Bartending as a 19-year-old

For the next few weeks we’re going to feature clips from an interview with Alicia Rogers, bar manager at Jeremiah’s Tavern.

She’s got plenty of experience and tips relating to cocktail menu-making, staff building, and all the things a successful bar manager needs to ace, but in this week’s clip Alicia talked about her service industry experience and background.

Stuff like this is fun to hear, since anyone with service industry experience can relate. For example:

• She got into the industry at 16 so she could buy a car. It was a 1993 Grand Am. Top-of-the-line stuff.
• She started as a host, of course. Since then she's worked every FOH job there is.
• At 19 she learned to bartend from her sister. They worked at the same place and whenever there was a slow time her sister would call her over for an impromptu workshop.

Who among us hasn't driven friends around in a 2-door Grand Am (or similar)? Check out the interview clip for more on that and also how Alicia just couldn't ever fully leave the industry.

Why?

To instill confidence in customers that your menu is accurate, which can increase sales.

Beer drinkers have learned not to trust menus at places with rotating selections. We’ve been burned too many times by “oh, sorry, that keg kicked yesterday” to really trust the accuracy of the paper in front of us.

One way you can combat that jaded feeling is by time-stamping your menu with an “Updated on [date]” footer, header, or subheader. It’s a simple addition that can remove any of the negative feelings customers (and bartenders) get when a menu-listed beer isn’t actually available.

How?

First off, only do this if you’re actually providing an up-to-date menu (no "ask or server about rotating drafts" or similar) and your selection rotates regularly (at least a couple times per month). A time stamp from a month ago isn’t additive.

If you are providing an up-to-date menu and your selection regularly rotates, then just add a timestamp—e.g. ”Updated August 17”—to your menu.

You could do this manually—drop it into the footer or subheader of your menu doc. Going forward, make sure editing the time stamp is a part of your menu updating process. (It's easy to forget when you're moving quickly.)

• Spirits beat beer again in 2023. 2022 was the first year spirits outpaced beer in marketshare, and 2023 was basically a repeat. This despite some rocky performance from premium spirits makers.
• But is Bud Light back? More than a year after Kid Rock started the national Bud Light boycott, it seems like the cloud over AB/InBev is lifting. The conglomerate's shares rose more than 5% this week after Q1 stats showed strong revenue growth. Bud Light sales were still down, but not nearly as much as earlier in the boycott.
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