Why do bartenders ring bells occasionally in bars?
Is it true its done when they receive an especially
generous tip? Or, as some claim, does it mean someone has
bought a round for the house?
They are usually calling a waitress to come pick up their order.
Depends on the bar. In a lot of bars, if it’s a big ol’ brass bell, it does indeed mean that somebody has tipped the bartender generously. In my bartending days, a dollar was enough to ring the bell. Then again, that was close to 20 years ago, so the ante may have gone up. It’s a gimmick that bartenders like to use to increase the cashflow…people get buzzed, they want to hear the bell go clang!, so they lay a big time on the bartender. The ones for calling the waitresses tend to be the little ‘hotel-clerk-calling-a-bellboy’ type bell.
If you really want to know what it means where YOU go, tho, ask the bartender.
It also makes the customer feel like a big shot, in a subliminal way.
In my bartending days we would knock on the bar as we collected the tip. It gave us a easy way to grab the money and also made the customer feel like he/she was getting ‘special’ attention. Anything simple to do and strokes the customer means more money for me in the long run.
I thought I’d seen this earlier… This thread discussed the same topic.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=15882