You're 86

Let's face it, our industry is unhealthy. We're physically exhausted, we don't sleep well, we keep weird hours, we live on salty junk food and we drink all the time. We have to bring the party, it's our job, but we often get lost in the party. We become the party and we don't know when the party ends. We all feel like we will live forever and we can keep going and never stop, but sooner or later it's going to catch up with us. Our unhealthy lifestyle is not sustainable, but staying healthy is really challenging.

Our industry doesn't have to be so unhealthy and although it seems impossible to get better, we can make huge progress just by making some simple changes. It doesn't mean the party has to end, we just need a little more balance. My guest, Tanya Clark, had many great suggestions for small things you can change that will make your life as a bartender much better, healthier and more balanced.

Tanya has been in the industry for 14 years and she knows how unhealthy and unsustainable this job can be and how little support there is for bartenders and hospitality workers. She's seen close friends and colleagues suffer serious medical issues as a result. A few years ago she felt she needed to do something about it and on a whim attended a yoga class. She knew right away that she found what she was looking for.  Recently, Tanya became an operating owner and partner at MOXIE Yoga & Fitness in San Francisco, where we recorded this episode.

 

Tanya is also the founder of Jigger and Dash Wellness, a health and wellness program aimed at serving the hospitality industry. Tanya leads yoga and fitness classes, as well as talks about mental health and financial planning that fit the schedule and needs of  working bartenders. "Self care should be more of a priority than a luxury," Tanya said, "Because if you don't take care of yourself, how do you expect to take care of anyone else?"

Tanya's next table talk event is on April 29th, and is about core values and beliefs and how they affect our emotional welfare. Check out my interview with her in the above player, on this page or wherever podcasts are found. Tanya had incredibly valuable advice about getting motivated to exercise, easy strategies for eating better at work, drinking less but still feeling included and much, much more.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast in your favorite player, we have great conversations with bartenders every week about staying healthy and all of the challenges we face in this industry. More importantly, share us with your friends and colleagues, this is such good advice and I think it can really help make our industry better. Stay tuned for more!

Cheers!

Slow nights are a blessing and a curse

Hey folks! I thought I'd try something new for this episode. I got some feedback and I decided to start doing shorter summery style episodes every few episodes. There is a ton of information in the interviews and it's hard to remember everything, so I'll lay out the key points in these recap episodes to make it easier to remember. We learn better through repetition anyway. So what have we learned so far?

Maybe I'll turn all of this into a book or training seminar someday. We'll see where it goes. You're 86 is always evolving and the goal is to help our industry grow. Please leave comments below or email me with any suggestions. I welcome the feedback and want to know what you're interested in.

So check out the much shorter Episode 4.5 in the player below, on this page, or wherever podcasts are found. Make sure to hit subscribe and share us with your friends and colleagues. Read on after the break for some quick tips about everything we've learned so far

 

Below, you'll find some quick tips for dealing with the situations we've talked about so far. Think of it as a reference guide. You can even print it out if you want to.

Counterfeit Money

Get to know the security features of your currency.

Play it safe! Don't put anyone at risk over $20 or $100.

Don't draw extra attention to the situation. Don't take the counterfeit bill if you don't have to, but don't do anything risky.

Don't give counterfeit notes to anyone except law enforcement. You could be jailed or fined otherwise.

Keep counterfeit notes separate from other currency in an envelope or plastic bag. Initial and date the bill in the margin. Write down a good description of what happened and who was involved.

Management Challenges

Maintain awareness and stop problems before they happen.

Be ready to listen and have empathy when problems do arise. See bad situations as opportunities for growth.

Don't fill your staff with only industry veterans. Balance your team out with people with a variety of talents and passions.

Don't manage from the top down. Listen to your staff and let your bar or restaurant grow and change with them.

Maintain a good work/life balance. Nurture relationships outside of the industry.

Bar Injuries

For cuts: Rinse the area around the cut with soap and water, apply pressure with clean gauze until the bleeding stops, cover the wound. If you are impaled by an object, don't pull it out. Stabilize the object and go to the hospital.

For burns: Gently rinse the burn under cool flowing water for several minutes, cover if necessary. Go to the hospital if you have significant skin damage.

Some chemical burns react badly to water. Read the labels on your cleaning products and chemicals.

If you sustain a head injury, get checked out by a doctor. If you have a headache and it gets worse, go to a hospital immediately.

If you suspect you have a sprain or broken bone, stabilize the affected area and go to the hospital. Don't finish your shift out.

Wear supportive shoes, drink lots of water and get good sleep.

 

Date Rape and Violence

Maintain awareness and do your best to create a safe environment for your staff and guests.

If someone seems to be drugged, separate them, seek medical attention and don't let them leave with anyone that is not a trusted friend or colleague. Set their drink aside to be tested.

Have a plan for violent or dangerous situations. Talk with your staff and be prepared

If your bar experiences traumatic events, support each other, seek help or keep talking about it together.

 

I've always found it ironic that our business is to sell people alcohol, but we also have to make sure they don't get too drunk. We want them to buy more so we make more money, but we can't sell them too much because it causes problems—The worst being that they will kill themselves or someone else. The drunker they get, the more childish they become, and have you ever tried to tell a child they can't have more of something they want? It doesn't go well. At least children are tiny and tire easily. Drunk adults have a much greater capacity for bullshit and it falls on us bartenders to deal with it.

Cutting off guests who've had too much is one of the most common challenges bartenders have to face on a daily basis. It's never fun, it's never exactly the same, but if you are prepared and you approach the situation as an opportunity for good hospitality, cutting someone off doesn't have to be a bad thing.

My guest this week, Andrew Meltzer, has had a lot of experience cutting people off and he had some great advice to share. Andrew was the 2016 World Class bartender of the year, president of the San Francisco USBG chapter and he is currently the beverage director at the brand new Noosh restaurant, where we recorded this interview. Before Noosh, Andrew managed 15 Romolo, an amazing Spanish focused bar in the North Beach neighborhood. 15 Romolo is a nice place, but it's literally surrounded by strip clubs and dive bars with loud music. Not that there's anything wrong with those places, it's just that the neighborhood tends to facilitate over doing it and that spills up the alleyway through the doors of the bar.

Check out my interview with Andrew in the player below, on this page or wherever podcasts are found. Make sure to hit subscribe to stay up to date with all of our great conversations about the biggest challenges in bartending. Read on after the break for some more in depth advice about cutting off drunk customers.

 

We bartenders are responsible for the safety of our guests and we have an obligation to make sure nothing bad happens as a result of us serving alcohol. "Say that person goes out and causes damage or drives their car drunk and kills somebody," Andrew said, "There are laws that make you liable for even the death or damage." These laws are called Dram Shop Laws, and they are slightly different in different states or countries, but they generally place some level of legal liability on either the staff, the establishment or both for the actions of guests who are over served and cause damage.

Legality aside, we all just want our guests to be happy and have a fun, safe time, and if someone is over served and potentially in danger, it's not good for anyone. As uncomfortable as cutting people off can be, it's an amazing opportunity to provide great service to our guests. They might not realize it in the moment, but if you prevent someone from getting hurt or even just make their next morning a little better by cutting them off, they'll thank you later. Maybe they won't say it, maybe they won't even come back, but they'll know that you were looking out for them. "If you realize that you were taken care of and somebody cut you off for a good reason," Andrew said, "You're actually, probably going to come back. You're like, 'You know, those guys take care of me. I'm gonna go back, I'm even gonna tip them bigger next time."

So with all of this in mind, what are the best methods for cutting people off? Andrew had some great advice on this, basically you just need to be prepared. Here are some key tips for successfully cutting someone off.

Cherry leaf, black currant, oregano tea—One of the non-alcoholic options at Noosh.

Be sober - You cannot accurately judge someone else's sobriety if you are intoxicated. Also, be your best self at work.

The idea behind pretty much every bar is essentially the same: Create an enjoyable environment for people to come have drinks or food. This is our business. Maybe some bars don't play the music you like, some bars don't serve the food you like, some bars don't play the sports games you like, it's impossible to please everyone all the time, of course, but the idea is still pretty much the same.

Unfortunately, sometimes guests have a different idea of what the bar is supposed to be. Some people go to bars to start fights and act out their aggression, some people go to bars to coerce women and men into having sex with them and some people use our bars as a platform to push their political agenda. This is an unfortunate reality that bartenders sometimes have to deal with, and in certain certain markets like Uptown Oakland, Calif., violence is commonplace.

My guest today is Nate Olson. He's worked behind the bar for two decades all across the country: in Minneapolis, Miami, New Orleans and the San Francisco Bay Area. Nate currently manages a lovely Italian restaurant in Oakland called Lungomare. Nate has seen some shit during his tenure, he's had to deal with violence towards himself, his coworkers and between customers. He was managing Oakland's Make Westing bar during the incident last July that involved death threats, Proud Boys, riot police and protesters. We will dive more into this incident and other violent situations after the break.

It is unfortunate and sad that acts of violence sometimes happen at our bars, and it's extremely hard to know what to do. Every situation is different, but hopefully if we hear more about what others have done in the past, we will be able to handle these situations better in the future. Nate had a lot of great advice about what worked for him and what he would do differently. Check out my interview with Nate in the player below, on this page or wherever podcasts are found.

 

Honestly, I'm not an expert on violent situations and I've been fortunate myself to not be involved in very many. Every situation is totally different, which makes it so hard to know what to do. Experience helps, of course, but if the situation turns violent, it could be your last experience. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 138 fatalities in our industry in 2017. Many of those were the result of violence. Just a few weeks ago, four people were shot inside of the Halftime Sports Bar in downtown Oakland. My hope is that by learning from the experience of others we can better handle these situations ourselves, or even prevent them from happening altogether. Nate shared his experiences with some pretty traumatic violence. I want to get into these specific events a little bit more here.

Date rape drugs and how to spot the signs

Ambien, a prescription sleep aid, is one of the most common date rape drugs mixed with alcohol. Photo: WebMD

Alcohol is the most common date rape drug. It lowers inhibitions, reduces coordination and makes people do stupid things. Alcohol is our business though, and most of us are pretty well aware of its affects and how to be safe about serving it. We know what to look out for when it comes to alcohol, but when alcohol is mixed with other drugs, things can get dangerous.

A variety of different drugs are used in these situations and they come in different forms. Zolpidem, the sleep aid drug known as Ambien is the most common, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Other drugs, including various benzodiazepines like Valium and Xanex, Rohypnol, and GHB and its derivatives have also been well documented. All of these drugs cause severe reactions when mixed with alcohol, including severe loss of coordination, inhibition, short term memory loss and in high enough doses, heart and respiratory failure.

Bars can be dangerous places, especially for those of us who work behind them. Cuts and scrapes, burns, slips and falls are all quite common injuries, and sometimes bartenders suffer even weirder injuries like bar spoon puncture wounds.

There are few phrases I want to hear less than, "I want to speak to the manager!" In this episode, I got to sit down with my long-time friend and colleague James Butler, and talk with him about the challenges he has faced as a manager in the bar and restaurant industry here in San Francisco.

Hey, Episode 0 is finally here! Thanks so much for tuning in and checking us out! Normally I will interview a different bartender every week, but in this episode I'm just at home hanging out with my dog (see photo), and I wanted to briefly introduced myself and the show, and share a story about how I poorly handled a situation with counterfeit money. You can find Episode 0 in the player below or you can subscribe to the You’re 86 Podcast on this page or wherever podcasts are found.

Since I already introduced the show in the previous welcome post, I'll just dive right into the intricacies of counterfeit currency in this post. What do you do about counterfeit money? Definitely not what I did, listen and read on to find out more.

Counterfeit currency is an unfortunate issue that we sometimes have to deal with in our industry. The United States Secret Service, which was originally formed to combat counterfeiting, reported that more than 73 million counterfeit US dollars were prevented from circulation in 2017 alone. Although maybe not the most common situation to arise at our bars, it’s important to know what we should do if it does. I certainly didn’t know what to do when I found myself in a counterfeit money situation when I was working at a bar called The Interval in San Francisco. I’ll tell you what I did, then what was wrong about it and what to do better next time.

Here's what happened to me

It was around 5:30 pm on a summer Thursday night. I was in our little prep room in the back of the bar washing glassware or something when my coworker came in and told me there was a customer making her very uncomfortable and asked if I could handle it. Of course I was happy to help her, but wasn’t sure what I was about to get into.

I went out to the front and found an extremely nervous looking, balding, middle-aged man in a fleece vest standing near the POS. I cheerfully asked him how he was doing and what I could get for him. He was so nervous and awkward that he could barely respond, but he managed to order a cup of tea(which cost $4, the second cheapest drink on the menu).

US bills of $5 denominations higher that were printed in the early 1990's or later will have this security thread. This guy's $100 did not have it.

 

He then nervously fumbled through his wallet and produced a $100 bill. I didn’t even need to look at the bill to know it was a fake, it was obvious that was what he was so nervous about. I took the bill from him, confirmed it was a fake by the lack of security strip(see image), opened the cash drawer and told him that I didn’t have change for $100 because it was the beginning of the shift. I gave the bill back to him, he paid with a $5 bill, took his tea to-go and left.

 

I thought it was over, but then one of our more unique regulars, who was sitting at the bar while this interaction took place, suddenly took way too much interest in the situation and started questioning me about it. When I wouldn’t tell him anything other than, “It’s over, I handled it, I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he decided to get up and tail the guy through the neighborhood, warning other businesses about this man's alleged scheme. Our regular came back to the bar a couple of hours later and recounted his valiant tale of vigilantism. Fortunately nothing really bad happened, but much of this could have been avoided had I handled the situation better.

What I did right, wrong and what I should have done

I was right to try to get him to leave, as he was already making my coworker feel uncomfortable. Safety was my main concern and it should be your main concern too.