St. Patrick’s Day 2021

It’s showtime!  St. Patrick’s Day for many bartenders will be the biggest event to hit their bar all year.  A Super Bowl of Bartending.  If gatherings are allowed in your town, I hope you’ve gotten plenty of sleep.  The stamina needed to serve customers will be needed all day and all night.  Also you’ll want to hydrate up and lean on caffiene as needed down the stretch.  Today your bar will, hopefully, be wall-to-wall with people providing the whole staff a true test of their abilities.  It’s important to have as many hands on deck as possible to provide everyone adequate breaks through out the day.  Many bars require the entire staff to work an open-to-close shift.  You’ll have to keep a look out for those who are clearly over the limit and provide them food and hydration.  Early on you’ll have parade watchers, mostly families, come by for mid-day drinks.  It’s nice to chat up several generations of families enjoying time together.  As the day progresses and the families filter out, the tone of the crowd will shift into more of a party going sort.  Often parks or possibly your bar will provide live music after the parade has wrapped up.  This is when the shift will take on more teeth.  The bar staff will have to be on their toes for those who’ve been drinking since the morning and are now inebriated.  Communication is vital among bar staff in moments like these.  You have to tell everyone on staff that you’ve spotted someone who’s well over their limit.  The weaknesses of the staff and management will become much more evident during a test like this one.  It can be invaluable for a bar’s staff to learn about their own deficiencies especially if they produce new approaches to training and education.  These shortcomings offer up an opportunity for a staff to grow.  Today will be unlike any you’ll work behind a bar, and most of it will be fun.  You’ll be serving up endless pints of Guinness.  If you need a refresher on properly pouring one, refer to our prior post here.  So keep a smile handy, and remember to put a shamrock on top of that Guinness!