The Customer is Always Right... until they're not

The customer is always… go ahead, I know you know the rest. Go ahead and fill it in. The customer is always right. The truth is that phrase is not just a reasonable sounding bit of folk wisdom, in fact most companies I have worked for have that exact rule, or a similarly worded one in the employee handbook. There is always something in the book about “the guest experience being the most important part,” or “the guest being in charge of the experience,” of the restaurant. And for the most part I agree. When the customers dine with us they should feel comfortable, at home, and very much taken care of. After all, we are the service industry. We are, very much, at their service. In short the customer is always right…

…right up until the point that they’re not. The customer is always right within reason. There are a few instances when the customers’ wishes should not just be left unfulfilled but should be completely contradicted. I wanted to pen a little something here because navigating where and when you should ignore or contradict the customer is a hard thing to judge. This is especially true for new bartenders. When I was first starting out I would constantly be worried about whether or not my decisions would make the customers, or even worse, one of my various bosses angry. One instance where you might need to act contrary to the customer’s wishes is when dealing with alcohol.

When it comes to the frequency of ordering alcohol and the quantity expected to be imbibed I’ve found people’s decision making processes to be suspect, even before they start drinking. In my years behind the bar I’ve had to, on occasion, cut people off. And I can tell you from experience it is never not weird. One reason for this is that you are dealing with an intoxicated person, but I would assume another more pervasive reason is that we have been taught to bend over backward for the customer, regardless of how nonsensical their requests. So its a jarring and somewhat contradictory experience to suddenly give the customer a hard no.

I think its important to note that I am not trying to give you strategies on how to prevent over-serving. I won’t be outlining the signs of drunkeness, nor giving you a calculus of how much a person can drink in relation to their body mass index. There are plenty of resources out there designed to give you that precise information. And many of you, I’m sure, have already taken classes or attended training on how to safely serve alcohol. Those types of classes always felt only marginally useful to me. They tell you when to cut someone off, but they don’t tell you what that really entails. They don't mention that when you cut someone off they might swing on you, or call you all manner of foul names, or threaten your life. So instead I want to chat a bit about what that side of the business looks like.

Aside from the big stuff like slurred speech, or loss of motor skills, figuring out where the line is can be a difficult. What constitutes drunken behavior is culturally contingent. What gets someone cutoff in Detroit is vastly different from what gets someone cutoff in New Orleans. And depending on where you work the rules can vary a bit. And let me say up front most times when you cut a person off they will comply quietly, even sheepishly. Sometimes, however, they’ll get angry and/or combative and may even try to bargain with you. It is important to hold your ground in these moments, especially if you are the only person on the floor. If the customers think they can push you around, they will. (This is where the threats and shouting come in.) To be a good bartender you have to find that balance between being firm and emotionally detached. It won’t do you any good to get worked up. It’ll only result in goading them on, and raising your own blood pressure.

Exactly why people have such a push back against being cut off is something I am still trying to figure out. I imagine it has something to do with our cultural relationship to alcohol. On a fundamental level we believe alcohol is inherently valuable. One look at a cocktail menu will tell you that. A drink generally costs more per ounce if it has a higher percentage of alcohol than a lower one. But it is not just monetary value that we are talking about. Generally it’s considered better to have a high tolerance than a low one. We poke fun of people who “can’t hold liquor,” or we feel the need to comment on someone being a “cheap date,” when they don’t drink.

Alcohol is used to demarcate both celebration and mourning, to toast our successes, and drown our failures, to christen new endeavors and to pour one out for the homies. Think of how many people use it every week for religious purposes. Alcohol may be considered a vice, but these examples prove that it is also important. Given that importance and pervasive quality we give alcohol, I suppose it makes sense that when people are cut off they would have a certain amount of push back, but I imagine the more severe behavior, the threats and the insults, are due to something we as bartenders should always keep in mind. Alcohol is an addictive substance.

We as alcohol purveyors are in a unique and somewhat contradictory position. Alcohol is an addictive substance that can alter moods, lower inhibitions and if overindulged in can be very destructive. Bartenders are in the business of making people unable to operate heavy machinery, give consent, or in some cases walk a straight line. We are in the business of making people, in a word, vulnerable and as such we owe those people our vigilance in making sure they are safe, and are not making bad decisions.

The House (the organization you work for) and the culture more generally, will give you this contradictory role most likely without ever acknowledging the contradiction. They tell you the customer is always right, that we should bend over backward to satisfy them but also that we should never over-serve them. They will pressure you to up-sell but also pressure you to never put more than one drink down in front of someone, or not to serve them more than one an hour. Side note: This is cuckoo-bananas. If I had to sit in a restaurant for an hour to get a second drink, I would walk out.

We are supposed to give out a substance that makes people unable to drive, but send them home when they get too drunk. In many states we are the ones liable if those people go out and get in a car accident. As bartenders we are like the ring master of a drunk circus, and we need to make sure that we are always striving to keep things running smoothly. Do our job too well and people get out of control. Don’t do it well enough and The House will be mad at you for not making the sale, and alienating the customers. 

To be a good bartender, you will have to be one-part salesman, and one-part caretaker. And threading that needle means you have to be alert, gauging your customer’s condition, and second guessing whether what the customer wants is actually what is best for them and the bar more generally. In other words, in relation to serving alcohol, it is not the customer who is right, nor The House with its split agenda of pleasing the customer, making the sale, and not over-serving. Rather I would argue that when it comes to serving alcohol, it is the bartender who is always right, because it is we who are legally, and more importantly morally, responsible for the results of that alcohol.