For a bartender, a lemon is an irritating, problematic, waste-of-your-time customer. They come in many forms. At times, they're confrontational a-holes who find any reason to argue with you. Other times, they're lonely nerds who won't shut up and don't even have the courtesy to keep buying drinks and tipping you while they chew you ear off. And sometimes they're horny creepsters who find a new way to hit on you every time they order a drink. The list goes on and on. When lemons attack, that bar standing between you and a chatty, argumentative sex offender just isn't enough. Bartenders need an educated line of defense.
And that's where this list comes in. Here are my top five ways to lose an annoying customer:
1. Be a bitch. This is the number one problem with fresh meat behind a bar. They're way too fucking nice. "Oh it's okay if you only have $1 left for a tip after your $60 round of drinks." No, it's not. These bartenders will listen to people yammer on for hours without walking away. Use your judgment new bartenders! If your customer is not cool or respectful, play dirty. You can't fight fire with something soft, like marshmallows. Then you just end up with toasted marshmallows and while those are delicious it's how customers will eat you alive. So keep your distance from their fiery hostility and don't be soft like a marshmallow. Be tough like a fireman and beat them over the head with your 50 pound hose. Start small, by ignoring them. Oh, they don't want a drink? They just want to sit there talking? Then walk away. Do it while they're in the middle of a sentence. If that doesn't work, start aggressively teasing and embarrassing them. If they have friends or a date, humiliate them in front of their friends or date. Their friends will love you for it. Their date will think twice about whether they should have bothered shaving downstairs. If they don't have friends just shame them right to their face. "Wait, are you still talking?" If they start blabbering on to an adjacent customer, make them buy that person a drink. You don't have to yell, just be bitchy enough that they either start playing by your rules or leave. Often, if said nuisance is a dude, he'll be into your bitchiness and either buy you a drink or start tipping you for the entertainment. Men love bitches. So you may just turn that annoying customer into an obedient regular. Win win.
2. Get them wasted so they pass out or forget what they're saying. Annoying people are a lot less annoying when they're asleep. So make their drinks strong or bully them into doing some cheap shots. Sooner or later, they'll be sleeping and you'll be able to focus on the customers that really matter.
3. Cut them off just to piss them off. Some people just like to argue. They like to argue about how their drink tastes. If it's a good value or not. If there's enough alcohol in it. They like to argue about how much their tab is and whether or not they really had all those drinks. (Yes, you did.) Some people are just born conflict-oriented. They feel big and strong and important when they're making a case or hearing their own voice. So they'll make any excuse to talk and sometimes the only thing they can think of is to complain. Also, some people are raised to believe that if they complain enough they'll get things for free. That might be true with your cell phone provider, but it sure as fuck isn't true in a local bar. No one ever gets rewarded for wasting a bartender's time. But everyone has to learn from their own mistakes. For example, I once had a pair of girls argue with me about which cup their drink would be served in. I told them they could have any cup they wanted and showed them their options. They still complained about not having the cup they wanted. They wanted to speak to my manager. About their choice of cups. Yes, people are really THAT fucking crazy. When you encounter a lemon of this size and scale, there is only one thing to do: cut them off. "I'm sorry, I think you've had enough alcohol. Would you like to see your cup options for water?" At this point, they can go somewhere else, annoy someone else - and maybe they'll even find the cup they were looking for.
4. Introduce them to another bartender. If you like pranks, and you're not working alone, this is the tactic for you. A customer that wants too much attention and is unreasonably chatty or intent on picking up a bartender that night keeps ordering from you. Maybe it's chance, maybe they spotted you first, maybe you're the more attentive bartender that night. Whatever they case is, there's no reason not to turn fate on its head and say: "Oh, have you met (insert poor innocent co-worker here)?" And then walk away. Ten minutes later your co-worker will run over complaining and you'll get a good laugh. It's a temporary solution but albeit a funny one.
5. Introduce them to your bouncer. Sometimes, desperate times call for desperate measures. And when things escalate, you've got to call in back up. Those girls who had the cup obsession actually got so loud and hostile with me that a bouncer walked over on his own to check on me. They yelled at him and at my manager who later laughed with me about how crazy they were. Hey, when an annoying customer becomes a hostile customer it's time to 86 them.
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