As a bartender, you deal with many different people every day – and they all want something from you. Some are friendly, others flirt for a drink for free, others get cheeky. What should party guests never say?

10 phrases you shouldn’t say to bartenders

There are so many phrases bartenders hear so often they just can’t take it anymore. If you want to do your bartender a favor, you should better not say the following 10 sentences:

“Put more alcohol in the next drink, okay?” – If you personally don’t feel the alcohol, it may be more your own inhibitions than the bartender. After all, there are usually fixed mixing specifications for every drink.
“Hey dude, cool to see you again.” – Bartenders tend to see so many people on a daily basis that they probably won’t remember you.
“Man, when I was still waiting tables, I could do it faster.” – You can really offend someone with such sentences. In the end, you may be the one to suffer. Sometimes there is just a lot going on and everyone tries to do their best. Appreciation and a “thank you” can usually do much more than being annoyed.
“I drink the same as you.”- This statement is based on the cliché that every bartender also drinks alcohol in the evening. But this is not the case: not everyone who works with alcohol automatically drinks some.
“Hey, it’s my birthday. Are you buying one?” Bartenders hear this phrase so often that it’s usually never true. After all, everyone can say what they want.
“Tell me, can’t you swap out the DJ?” – The bartender usually has nothing to do with the DJ; consequently, he or she usually cannot change anything about the music in the bar.
“Hey bartender, can you actually smile?” – bartenders are often under stress or can sometimes be annoyed by the people in front of the bar. So it’s completely understandable that he doesn’t always have a smile on his face.
“Will you give me your number?” – Bartenders are generally not interested in exchanging numbers with customers. They just want to do their job – and you should respect that.
“I would have liked to have shaken my drink, not stirred it.” Often customers don’t even know the difference. In many cases they only know one drink and only make the statement to appear intelligent.
“Hey, can you store my jacket here for a moment?” – The bartender is not responsible for checking clothes. His job is to mix the drinks, not act as a cloakroom.

Instead of these 10 sentences, you can put a smile on the face of many a bartender or make the stressful job easier if you are friendly, show understanding and sometimes say “thank you”. This makes partying fun on both sides of the bar.