Importance of bartenders’ training

While bartending can be fun and energizing to many people, it also comes with its share of frustrations. Bartenders deal with rude or unruly customers, theft, long hours, loud environments and going home sticky and smelling like booze. That’s part of the reason the bartending field has such a high turnover rate. Equipping your staff with bartender 101 training to cover all the important aspects of the job can help. Here are some other benefits of bar training:

• Consistency: When your bartenders go through a structured training program, they learn how you want them to do things, which can increase consistency. This creates a better customer experience since your regulars know what to expect.
• Safety and compliance: Bartenders’ training is a good time to teach your bartenders about food safety, such as avoiding contamination and handling knives when they’re cutting fruit for drinks. You can also spend a lot of time covering compliance about things like checking IDs and not overserving patrons. This can reduce the risk of violations.
• Confidence: Having time to learn how to bartend correctly can give your new hires more confidence when they start working on their own.
• Money savings: Poorly trained bartenders can cost your establishment money. Adding too much alcohol to the drinks reduces your profits. Poor customer service skills could cause customers to leave or prevent them from returning.

Areas to cover in bar training

Bartenders need to learn more than how to pour the perfect drink. Many hard and soft skills go into being a good bartender. Break your bartenders’ training into sections to cover the following essential topics.

Health and safety

You don’t want to worry about getting a health code violation, so spend a good amount of time teaching health and safety guidelines specific to serving drinks at the bar. This includes things like hand washing, handling glasses safely without touching the rim, not touching the ice with your hands, keeping clean towels on hand and storing garnishes safely. You can also cover safety issues like broken glasses, fires and security issues inside the bar.

Liquor license requirements

Each state sets its liquor license regulations, and some local governments have additional regulations that you need to follow. This might relate to things like checking IDs before serving patrons and cutting off customers who are intoxicated. Bartenders need to know these regulations and understand the potential consequences if they don’t follow them.

Employee expectations and procedures

All employees need to understand your expectations of them and your standard procedures. Your handbook is a great place to start on these topics. Things that you should cover include:

• Payroll
• Dress codes
• Attendance
• Scheduling
• Harassment and discrimination
• Code of conduct

Bar setup

Before you start teaching your new hire how to make drinks, start with an overview of the bar setup. Explain each section of the bar area and how you typically set up all of the tools, supplies and ingredients. This helps your new bartender start to get familiar with where they can find everything. It’s also a good idea to give them a tour of the entire facility, especially if they’ll need to retrieve items from different locations. For example, they might need to know where extra kegs, bottles, glasses and garnishes are kept in case they’re sent to get them.

Industry jargon

Learning bartender terminology early makes the job much easier for new recruits who haven’t worked behind a bar before. They should know different names for the same drink, common types of alcohol, names for tools and other jargon they’ll likely hear at work. They’ll be able to give customers a better experience if they don’t have to clarify, and they’ll be more efficient at making drinks with this knowledge.

Basic tools

New bartenders need to learn about the tools you use in your bar. Teach them the proper names of the tools as well as how to use them. Using those tools can make the job easier and more efficient as well as creating consistency, so make sure they know them well.

Types of alcohol

Bartenders need to be intimately familiar with all the types of alcohol you serve. They need to know the different types of hard liquors, beers, ciders and wines on your menu. When it comes to hard liquor, they need to know about serving shots and adding them to mixed drinks.

Pouring and mixing methods

Accurate pours are important for many reasons. Accuracy helps control your costs and keep track of your inventory. It also produces consistent results for your customers. Teach your bartenders how to properly pour, measure and mix alcohol for those consistent results. Cover which glasses to use for different drinks to ensure the recipes work correctly.

Recipes

Once your new hire learns the basics of pouring and mixing, you can let them learn and practice specific drink recipes. This should include your house specialties as well as classic drinks that many customers order. Give your trainees written recipes with the ingredient measurements to help them create consistent drinks.

Point-of-sale system

Your bartenders need to understand how your point-of-sale system works so they can enter sales accurately and collect the correct payment. Let them know how to enter drinks that might not show up on the menu or modifications to a standard drink, such as an extra shot. They’ll need to know how to open and close a tab as well as process various forms of payment. If the bartender will work the opening or closing shift, they also need to know how to handle those activities in the POS system.

Customer service

The idea of telling your secrets to the bartender might seem cliché, but many customers do like to chat. Training your bartenders to read the customers and determine what type of interaction they want can help them provide better service. Practice how to greet customers and how to be charming and conversational to give them a positive experience. Teaching them to ask questions and use the responses to better serve the customers can also help.

Another part of customer service is being quick. Guests should be greeted quickly when they arrive. Drinks should arrive as quickly as possible without sacrificing quality or accuracy. Keeping an eye on customers at the bar so they don’t have to wait for the next round is also helpful.

Sales

A related topic to cover is sales. You don’t want your bartenders pushing drinks onto customers, but they can use subtle strategies to make sales. For example, being familiar with the menu and mixed drinks in general allows them to explain the options or make suggestions for customers. Suggested dishes from your food menu that pair well with what they’re drinking can increase the total bill. Bartenders need to know these skills to help increase sales, which ultimately helps your profits and can help them earn higher tips.

Common bartending issues

Training your bartenders on common problems they’ll encounter can better prepare them for actually facing those situations. This includes things like angry customers, customer complaints, fights and spilled drinks. Explain how to deal with the situations quickly to minimize the problems.

Effective methods of training

Incorporating a variety of training methods can make the lessons more effective. Hands-on learning is often the easiest for something like bartending, but some things require traditional learning. Here are some methods to consider:

• Classroom or online training: For things like food safety and liquor license compliance, a classroom-style session lets you cover the specifics fully. You can also use a self-paced computer training for this content, complete with quizzes to check for understanding.
• Handbook training: It’s also a good idea to create an employee handbook made just for your bartenders to use as part of the training. This can create a structured guide to ensure you cover all of the important topics.
• Hands-on practice: Bring your new bartenders in when your establishment is closed or not busy to let them get hands-on practice. They can learn drink recipes and practice using the various tools during this time. Whoever trains the bartender can give them pointers and feedback in a low-pressure, slower-paced environment.
• Role-playing: New employees can put that hands-on practice to use with role-playing. Have other employees or trainers pretend to be patrons, so the new bartender can run through a typical interaction. They can practice upselling and using their customer service skills. You can also test out different scenarios, like an underage person trying to buy a drink or an unruly customer.
• Quizzes and testing: You don’t have to use paper testing, but quizzing your trainees throughout the process with verbal questions can help test their learning as you go.
• Job shadowing: With some practice under their belt, have your new bartender come in to watch your best bartenders at work. They can see how they interact with customers, make drinks and handle issues. When they feel comfortable, they might help with minor things like taking drink orders or washing glasses.
• Working under an experienced bartender: Before you set your new bartender loose, schedule them to work with one of your experienced bartenders. This is a step up from job shadowing because the newbie gets to fulfill all the duties of a bartender, including making the drinks. The experienced bartender is there to give pointers and help out if things get busy.
• Bartender certification programs: While not required, you might prefer bartenders with a certificate. You can send your new bartenders to a certificate program at a local community college or through another organization. This gives them formal training that you don’t have to do. Once they have the foundation with this certificate program, you can do your in-house training on your specific procedures and recipes.
• Books, YouTube channels, blogs and podcasts: Encourage your bartenders to learn on their own with the bartending resources that are readily available online and in books. You can give your new bartenders a favorite bartending book and give them a list of online resources they can visit.

Refresher training

It’s not just new bartenders who need training. Holding regular refresher training sessions with all bar staff can keep your service quality high. Schedule annual trainings for health and safety, liquor laws and other topics on which your employers can use a refresher. You might also hold a short training session if you add new specialty drinks to your menu. Having regular tastings if you add new alcohol options can be beneficial. You might also hold special training sessions on things like types of wine or food and alcohol pairings to help your bartenders provide better recommendations to customers.

Tips for training bartenders

These tips can improve your bartender training program:

• Assign a mentor: Connect your new bartender to another staff member as a mentor. This gives your new hire a go-to person when they have questions or concerns.
• Streamline training for experienced bartenders: If you hire a bartender with lots of experience, you can skip the newbie topics like bartender jargon and basic bartending tools. Create a separate training protocol for experienced bartenders that focuses on your procedures, bar setup and recipes.
• Allow for mistakes: New bartenders need room for error without being yelled at. Use mistakes as a way to correct your new hire gently. Expect new bartenders to need more time to remember everything and perform consistently.
• Consider the type of bar: The atmosphere in your establishment affects what you prioritize in training. For instance, a casual neighborhood bar might focus on taking your time with customers and building relationships with regulars. If your place has a club vibe, bartenders might need to put on a show while making drinks to keep the party atmosphere alive. In a high-volume bar, they need to stay calm under pressure and work efficiently without messing up drink orders.