You cheap ass, no class motherfuckers!

I bartended a holiday party tonight that had 1000 guests. There was an open bar for 3 1/2 hours. It was a younger crowd (mostly in their 20’s and 30’s). I was busting my ass the whole time - nonstop, and there were many martinis, cosmo’s, L.I. iced teas, margaritas. I figure that I served at least 250 drinks. I made exactly 46 bucks in tips.
Pardon me for this, but
WHAT THE FUCK?!!
There was one group that I made 9 kamikazee shots for - not one freakin dollar. One guy had me make him a lemon drop martini - for which I had to vacate my post to get the sugar - nuthin’.
If I’m making a drink that requires skill, or one that takes longer than most to make (like a lemon drop), I feel that I deserve a tip, particularly at an OPEN bar. You’re not paying for the drink, you fuck, cough up a buck!
I swear, had this party been in New York, I would have made at least $300. People in Los Angeles - they just don’t know how to act.

[clueless]They said the drinks were free! We don’t have to tip!!![/clueless]

Just to let you know, I even tip the girl at the snack bar who doesn’t do anything for me but pour 2 large diet cokes. (ok, it’s only about 40 cents, but still)

Another tipping thread. Whats 15% of nothing? How did the other bartenders make out?

Well, here in Aus where tipping is NOT de rigeur nor ever calculated into the normal course of service, you would have done very well indeed to have made $46 extra on your wages that night.

Count your blessings dude. :stuck_out_tongue:

buncha young cheap pricks, probably first time they ever got free liquor

I’ve worked these before. The venue I worked at had a gratuity built into any open bar situation. Had I been there, I wouldn’t have tipped knowing the tip was built into the final bill. How long have you worked there? Are you relatively new to bartending? Find out about the built-in tip. If there is none, your employer is the cheap ass fuck. lemme know where it is, next time I’m in SoCal I’ll come shit on the manager’s desk

So now you’ve learned an important lesson. You’ll charge more for your services next time.

This past summer I was a volunteer bartender at an open wine-and-beer bar for a “South Seas Island”-themed art fundraiser. It was held outside, it was chilly, it rained, and I was wearing a grass skirt and bikini top. There were two other girls at my station with me, and when all was said and done we walked away with $12 each in tips.

However, the main difference here is that we were volunteering, and in addition to being committed to being cold, wet, and footsore for the evening, we sort of assumed we wouldn’t make big tips: the drinks were already paid for, so people might not have been necessarily thinking of giving us money as their wallets weren’t already out and in their hands. Also, unlike you, we were not actually mixing drinks… we just stood there and poured. (Heh, we were actually drinking about as much as we were pouring; hardly professional bartenders we!)

I think the people at your party should have been a bit more generous, as you were really working, and obviously working hard, to make their evening nice. That really did show a lack of thoughtfulness on their part. And although there’s nothing graven in stone that says you have to tip on a percentage of nothing, it seems to me a bit mean not to show appreciation for your effort. Shame on them!

I guess I must be no-class because it would never occur to me to tip in such a situation. I would have assumed that it was all covered, since it was an open bar.

Of course, I don’t drink anyway, so it’s not likely to come up.

Just to let you know, I’d tip any bartender wearing a bikini top.

Haj

Same here, wouldn’t even cross my mind. And i always tip bartenders at the normal bar i frequent. Free is free, if im giving you money then its not free.

I guess I fall into the clueless class too. I don’t see open bars much (almost never), and I wouldn’t have known to tip.

Of course, if there was a big tip jar there, it might have clued me in…

I think FairyChatMom has something there. I’d suppose that for some folks “Open Bar” means “I don’t even have to have my wallet out, because it’s already paid”. This translates easily into “No money from me”.

I’m sorry that you didn’t do as well as you expected. IMO, it was probably a case where they didn’t know any better (since it was a young crowd), rather than being cheap.

FB

Heh, heh, heh… yeah, we were kind of wondering if that might increase the take-home, as it were! :smiley:

If I’m throwing the party and I hire a bartender to staff my free bar, I would tip the bartender an amount appropriate for the job he or she does (I don’t think I could expect my guests to know to tip, though I probably would). Are my guests bitching about the drinks? No? Bigger tip. Did my guests drink a lot, or for a long time? Same thing. Guess I view it more like if I’m buying drinks for my friends at a bar, since that’s really what I’m doing. Just a lot more friends.

Thanks for listening to a newbie . . .

What county said. Professionally and personally I attended a lot more “open bar” scenarios in my 30’s and 40’s than I ever did did my 20’s. I’ll wager the majority of those tips came from the older attendees.

I always tip…

as a matter of fact I always over tip…
but, these people are guests…

the host should have taken care of you…

when someone features an open mic…they pass the hat…
lucky to get $40.00…$20.00 even…

and the funny part about that is that the crowd is usually mostly other writers and musicians…

You would think that they would dig a little deeper…

nature of the beast I suppose…

Merry Christmas man…
I hope the tips get better for ya,
Joe

Southerner here. I would never expect my guests to tip the bartender at an open bar at my party. She or he is my employee for the evening and is there to serve as a convenience to me. Expecting my guests to pay for anything would be considered crass.

In other parts of the country, tipping at a private party may be considered de rigueur and I would go along.

It is not a matter of cheapness. It has more to do with custom. Maybe the custom there is simply to pay someone to perform a service.

Sorry you were disappointed.

Oops. My husband’s director bought a drink for everyone last night, and we didn’t tip. I didn’t know we were supposed to.

[hijack][sub]psst[/sub], joro. Welcome to the Boards. But don’t feel you have to use up all the periods. Conserve, man, conserve! Leave some for the rest of us.[/hijack]

I agree. If it’s your place, and a more intimate setting, your guests need only worry about having fun. But the OP was talking about a large (1000 guests) party, probably thrown in a hotel or office building, not something at somebody’s house or country club. Also, he/she actually did collect some tips, so a tip jar must have been in evidence, unless the OP created one for him/herself.

This tells me that the host/employer expected the bartender to fend for him/herself as far as tips were concerned, and was either unwilling or unable to include a tip himself for his staff; and that, as I said before, the guests were rather thoughtless. A tip jar at a function like that would clue me in to the fact that the bartender wasn’t getting anything extra from his/her employer, and that I might want to show that bartender my appreciation by kicking in a couple extra bucks.