5 tips for interviewing server & bartender 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:

Why?

Because it helps customers order faster, which can mean better beer sales for you and a better experience for them.

Beer drinkers generally know what kind of beer they want when they walk through the door.

For example, summertime me is looking for something hoppy. There's no world where I'll get a sour, stout, or amber. But, of course, some folks avoid IPAs at all costs.

If I see a section called "Hoppy" on the menu, I go there straightaway: "awesome, no need to scan the whole menu." For those IPA haters, if they see that "Hoppy" section, they can just skip on by: "ok, great, I'll just go find the section I'm looking for."

In each case, sorting the beer by style makes it easier for customers to find the beer they want. And that's a great thing for them and for your beer sales.

How?

You can do this manually. How you'd implement it depends on what works for your team, but it could look like this:

• Create an editable menu doc in Google Docs, Word, Powerpoint, or whatever and give everyone who needs it editing access.
• Make the beer style menu sections you need: Hoppy, Crisp & Bright, Toasted & Nutty, Dark & Roasted, Fruity & Spicy, Tart & Funky.
• Copy and paste your beer (and the beer info!) into the relevant category.
• Anytime your beer selection changes, delete the beer that's gone, then add new beers to the relevant category.

It certainly takes some time, but doing this would definitely be worth it.

• Huge new brewing tanks for Labatt clogged up roads across southern Ontario this week. The tanks came off ships, went onto trucks as wideloads, and finally arrived at the Labatt facility in London, ON.
• It's behind a paywall, but The Atlantic published an interesting article about a restaurant that lashes out at customers who leave bad reviews.
• This week new Michelin stars were awarded for restaurants in D.C., NYC, and CHI.
• In Louisville a precinct voted to ban liquor sales in Tuesday's election. Pretty weird move in the city most closely tied to bourbon country, but it was evidently undertaken to shut down one bar. Neighbors "associate crime and nuisance behavior with the presence of Virtue Bar and Lounge."