CLEANLINESS STANDARDS FOR BARTENDERS:
When bartenders neglect cleaning duties like keeping the bar tidy and polishing glassware, it can negatively affect the customer experience and the establishment’s reputation. Here are some professional steps you could consider:
- Reinforce Training: Ensure that all staff understand the importance of cleanliness through regular training sessions. Highlight how these tasks are crucial for maintaining health standards and creating a pleasant customer environment.
- Clarify Expectations: Clearly communicate your expectations about cleaning responsibilities. This could be through written guidelines or checklists that specify when and how each task should be performed.
- Schedule Checks: Implement regular checks to ensure tasks are completed to standard. This can help maintain consistency and accountability.
- Feedback and Monitoring: Provide feedback, both positive and constructive, based on the regular checks. Monitoring performance and acknowledging efforts can motivate staff to maintain high standards.
- Incentivize Good Practices: Consider creating incentives for maintaining cleanliness. Rewards for teams or individuals who consistently meet standards can boost motivation.
- Address Issues Promptly: If a bartender continues to neglect their duties despite training and reminders, address the issue directly with them to understand if there are underlying reasons and discuss the possible consequences of continued non-compliance.
- Lead by Example: Management should also demonstrate the importance of these tasks by occasionally participating in them, which can reinforce their importance and show commitment from all levels of the organization.
As a side note, one of my own clients even went so far as to purchase and install a glass polishing machine in an area where drink consumers could see the bartenders polishing the bar’s glassware, further reassuring everyone that their drinks were being served in clean polished glassware. This was a great move, and a statement to everyone’s commitment to excellence.
Hand polishing (even with clean, new micro fiber polishing cloths) tends to be much more labor intensive and time consuming, particularly when it comes to polishing all the way down to the deep bottoms of wine, champagne, and Collins glasses. Additionally, some spottiness is bound to occur if freshly washed glassware is not polished immediately after removal from the glass washing machine – the glass polishing machine solves that problem as well. You may well consider that an option at your location as well.
Though these suggestions may seem basic (they are), basics are called basics because they are the base, or foundation, upon which everything else is built. If the foundation is not strong it cannot support anything bigger. Where cracks occur, the whole structure is at risk of becoming compromised.
These steps should help in maintaining high standards of cleanliness and professionalism at the bar. Taking action and diligence in carrying them out is the key to success in this crucial area.
Site Author, David Jonathan Curtis: David Jonathan Curtis, a seasoned professional in his fifth decade of bartending and bar management, began his career in Midtown Manhattan, NY, tending and managing bars before diving into Manhattan’s bustling nightlife scene. Over the years, he has mastered high-volume, high-pressure bartending as the lead bartender in both iconic Midtown clubs and Wall Street bars, generating over $1,350,000.00 annually in personal drink sales. He has since extended his expertise to establishments in Georgia and now Tampa, Florida. David’s roles as a Bartending Instructor at the American Bartending School in Tampa, while maintaining a second job bartending, and his years experience of managing bars, and working as a Brand Ambassador along with his extensive professional library of over 1,000 bartending books, highlight his dedication to continually refining his craft. He holds a diploma in Bar Management and is BarSmarts certified by Pernod Ricard.
