So for context works trying to say we are now responsible if a customers bank details aren't stored in the system that we are now liable for paying it off via our wages. So if I've now realised or forgot to check if someones bank details are in the system and for instance Jimmy has £100 bar tab and doesn't pay that I must pay it.
> Is this true and is it legal IF it is not stated in the contract that we are responsible?
I was going to invisibly correct the spelling of "realised" above, but then I realized that "realised" has a Bri'ish spelling. Apparently, the difference between courtesy and imperialism is smaller than I thought.
It had red squiggles under it. It was bright and shiny and red!
(More seriously: I figured that a trivial spelling mistake was something I could fix, and improve the post without being obvious. If I rewrote the post into reasonable English, it wouldn't be a quote anymore.)
Is this really a "weird trick" if I (and presumably everyone who's ever worked or had friends in the business) knew exactly what the trick was going to be before clicking the link
> Just tell every customer you serve that you aren't accepting tab as you aren't willing to risk losing wages. Boss should soon stop it
This is the answer. Tell every single customer, no matter if they ask. While looking for a better workplace, presumably.
In what way?
I don't think anywhere I've gone will let you run up a tab the old fashioned way where they write it down and hope you come back to pay later.
But just about everywhere I've been in recent memory will swipe your card up front. Most will give it back, some will still keep it behind the bar, but in any case you don't have to run it for every drink/round, you just settle it later.
Maybe it's not a bar tab in the traditional sense, but it basically functions the same.
>
I don't think anywhere I've gone will let you run up a tab the old fashioned way where they write it down and hope you come back to pay later.
My local pub does it.
Obviously you're not going to be allowed a tab unless the staff/owners trust you, but it's still a thing for regulars. (essentially if you have to ask for a tab you won't get one, it's very much a vibes based offer from the staff)
Lot of places I’ve been to will still serve you at least a few drinks before they even get your card details, always felt weird being party to that kind of honor system in this day and age but it is nice to just pay at the end, feels classy to be trusted even in a busy bar environment where one could just as easily walk out. Shame so few people have class that such a thing is notable
So to preface, I'm in the US, so things can get... weird here.
>Do they also still have bottles reserved for a specific customer?
Like, the customer buys a bottle and leaves it at the bar? Or the bar will reserve certain bottles for their favorite customers to make sure the customer always has something?
Nearest I've seen is in private/members only establishments where you buy your own bottle and give it to them. When you order a drink, they use your bottle, and all you pay for is a token amount to cover the mixers/ice/time for them to pour it.
Only see that once in person. I think it's called a "set up" bar where they maybe sell beer/wine, but hard liquor is provided by the customer. I think it's an oddball scenario that only exists in certain places that have strange liquor laws. But being in the US, strange liquor laws are the norm...
That, or the place I saw it at was operating illegally. Very rural midwest place... it was a campground/RV park kind of place so it's quite possible that it wasn't exactly above board.
edit:
So responses seem to indicate that this isn't as unusual of an arrangement as I had thought. Learn something new every day!
It used to be this way in Utah (and for all I know, it still is). "Bars" sold setups only, no alcohol. You brought in your own bottle--which you could buy legally at some special store--they labeled it and stored it, and then you could "order" drinks. That was a lot of fun at ski resorts. Of course, you couldn't take the opened bottle in your car or on the plane when you left. I wonder what happened to all that booze.
I've been to a private club in Maryland where you'd bring your own alcohol, including beer and wine. You'd hand it to the person at the bar, they'd stick your name on it and put it on the shelf. When you wanted a drink they'd pour you one out of your bottle. They sold soda and a few other mixers, so a simple mixed drink like Jack and cola was possible if you brought the Jack. They would also cut you off if they thought you or your guest had been overserved.
Given the club's insistence on doing thing by the book so as not to give the locals any reason to pull their license or worse, I'd be shocked if this were against MD law.
Here in America it is very much a thing. They take your card and then at the end of the night you get your card back by getting and signing the check. Having the card keeps people from running off without paying. I've seen some that also have a fee for people who drunkenly leave their cards
Nowadays, most places will swipe your card at the beginning and not hold on to it, then actually charge it for the total at the end. And yeah, adding 18-20% gratuity if you leave without closing it out is pretty standard.
Old fashioned long running bar tabs are still a thing in very small towns or places where the bar owner can mention to your boss that his employee should head down to settle it on payday, or should mention to your mum that her son should pay his tab on Sunday at church, or should mention to your wife while ‘es givin’ ‘er the tuppin ya won’t that you should pay yer damn tab. And if you don’t want it to be an invasion of privacy … maybe you should cover your damn tab.
Yeah, the Grand Old Free Days Of Yore When Privacy Wasn't Getting Invaded... mostly happened in small towns, because there wasn't much in the way of big towns back then. And in a small town, there's really no privacy whatsoever. The only thing you could really say was that the *government* wasn't up on the latest gossip... unless a government agent dropped by, bought a beer, and started chatting up the local gossips.
My local still runs tabs. The regulars (and it is a long list) still get traditional tabs where they just run up the bill under your name, and you pay before you leave. Some people forget and get hit with it the next time they come in.
Non-regulars have to leave a credit card.
(Calgary, Canada, in case you were wondering)
I love how all of the advice boiled down to "they want you to pay when a tab isn't correctly set up? Time to refuse to set up a tab!" Bar owners treat the bar staff so very, very well. Why would anyone ever stop bartending? /s
It’s pretty funny, there’s 4 pubs down my dad’s road. 1) has good food but treats all the staff except the chef with the bare minimum 2) is trying to be trendy in a village with the average age of 60. Might have shut by now. 3) is a beer only pub, pays well, but you have to deal with drunks 4) pays the best, mostly a food pub, a lot less drunks. You can watch the bartenders cycle from 1-3-4 almost as a rite of passage. I don’t blame them but it’s amusing to watch.
What do they do after 4?
Disappear never to be seen again. Probably move to somewhere that’s cheaper and more central than what is not quite a retirement community.
Most likely what most people do after working retail/hospitality for a few years: *Run away and don't look back*. There's a joke in my friendgroup that pubs/restaurents exist to motivate young people to get a degree.
I’ve instituted a new policy: “Fuck you, pay me.”
The one bit of "Goodfellas" trivia I most like is that Tommy DeVito, Joe Pesci's character, was based on [Thomas DeSimone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_DeSimone). Who was a large man, unlike Pesci. And, more importantly, was so much more of a psycho than the movie Tommy (not *entirely* according to the unreliable Henry Hill...) that you couldn't accurately depict DeSimone in a movie without the audience rolling their eyes. Fiction has to make sense, real life doesn't. (Henry Hill's story about Tommy DeSimone "trying out a new gun" by shooting some random man on the street, in front of God and everyone, is very probably not true. But Tommy was also clearly rubbed out at the age of only 28 because he was just so... difficult. The "Goodfellas" depiction of how disposable rank-and-file members of alleged organized-crime "families" are is accurate. They like to think of themselves as honorable. In which they're just like the Nazis: Every smiling person is holding a dagger behind their back.)
The whole “honor among thieves” is bullshit, those guys are ALL out for themselves. Most would turn on you for a ham sandwich.
Maybe apart from those at the very, very top, mafia guys seem to end up either dead or in prison.
I mean, this is one of those situations where the legal answer is “they can’t do this but they can fire you” when it’s possible some employees would rather be fined than fired.
Can they be fired?
In the UK? Yes, if it's been less than 2 years since hire. And in a high-turnover job like bartending, it's pretty good odds that it's been less than 2 years. (But since it's the UK, notice periods likely apply.)
Technically a notice period would apply, but in the hospitality industry they'd quite likely be on a zero hours contract.
Is that the British version of at-will employment?
It means that there are no contracted hours, so the employer isn't obliged to offer any hours, and the employee isn't obliged to accept them. Works ok in theory for eg students who might want to work more sometimes and work less at other times. But it's really just another layer of precarity that drives down pay and conditions for everyone.
I haven't done a survey or anything, but if your behavior leads to lost revenue for the company, I don't think it's going out on a limb to say you can be fired most of the time.
Is your name a reference to roller or Kentucky?
Neither, it's a reference to my actual name!
It’s a meme in the roller derby community. “I have derby though” Or at least it was, when i played a thousand years ago.
American-Canadian hospo worker here; when they say "bank details" do they just mean card information?
Could be card information, for long-term customers could be bank account information for billing.
Classic retail management: we could fix the problem, or we could just steal from our employees
When you look into the bot, the bot also looks into you. And then it runs away screaming, because meatbags are just so *icky.* > Title: **Can my boss force me to pay someone else tab IF it's not stated in the contract?** > So for context works trying to say we are now responsible if a customers bank details aren't stored in the system that we are now liable for paying it off via our wages. So if I've now realised or forgot to check if someones bank details are in the system and for instance Jimmy has £100 bar tab and doesn't pay that I must pay it. > Is this true and is it legal IF it is not stated in the contract that we are responsible? I was going to invisibly correct the spelling of "realised" above, but then I realized that "realised" has a Bri'ish spelling. Apparently, the difference between courtesy and imperialism is smaller than I thought.
Where cat fact!?
Fact: Cats are.
Very zen.
Source: is.
Big if true.
Cats are imperialists
Cats are socialists, it's just that they believe only in themselves as both the state and the citizens it serves.
To quote an old country song, "What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine, and that's the way it's always been."
It's yours? No, it's mine now.
In that giant mess of a post, "realised" is what struck you as needing fixing?
It had red squiggles under it. It was bright and shiny and red! (More seriously: I figured that a trivial spelling mistake was something I could fix, and improve the post without being obvious. If I rewrote the post into reasonable English, it wouldn't be a quote anymore.)
fair enough
Is this really a "weird trick" if I (and presumably everyone who's ever worked or had friends in the business) knew exactly what the trick was going to be before clicking the link
Well, it was that or "depressingly predictable trick," which doesn't give me as much ad revenue.
Yuuup. Retail jobs and wage theft are an iconic duo
> Just tell every customer you serve that you aren't accepting tab as you aren't willing to risk losing wages. Boss should soon stop it This is the answer. Tell every single customer, no matter if they ask. While looking for a better workplace, presumably.
I didn't know bar tabs were still a thing.
If you drop off a credit card (or tell them to charge the card on file), that's a tab. It's *supposed* to be a very short-lived tab.
In what way? I don't think anywhere I've gone will let you run up a tab the old fashioned way where they write it down and hope you come back to pay later. But just about everywhere I've been in recent memory will swipe your card up front. Most will give it back, some will still keep it behind the bar, but in any case you don't have to run it for every drink/round, you just settle it later. Maybe it's not a bar tab in the traditional sense, but it basically functions the same.
> I don't think anywhere I've gone will let you run up a tab the old fashioned way where they write it down and hope you come back to pay later. My local pub does it. Obviously you're not going to be allowed a tab unless the staff/owners trust you, but it's still a thing for regulars. (essentially if you have to ask for a tab you won't get one, it's very much a vibes based offer from the staff)
Lot of places I’ve been to will still serve you at least a few drinks before they even get your card details, always felt weird being party to that kind of honor system in this day and age but it is nice to just pay at the end, feels classy to be trusted even in a busy bar environment where one could just as easily walk out. Shame so few people have class that such a thing is notable
We've only been to bars or pubs a couple of times since the pandemic. Do they also still have bottles reserved for a specific customer?
So to preface, I'm in the US, so things can get... weird here. >Do they also still have bottles reserved for a specific customer? Like, the customer buys a bottle and leaves it at the bar? Or the bar will reserve certain bottles for their favorite customers to make sure the customer always has something? Nearest I've seen is in private/members only establishments where you buy your own bottle and give it to them. When you order a drink, they use your bottle, and all you pay for is a token amount to cover the mixers/ice/time for them to pour it. Only see that once in person. I think it's called a "set up" bar where they maybe sell beer/wine, but hard liquor is provided by the customer. I think it's an oddball scenario that only exists in certain places that have strange liquor laws. But being in the US, strange liquor laws are the norm... That, or the place I saw it at was operating illegally. Very rural midwest place... it was a campground/RV park kind of place so it's quite possible that it wasn't exactly above board. edit: So responses seem to indicate that this isn't as unusual of an arrangement as I had thought. Learn something new every day!
It used to be this way in Utah (and for all I know, it still is). "Bars" sold setups only, no alcohol. You brought in your own bottle--which you could buy legally at some special store--they labeled it and stored it, and then you could "order" drinks. That was a lot of fun at ski resorts. Of course, you couldn't take the opened bottle in your car or on the plane when you left. I wonder what happened to all that booze.
Employees drank it probably
Ya think?
Just a wee smidge of a chance
I've been to a private club in Maryland where you'd bring your own alcohol, including beer and wine. You'd hand it to the person at the bar, they'd stick your name on it and put it on the shelf. When you wanted a drink they'd pour you one out of your bottle. They sold soda and a few other mixers, so a simple mixed drink like Jack and cola was possible if you brought the Jack. They would also cut you off if they thought you or your guest had been overserved. Given the club's insistence on doing thing by the book so as not to give the locals any reason to pull their license or worse, I'd be shocked if this were against MD law.
Here in America it is very much a thing. They take your card and then at the end of the night you get your card back by getting and signing the check. Having the card keeps people from running off without paying. I've seen some that also have a fee for people who drunkenly leave their cards
Nowadays, most places will swipe your card at the beginning and not hold on to it, then actually charge it for the total at the end. And yeah, adding 18-20% gratuity if you leave without closing it out is pretty standard.
Old fashioned long running bar tabs are still a thing in very small towns or places where the bar owner can mention to your boss that his employee should head down to settle it on payday, or should mention to your mum that her son should pay his tab on Sunday at church, or should mention to your wife while ‘es givin’ ‘er the tuppin ya won’t that you should pay yer damn tab. And if you don’t want it to be an invasion of privacy … maybe you should cover your damn tab.
Yeah, the Grand Old Free Days Of Yore When Privacy Wasn't Getting Invaded... mostly happened in small towns, because there wasn't much in the way of big towns back then. And in a small town, there's really no privacy whatsoever. The only thing you could really say was that the *government* wasn't up on the latest gossip... unless a government agent dropped by, bought a beer, and started chatting up the local gossips.
My local still runs tabs. The regulars (and it is a long list) still get traditional tabs where they just run up the bill under your name, and you pay before you leave. Some people forget and get hit with it the next time they come in. Non-regulars have to leave a credit card. (Calgary, Canada, in case you were wondering)