5 tips for interviewing bartender & server applicants

Ben Wiley is an owner of some of the best bars in Brooklyn, NY, like Bar Great Harry and Glorietta Baldy.

Their beer, wine, cocktail, and spirits lists are always top-tier. And the spaces themselves are homey and comforting. But the thing that really makes Ben's bars special is his staffing: it's obvious his friendly, helpful staff is happy to be there.

In this week's interview, he offered up some tactics for how to interview and make sure you find the right people to put behind your bar. Because nothing’s worse than hiring the wrong person.

Here's some of Ben's advice:

• Draft a list of questions you know you want to ask everyone you interview, and use it in every single one of your interviews. You won't want to take time to do this because you think you can wing it, but do it. It’s worth it. It pays off.
• Update your list of questions periodically. If you’re still using the same list from 5 years ago, you need to spend a little time updating it.
• Invest significant resources in interviewing. Not a crazy amount of time, but it isn’t weird to interview people two or three times. This often isn’t the case with bartender and server interviews, but, again, it pays off.
• Always include idiosyncratic questions when interviewing. This is another one that seems obvious, but if you don’t think through and identify these must-asks ahead of time you’ll forget to ask.
• What does idiosyncratic mean here? Ask questions specific to your business and your needs—e.g. if you need folks to work 12 hour shifts, make sure you ask that. It sucks to think you’ve found a great fit only to find out they’re unable to do something unique to your bar that you forgot to ask about.

Check out the interview clip to hear more from Ben about interviewing, hiring, and more:

Every year Russian River Brewing Company releases Pliny the Younger, their super limited Triple IPA. It’s one of the most sought after beers in the world, mostly because it’s a dialed up version of their Pliny the Elder double IPA, another of the most sought after beers in the world.

When it drops, beer lovers take notice.

The brewery announced last week that distribution to their wholesale partners has already started, and it's slated to turn up for sure at San Francisco Beer Week (Feb 7-Feb 20) and, evidently, a lot of places in Colorado.

Here are more data points about Pliny the Younger:

• 400: The week-over-week % increase in views to Pliny the Younger's page on BeerMenus.com.
• 6: the number of places Pliny the Younger will be distributed to (CA, NV, OR, WA [Seattle], CO, PA [Philly]).
• 10.25: Pliny the Younger's ABV. That's a lot of IPA.
• 1: The batch of Plinys that are currently out there. Russian River will brew a second batch of Pliny the Younger in late-Feb for their in-person release at the brewery in March. So if you're in or near Santa Rosa, CA, stop on by. (That webpage even includes links and promo codes for discounted local hotels.)
• $6.1 million: The total economic impact generated by last year's Pliny the Younger brewery release. That was about $1 million more than the previous year. (Source.)

• The marketshare of spirits outpaced beer for the first time in 2022. The measure was based on supplier revenues, or basically what % of total alcohol revenues came from spirits (42.1%) and what % came from beer (41.9%).
• Here's a neat story about an undiscovered new hop found growing rogue on a farm in Maryland.
• Members of the Oregon Liquor Commission used their connections to buy up bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year, and the Governor has asked for their resignation. Here's how it worked: "[The Pappy distributor] was often asked to divert the liquor to a Milwaukie, OR store close to the agency’s office. The employees were then told the date the product would arrive, so they could contact the business to purchase the set-aside bottles."
• This wild and still unfolding story involves illegally importing rare bourbons from KY to DC and counterfeit Blanton's made in the Netherlands.