Bar Tenders Pull a "'Tude"

[FunnyJohn]

Has this happened to you around here?:

"Shea Berry, a musician living in Brooklyn, simply wanted to grab cocktails at the bar in Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens with a friend last October, but when she ordered a martini made with “a nice vodka,” the 33-year-old got something she wasn’t thirsting for: a tall glass of attitude.

“This is a place that makes their own tinctures and brines their own onions, so we figured they would have some good vodkas,” Berry says.

Turns out, she was wrong.

“We were told that there’s only one vodka and it is very low-grade,” she recalls. The bartender’s attitude was, “ ‘We are only offering you the s - - ttiest vodka because, if you drink it, you are an [idiot].’ It was super annoying."

I'm hoping this is a strictly NYC phenomenon.

[lperry]

Undoubtedly, the bartender would also say that s/he is interested in getting people to try new and different drinks. The same thing can happen with wine "experts," and I think they are equally as successful in creating converts.

[weinoo]

I'm hoping this is a strictly NYC phenomenon.

What makes you think that?

[TedE]

Simplest solution: don't offer it if you aren't going to serve it. I'd rather be told (nicely) that an establishment doesn't serve whatever mainstream choice I've chosen than be chided for choosing something that is on offer right in front of me.

A lifetime ago when I was working at a new brewpub we did not serve any beer that was not brewed on premise. There was a full bar and wine program, but the only beers in the house were piped in from the brew room next door. Nothing in bottles. We had a very light-bodied wheat beer always on tap to offer anybody who asked for a Miller Lite or similar. Sure, there were grumblings from people who really weren't open to trying anything new, but we also got our fair share of converts who went on to the better beers on tap.

[FunnyJohn]

I think there are two issues in play here:

1) Condescension on the part of the bar tender

2) Not being willing to make available to patrons the "common" and more asked for varieties of whatever.

#1 is just unacceptable

#2 is a business decision as long as it is done without #1

[Waitman]

I think there are two issues in play here:

1) Condescension on the part of the bar tender

2) Not being willing to make available to patrons the "common" and more asked for varieties of whatever.

#1 is just unacceptable

#2 is a business decision as long as it is done without #1

If the ingredients for a more "common" cocktail are available, it's pretty much impossible to adopt attitude 2 without adopting attitude 1. Perhaps not being "able" to make the drink would be a better way of phrasing.

Not to turn this into another tragic East Coast/West Coast beef, but it appears that (at least a few) Californians are mounting a counteroffensive against the mixologist trend. No offense to the mixologists in the house.

[DaveO]

I read the article: Further down in the article is this statement from one of the owners of one of the establishments where the "tudes" of the mixologists could be described as lacking:

Smith & Mills owner Akiva Elstein expressed remorse when told of the
incident. “That never should have happened.” His counterpart at
Apothéke, co-owner Heather Tierney, declined to comment, as did Prime
Meats.

As an owner that attitude would make me sick. No sale, no customer, no warm and fuzzy's, no positive word of mouth. Meanwhile the rent comes do, need to buy products, pay salaries, insurance, etc etc etc.

I suppose that attitude might work in a private club or for a place that is so demonstrably exclusive in every aspect that the "unsuspecting" never venture through the doors, but for 99% of establishments out there it just doesn't work.