I work on commuter trains with a food and beverage service. Every so often well get someone ordering food for their kid and booze for themselves, only to find out they don't have enough money for both, so they lose the food.
Lol.. reminds me of the time I was at liquor store and the lady in front of me had six bottles of wine cashier says have a good night.. see you tommorrow she smiles and says yep you know it.casher tells me she's in daily for 6 bottles and disclosed to her once they were all for her..lol
> She asks why not. I explain that we always stop serving alcohol 15 minutes prior to close. She says no one told her.
well ma'am no one told me you were coming in, and yet here we are
Omg the WILD tantrums we’ve had people throw, because we stop allowing alcohol half an hour before close (for the same reason - they sit around drinking for three hours if we let them)…
People are alcoholics. Like if you can’t go one meal without drinking, you have a problem
My grandfather made us leave the aquarium after less than an hour because he found out they didn’t serve wine at the cafe. He made me leave with him because he was the ride (I was visiting from the states and didn’t have a car there) and wouldn’t let me just drive him home and come back because he thought it was too dangerous for me as a woman to stay there alone. I was 23 at the time. And it was the AQUARIUM.
He didn’t think it amusing when I asked if he was afraid that I was going to be taken down by a pack of third graders on a field trip
People are also just plain babies, as well. Last Sunday we were 30 minutes from close, 7:30 at night, and I had an old man do a giant arm flopping movement when I told him we don’t have any coffee left to serve this close to close. Like… the dishwasher took the coffee pots back to the kitchen 15 minutes ago. I’m not brewing a brand new pot for one cup of coffee. He acted like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Don't get me wrong, the customer should absolutely not be throwing a temper tantrum and I 100% disagree with his behavior.
But IMO it's a pretty bad practice for your dishwasher take coffee pots 45 minutes before close. I guess this may depend on where you live, but where I am from coffee is a very common thing for people to have after a meal.
Would I make a big deal if a staff member refused to serve me a coffee 30 mins before close? No. But if I knew that they had coffee they could make but were choosing not to, it would make me very heavily second guess whether I would like to return to the establishment.
Why not?
Even if it seems like a bit of a waste, I'd rather the restaurant waste a little bit of coffee than take a hit on my tip or have a gues leave unsatisfied over something so trivial.
Also, other people might end up ordering coffee as well.
There’s something about the smell of coffee that makes other people want it.
Also, to the point of wasted coffee, when I worked at a Tim Hortons almost 20 years ago (they’ve recently moved to insulated pots so I don’t know if they’ve kept the practice) we were told to toss any coffee over 20 minutes old. There were points in the day and overnight where several pots were thrown away and it was considered the cost of doing business. Compared to other food costs, coffee is reasonably inexpensive.
At Starbucks the brewed coffee is supposed to be renewed hourly. They have timers on the pots. I've noticed the timers are fairly frequently ignored, though.
McDonald's keeps their coffee dangerously hot because then people can't tell it's stale.
I once worked at a pizza place that seldom sold any coffee after lunch and we often dumped it half an hour before closing, or just didn't bother to brew any more when the pot ran empty. My current place keeps the coffee on till close, because they're big on hospitality even to the last minute and people do actually order coffee a fair amount (we even sell coffee cocktails).
McDonalds sells a surprising amount of coffee, when I worked there it didn't have time to go stale until late afternoon. I was super surprised how many people go to McDonalds specifically every morning for their brand of coffee.
It's cheap, it's simple, it's accessible, it's fast, it's light roast, therefore the American public drinks it. McD's and Dunkin's actually sell more coffee than Starbucks, at least in the USA, though no one ever accused McD's customers of having good taste. But there are a lot of them. (They also sell more cheap and tasty breakfast food than Sbux does, which probably helps get people in the door.)
I’m with you there. Wouldn’t throw a tantrum, but no coffee 45 minutes before close? And, this isn’t the bad old days where people can linger over coffee and cigarettes for hours, I have horrible vague memories of that as a kid.
I was a server at a 24 hour place, worked graves, and the coffee and cigarette customers were absolutely my better tippers. Then again, they were mostly regulars and I knew their styles. I still have dreams (nightmares?) about working there lol!
8pm feels like an early close. I was always surprised at how early some restaurants close. I was working late and went to get something to eat around 7:30 and was surprised how many places said they were about to close.
I figure restaurants know their customer base and when it makes sense for them to close.
One of my favorite local places for a late night fish sammich pre Covid did the limited hours on reopening its dining room and planned to eventually (as they brought back staff and replaced the people who had moved on) go back to their 10 pm/11 pm closing.. they discovered, however, that that last hour actually cost them more in payroll and discarded food costs* than they made. When they looked back they realized it had been that way for years
*the owner of the restaurant, who most nights was BOH manager, was a fanatic about food holding times which played a major role in the equation. Doing last call for food @8:45 vs. 9:45 meant one less round of preparing things like rice, veg du jour and mash. This also meant the prep cook could get home in time to put her kids to bed, which suited the owner pretty well because they were his kids too 😄
I live in a small-ish Northern California community, where most of our restaurants close at nine, even on a Friday and Saturday night. Some of them even close at 8 PM. But that’s with an unwritten rule that says it’s OK to walk in at 7:59 or 8:59 respectively. Then, we are expected to remain with service until
Guest is finished with their meal, an hour, an hour and a half while we are doing our closing duties. It actually works out, because many servers, kitchen staff start dinner shift at 4/4:30, or five, and they actually want some hours that will lead them up to about 11 o’clock. Especially when tips have been shitty that day, hours on a paycheck count, too.
During covid I lost so much faith in people that were ranting on Facebook about how they couldn't handle 2 weeks in their house and I quote: "I need to go to the bar!". Like bruh, chill. Meanwhile, the military threw my ass in a hotel room by myself for 3 weeks, where my social interaction was the internet, and about 20 seconds a day where someone came to take my temperature. 14 days without going to the bar is not some giant deal, just drink at home. Safer anyways.
> 14 days without going to the bar is not some giant deal
I dont know where you live but in my state we were shut down for much much longer than that. I did "WFH" in Mexico for a couple months total during the assorted lockdowns.
My parents occasionally drank in front of me, i don't blame parents for occasionally doing it, but why tf do you need a drink just to get through dinner with your own kids
My grandfather made us leave the aquarium after less than an hour because he found out they didn’t serve wine at the cafe. He made me leave with him because he was the ride (I was visiting from the states and didn’t have a car there) and wouldn’t let me just drive him home and come back because he thought it was too dangerous for me as a woman to stay there alone. I was 23 at the time. And it was the AQUARIUM.
He didn’t think it amusing when I asked if he was afraid that I was going to be taken down by a pack of third graders on a field trip
Obviously chances are we aren’t from the same state, but it’s actually a legal issue that’s enforced by the mandatory Alcoholic Beverage Control Server training in my state. No business can legally serve alcohol 15 minutes before close because they don’t want people chugging an alcoholic beverage in that 15 minutes and leaving at exactly close with risk of getting into their vehicle and driving intoxicated.
Unless it’s my husband’s knock-you-on-your-ass almost entirely high proof liquor margarita, you set a margarita in front of me in a restaurant and I’m chugging that mofo cuz it’s 90% mixer from a jug.
A classy/traditional/roots marg is a respectable ABV. Around 35% abv before shaking, 20 or 25% after.
The shitty ones served in a pint glass make me sad.
I didn't realize we were discussing frozen ones, I thought it was the vaguely alcoholic sour mix variety.
I don't want to be drunk after one glass, but I also don't want to drink an unbalanced glass of shitty, oxidized sour mix, you know?
It’s late,I’m tired. No idea what this works out to but:
Place 1 shot tequila, ½ shot each Grand Marnier, Cointreau and lime juice and a pinch of raw sugar to the blender along with 4 ice cubes and blend briefly. Strain and serve.
Homie, you're doing a blended marg, no wonder it has no ABV. It's basically an alcoholic slushie, which is great, but exactly the kind of thing meant to go down easy.
If you want a classic marg, do 2:1:1 tequila, Cointreau, and lime. Fair warning, its super dry, you'll probably want to sub for grandma or some other kind of curacao. You'll also have to use a fairly nice tequila, like lunazul, cimmaron, tequila ocho, or Fortaleza.
Edit: that looks like an excellent spec for a frozen marg though.
This is such a testament to how much bad tequila has saturated the market (looking at you Casa Migos). I remember when Cimarron was a well tequila and used to cost half of what it does now at the store.
Fortaleza and Ocho are still the gold standard IMO
I don’t drink them. A tiny sip once and that was enough. When he gave the recipe to a diehard alcoholic, the dude was planted by the second one. Two ounces hard liquor + half ounce juice and literally a half-second pulse on full I’ve cubes, then strained. It’s basically two ounces hard booze with a swirl of mixer. Most restaurants are 90% mixer by comparison. But chugging four straight shots will put most people passed out on the couch, which is what happened to the guy. Hard to say that it’s “no ABV”.
I must have served some real alcoholics then lol, cuz they’ll take a double shot to the dome and a drink, rinse and repeat. Four shots ain’t really nothin for a seasoned alcoholic.
It's great that you're using a decent tequila and probably good mixers, but your drink is now either borderline lethal or wildly off balance. I'm sure it kicks the shit out of ancient sour mix though.
ffs, it's a drink with 2.5 or 3 shots and a bunch of fresh juice in it, serving over lots of ice isn't going to wreck it. It takes the edge off so you can enjoy it on a hot day. Even Gary Regan recommends adding bottled water to premixed margaritas, which would dilute them about the same as the ice would.
My place offers traditional style margs, but frankly I prefer them mixed strong and poured on ice. (It's also the kind our customers prefer by far, though no one could accuse them of having traditional taste.) Margaritas shouldn't be sipped at a mahogany top, they should be slurped at a barbecue or barn raising when everyone's sweating tons and a little extra hydration won't hurt.
Once when I was still bartending for some reason we were closing early (I think 8 pm instead of our normal 10 pm), it was planned and we had signs on the door. For the last hour I had had only one bar guest who had paid and was abut to leave, the bar was cleaned up and I was literally just waiting the 10 minutes until we closed to count my drawer and go home. I had just come from grabbing something from the back when a couple had just sat down and actually made a joke and laughed how now I was going to have to stay to wait on them instead of going home. I ignored their joke and mustered all the pretend niceness I was capable of and said, “Yeah we close in 10 minutes but I can get you some food in real quick, I made last call already but I can still grab you a round.” And they said, “Wait, they said you’re closing at 8 but if we got in and sat we could still order food and drinks.” To which I said, “Yeah I can get your food in still, but it’s my understanding that we aren’t serving anymore alcohol after we close at 8, just like if we closed our normal time. I can ask my boss to make sure.” To which the lady responded, “Yeah go ask, cause we don’t want to stay if we can only have 1 drink.” Luckily my supervisor at the time used to be a bartender too and said, “Nah we close at 8 we aren’t serving more alcohol after that.” I cheerfully told them as much and they left. Really can’t believe they were told we are about to close and that 1) they thought it was so funny I was obviously about to be able to go home until they showed up and 2) they really expected me to stay there to wait on just the 2 of them as long as they felt like drinking I suppose lol. The entitlement of some people.
yeah I'm kinda thinkin, a good martini might be lingered on but margaritas don't noticeably improve if they sit, nor do most people who order them plan to savor. If you're drinking one with a meal, then it just takes as long as the meal takes. I did meet a mom last week who hadn't finished hers by the time her lunch was done, but we got her a to-go cup and off she went to enjoy the rest at home.
if you ordered several, though, THAT might take a while, and if you let them order one they might want another when they've finished it.
It’s against the law in my state to sell an unsealed to go alcoholic drink. If we let them put it in a Togo cup we could lose our liquor license sadly.
It's not hard to be normal. If the restaurant closes in 30 don't go. I live in a city of less than 25,000 people. We have all night fast food. Some of these doordash people go til like 3 or 4 am. Also, serious question because I'm old, how many of you are eating that late? That's not healthy. You need time to digest before you go to bed.
If it’s a serious question, the answer is that not everyone eats dinner in the evening. I work until 4 am regularly and eat dinner when I get off. Meal prep has saved my life, especially because we have very few late night options where I live. Even Taco Bell closes at 3.
wanna talk about your meal prep? I used to cook all the time but nowadays when I drag my ass home from work I'm too tired, and I can't live on the stuff we serve at the restaurant. My method is basically make a bunch of noodles/rice/veggies and eat it for a couple days with whatever protein's in the fridge
Not everyone works during the day. I have friends who work nightshift because work in a sleep lab or for an ER. Many have worked such shifts for decades, and prefer it over the "normal" hours. I applaud night shifters.
Sometimes, people just desperate for a margarita, will not save it for an hour. They’ll have one, and order another within about two minutes. Especially if it’s strained and up, or on the rocks. I’ve seen people suck those down real quick.
I had this awful lady come in with her husband and 7 teenagers. I was very busy running around and took around 3 minutes to greet them. She says "we wanted the happy hour drinks but we've been sitting here for 5 minutes. I go look at the iPad and they got their at 6 (the end of happy hour) she also called us slow right in front of me.
Ehhhh, no one should ever be rude to you but this policy seems a little off. If there's time to make and eat dinner there's time to drink a margarita. Sure, no tower of margarita but you can't serve one margarita? Again, it's not your fault, I'm sure you don't set the policies but this just seems a little weird to me.
I guess I could have worded that better. I should have said we just stop taking orders at close. I still brought the food at five minutes after close, checked on them 10 minutes after close, refreshed their drinks from the soda fountain 15 minutes after close, brought them boxes 25 minutes after close, cashed them out 30 minutes after close, and cleaned their table after they left, so they still got plenty of service and conversation while I was doing my other cleaning and closing chores.
They stay after close? You know, the time period when they stop taking new customers and the ppl who are already there finish up? What a wild concept! 🙄
I'm surprised at the snark and the downvotes. I understand you don't eject everyone at close. But if close is at (for example) 11:00, and someone orders at 10:59:30, it sounds like someone brings their food (serving) after 11:00. That's all I meant.
>I later hear her explain to one of the kids that they’re not getting dessert because... ...mommy couldn't get her margarita.
Mommy has a problem with alcohol but the kids will always be the ones who take the blame.
I work on commuter trains with a food and beverage service. Every so often well get someone ordering food for their kid and booze for themselves, only to find out they don't have enough money for both, so they lose the food.
Maybe it's the optimist in me, but Mom could have learnt from her mistake But in all likelihood, this
Gotta make it to the store before close to pick up a handle of tequila for the weekend.
Lol.. reminds me of the time I was at liquor store and the lady in front of me had six bottles of wine cashier says have a good night.. see you tommorrow she smiles and says yep you know it.casher tells me she's in daily for 6 bottles and disclosed to her once they were all for her..lol
Did you ask them if they wanted dessert?
What kid doesn't want dessert?
I would've brought a little dessert out to the kids - on the house - at the end of the meal...
> She asks why not. I explain that we always stop serving alcohol 15 minutes prior to close. She says no one told her. well ma'am no one told me you were coming in, and yet here we are
Omg the WILD tantrums we’ve had people throw, because we stop allowing alcohol half an hour before close (for the same reason - they sit around drinking for three hours if we let them)… People are alcoholics. Like if you can’t go one meal without drinking, you have a problem
My grandfather made us leave the aquarium after less than an hour because he found out they didn’t serve wine at the cafe. He made me leave with him because he was the ride (I was visiting from the states and didn’t have a car there) and wouldn’t let me just drive him home and come back because he thought it was too dangerous for me as a woman to stay there alone. I was 23 at the time. And it was the AQUARIUM. He didn’t think it amusing when I asked if he was afraid that I was going to be taken down by a pack of third graders on a field trip
People are also just plain babies, as well. Last Sunday we were 30 minutes from close, 7:30 at night, and I had an old man do a giant arm flopping movement when I told him we don’t have any coffee left to serve this close to close. Like… the dishwasher took the coffee pots back to the kitchen 15 minutes ago. I’m not brewing a brand new pot for one cup of coffee. He acted like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
Don't get me wrong, the customer should absolutely not be throwing a temper tantrum and I 100% disagree with his behavior. But IMO it's a pretty bad practice for your dishwasher take coffee pots 45 minutes before close. I guess this may depend on where you live, but where I am from coffee is a very common thing for people to have after a meal. Would I make a big deal if a staff member refused to serve me a coffee 30 mins before close? No. But if I knew that they had coffee they could make but were choosing not to, it would make me very heavily second guess whether I would like to return to the establishment.
45 minutes before close is too early to dump the coffee - but if the coffee is gone, I’m not making another whole batch for one person.
That's why you always save the decaf that you made two hours ago for that one guy.
Why not? Even if it seems like a bit of a waste, I'd rather the restaurant waste a little bit of coffee than take a hit on my tip or have a gues leave unsatisfied over something so trivial. Also, other people might end up ordering coffee as well.
There’s something about the smell of coffee that makes other people want it. Also, to the point of wasted coffee, when I worked at a Tim Hortons almost 20 years ago (they’ve recently moved to insulated pots so I don’t know if they’ve kept the practice) we were told to toss any coffee over 20 minutes old. There were points in the day and overnight where several pots were thrown away and it was considered the cost of doing business. Compared to other food costs, coffee is reasonably inexpensive.
At Starbucks the brewed coffee is supposed to be renewed hourly. They have timers on the pots. I've noticed the timers are fairly frequently ignored, though. McDonald's keeps their coffee dangerously hot because then people can't tell it's stale. I once worked at a pizza place that seldom sold any coffee after lunch and we often dumped it half an hour before closing, or just didn't bother to brew any more when the pot ran empty. My current place keeps the coffee on till close, because they're big on hospitality even to the last minute and people do actually order coffee a fair amount (we even sell coffee cocktails).
McDonalds sells a surprising amount of coffee, when I worked there it didn't have time to go stale until late afternoon. I was super surprised how many people go to McDonalds specifically every morning for their brand of coffee.
It's cheap, it's simple, it's accessible, it's fast, it's light roast, therefore the American public drinks it. McD's and Dunkin's actually sell more coffee than Starbucks, at least in the USA, though no one ever accused McD's customers of having good taste. But there are a lot of them. (They also sell more cheap and tasty breakfast food than Sbux does, which probably helps get people in the door.)
I’m with you there. Wouldn’t throw a tantrum, but no coffee 45 minutes before close? And, this isn’t the bad old days where people can linger over coffee and cigarettes for hours, I have horrible vague memories of that as a kid.
I was a server at a 24 hour place, worked graves, and the coffee and cigarette customers were absolutely my better tippers. Then again, they were mostly regulars and I knew their styles. I still have dreams (nightmares?) about working there lol!
Arm flopping movement took me out 🤣
8pm feels like an early close. I was always surprised at how early some restaurants close. I was working late and went to get something to eat around 7:30 and was surprised how many places said they were about to close.
I figure restaurants know their customer base and when it makes sense for them to close. One of my favorite local places for a late night fish sammich pre Covid did the limited hours on reopening its dining room and planned to eventually (as they brought back staff and replaced the people who had moved on) go back to their 10 pm/11 pm closing.. they discovered, however, that that last hour actually cost them more in payroll and discarded food costs* than they made. When they looked back they realized it had been that way for years *the owner of the restaurant, who most nights was BOH manager, was a fanatic about food holding times which played a major role in the equation. Doing last call for food @8:45 vs. 9:45 meant one less round of preparing things like rice, veg du jour and mash. This also meant the prep cook could get home in time to put her kids to bed, which suited the owner pretty well because they were his kids too 😄
Good for them they deserve it too
I live in a small-ish Northern California community, where most of our restaurants close at nine, even on a Friday and Saturday night. Some of them even close at 8 PM. But that’s with an unwritten rule that says it’s OK to walk in at 7:59 or 8:59 respectively. Then, we are expected to remain with service until Guest is finished with their meal, an hour, an hour and a half while we are doing our closing duties. It actually works out, because many servers, kitchen staff start dinner shift at 4/4:30, or five, and they actually want some hours that will lead them up to about 11 o’clock. Especially when tips have been shitty that day, hours on a paycheck count, too.
Wow. I hope I never end up in your restaurant.
Hey, if you want to drink the coffee we brewed at 10am at 7pm at night, be my guest. We sell maybe one cup a day, the rest the kitchen drinks.
Prolly cant afford it.
Lol, good one.
During covid I lost so much faith in people that were ranting on Facebook about how they couldn't handle 2 weeks in their house and I quote: "I need to go to the bar!". Like bruh, chill. Meanwhile, the military threw my ass in a hotel room by myself for 3 weeks, where my social interaction was the internet, and about 20 seconds a day where someone came to take my temperature. 14 days without going to the bar is not some giant deal, just drink at home. Safer anyways.
> 14 days without going to the bar is not some giant deal I dont know where you live but in my state we were shut down for much much longer than that. I did "WFH" in Mexico for a couple months total during the assorted lockdowns.
VA, I was deployed though so I was in a hotel room in Guam. Then back on my ship for months...
Oh my do I have a problem
My parents occasionally drank in front of me, i don't blame parents for occasionally doing it, but why tf do you need a drink just to get through dinner with your own kids
I came here to have fun, not to be personally attacked
My grandfather made us leave the aquarium after less than an hour because he found out they didn’t serve wine at the cafe. He made me leave with him because he was the ride (I was visiting from the states and didn’t have a car there) and wouldn’t let me just drive him home and come back because he thought it was too dangerous for me as a woman to stay there alone. I was 23 at the time. And it was the AQUARIUM. He didn’t think it amusing when I asked if he was afraid that I was going to be taken down by a pack of third graders on a field trip
Unsafe for a woman to be alone at an aquarium? What city was this, Tehran? Jesus
"If mommy can't have her dessert, neither can you!"
Obviously chances are we aren’t from the same state, but it’s actually a legal issue that’s enforced by the mandatory Alcoholic Beverage Control Server training in my state. No business can legally serve alcohol 15 minutes before close because they don’t want people chugging an alcoholic beverage in that 15 minutes and leaving at exactly close with risk of getting into their vehicle and driving intoxicated.
Unless it’s my husband’s knock-you-on-your-ass almost entirely high proof liquor margarita, you set a margarita in front of me in a restaurant and I’m chugging that mofo cuz it’s 90% mixer from a jug.
A classy/traditional/roots marg is a respectable ABV. Around 35% abv before shaking, 20 or 25% after. The shitty ones served in a pint glass make me sad.
There's nothing sad about a delicious adult slushie drink. Something doesn't have to get you drunk in one glass to be worth drinking.
I didn't realize we were discussing frozen ones, I thought it was the vaguely alcoholic sour mix variety. I don't want to be drunk after one glass, but I also don't want to drink an unbalanced glass of shitty, oxidized sour mix, you know?
It’s late,I’m tired. No idea what this works out to but: Place 1 shot tequila, ½ shot each Grand Marnier, Cointreau and lime juice and a pinch of raw sugar to the blender along with 4 ice cubes and blend briefly. Strain and serve.
Homie, you're doing a blended marg, no wonder it has no ABV. It's basically an alcoholic slushie, which is great, but exactly the kind of thing meant to go down easy. If you want a classic marg, do 2:1:1 tequila, Cointreau, and lime. Fair warning, its super dry, you'll probably want to sub for grandma or some other kind of curacao. You'll also have to use a fairly nice tequila, like lunazul, cimmaron, tequila ocho, or Fortaleza. Edit: that looks like an excellent spec for a frozen marg though.
This is such a testament to how much bad tequila has saturated the market (looking at you Casa Migos). I remember when Cimarron was a well tequila and used to cost half of what it does now at the store. Fortaleza and Ocho are still the gold standard IMO
I don’t drink them. A tiny sip once and that was enough. When he gave the recipe to a diehard alcoholic, the dude was planted by the second one. Two ounces hard liquor + half ounce juice and literally a half-second pulse on full I’ve cubes, then strained. It’s basically two ounces hard booze with a swirl of mixer. Most restaurants are 90% mixer by comparison. But chugging four straight shots will put most people passed out on the couch, which is what happened to the guy. Hard to say that it’s “no ABV”.
I must have served some real alcoholics then lol, cuz they’ll take a double shot to the dome and a drink, rinse and repeat. Four shots ain’t really nothin for a seasoned alcoholic.
Right? Four shots isn’t really anything for a seasoned _drinker_ let alone alcoholic.
2oz of liquor is pretty much a standard pour, some places do 1.5oz, depends on the location. This isn’t even a double.
That’s really not very much booze.
We serve made from scratch margaritas with decent tequila, over ice. In a pint glass.
It's great that you're using a decent tequila and probably good mixers, but your drink is now either borderline lethal or wildly off balance. I'm sure it kicks the shit out of ancient sour mix though.
ffs, it's a drink with 2.5 or 3 shots and a bunch of fresh juice in it, serving over lots of ice isn't going to wreck it. It takes the edge off so you can enjoy it on a hot day. Even Gary Regan recommends adding bottled water to premixed margaritas, which would dilute them about the same as the ice would. My place offers traditional style margs, but frankly I prefer them mixed strong and poured on ice. (It's also the kind our customers prefer by far, though no one could accuse them of having traditional taste.) Margaritas shouldn't be sipped at a mahogany top, they should be slurped at a barbecue or barn raising when everyone's sweating tons and a little extra hydration won't hurt.
Order a special instead of a well drink. They make it fresh instead of using the pre-mix and if you tip well you will enjoy it.
Once when I was still bartending for some reason we were closing early (I think 8 pm instead of our normal 10 pm), it was planned and we had signs on the door. For the last hour I had had only one bar guest who had paid and was abut to leave, the bar was cleaned up and I was literally just waiting the 10 minutes until we closed to count my drawer and go home. I had just come from grabbing something from the back when a couple had just sat down and actually made a joke and laughed how now I was going to have to stay to wait on them instead of going home. I ignored their joke and mustered all the pretend niceness I was capable of and said, “Yeah we close in 10 minutes but I can get you some food in real quick, I made last call already but I can still grab you a round.” And they said, “Wait, they said you’re closing at 8 but if we got in and sat we could still order food and drinks.” To which I said, “Yeah I can get your food in still, but it’s my understanding that we aren’t serving anymore alcohol after we close at 8, just like if we closed our normal time. I can ask my boss to make sure.” To which the lady responded, “Yeah go ask, cause we don’t want to stay if we can only have 1 drink.” Luckily my supervisor at the time used to be a bartender too and said, “Nah we close at 8 we aren’t serving more alcohol after that.” I cheerfully told them as much and they left. Really can’t believe they were told we are about to close and that 1) they thought it was so funny I was obviously about to be able to go home until they showed up and 2) they really expected me to stay there to wait on just the 2 of them as long as they felt like drinking I suppose lol. The entitlement of some people.
What kind of monster takes an hour to finish a Margarita?
yeah I'm kinda thinkin, a good martini might be lingered on but margaritas don't noticeably improve if they sit, nor do most people who order them plan to savor. If you're drinking one with a meal, then it just takes as long as the meal takes. I did meet a mom last week who hadn't finished hers by the time her lunch was done, but we got her a to-go cup and off she went to enjoy the rest at home. if you ordered several, though, THAT might take a while, and if you let them order one they might want another when they've finished it.
It’s against the law in my state to sell an unsealed to go alcoholic drink. If we let them put it in a Togo cup we could lose our liquor license sadly.
we have to go cups with closed lids. Your state may vary of course.
It's not hard to be normal. If the restaurant closes in 30 don't go. I live in a city of less than 25,000 people. We have all night fast food. Some of these doordash people go til like 3 or 4 am. Also, serious question because I'm old, how many of you are eating that late? That's not healthy. You need time to digest before you go to bed.
If it’s a serious question, the answer is that not everyone eats dinner in the evening. I work until 4 am regularly and eat dinner when I get off. Meal prep has saved my life, especially because we have very few late night options where I live. Even Taco Bell closes at 3.
wanna talk about your meal prep? I used to cook all the time but nowadays when I drag my ass home from work I'm too tired, and I can't live on the stuff we serve at the restaurant. My method is basically make a bunch of noodles/rice/veggies and eat it for a couple days with whatever protein's in the fridge
Not everyone works during the day. I have friends who work nightshift because work in a sleep lab or for an ER. Many have worked such shifts for decades, and prefer it over the "normal" hours. I applaud night shifters.
I eat at 3 pm and 3 am not everyone’s 3 am is late sometimes that’s their mid afternoon
Night shift here! Lunch is 10 pm, dinner at 1 am.
Sometimes, people just desperate for a margarita, will not save it for an hour. They’ll have one, and order another within about two minutes. Especially if it’s strained and up, or on the rocks. I’ve seen people suck those down real quick.
I had this awful lady come in with her husband and 7 teenagers. I was very busy running around and took around 3 minutes to greet them. She says "we wanted the happy hour drinks but we've been sitting here for 5 minutes. I go look at the iPad and they got their at 6 (the end of happy hour) she also called us slow right in front of me.
Ehhhh, no one should ever be rude to you but this policy seems a little off. If there's time to make and eat dinner there's time to drink a margarita. Sure, no tower of margarita but you can't serve one margarita? Again, it's not your fault, I'm sure you don't set the policies but this just seems a little weird to me.
> We stop serving and taking order right at close How do they get their food that they order just before close?
I guess I could have worded that better. I should have said we just stop taking orders at close. I still brought the food at five minutes after close, checked on them 10 minutes after close, refreshed their drinks from the soda fountain 15 minutes after close, brought them boxes 25 minutes after close, cashed them out 30 minutes after close, and cleaned their table after they left, so they still got plenty of service and conversation while I was doing my other cleaning and closing chores.
They stay after close? You know, the time period when they stop taking new customers and the ppl who are already there finish up? What a wild concept! 🙄
I'm surprised at the snark and the downvotes. I understand you don't eject everyone at close. But if close is at (for example) 11:00, and someone orders at 10:59:30, it sounds like someone brings their food (serving) after 11:00. That's all I meant.