Some economics: Between 1995 and 2001, The Fenix in Seattle, WA averaged $50-$60k/night on weekends, with five open bars, bartenders rotating into 13 positions, eight cocktail waitresses and $8 joint cover (which was split with fourteen other establishments). The capacity of The Fenix was rated by the fire department at 800 people. Further, 25% of drink sales occur in the intermission between shows - on a cover band night, this means two 15-minute intervals. So. $50k/night / 1/4 x 1/2hr = $25,000 an hour / 13 bartenders = $1,750/bartender per hour. $1750/bartender/hour / $5/drink (average) = ~400 drinks/hour. That's an average of 6 drinks per minute during "rush hour." A new pour every ten seconds. As I mixed 3-6 nights a week in this club, I got to know the bartenders. Their advice was much simpler: 1) Open a tab. 2) Always come back to the same bartender - they have your tab. 3) Be specific if you want specific. Double makers rocks. Stoli & Cranberry neat. Otherwise you're going to get well on ice. 4) If what you're ordering has more than three shots in it, you better not order it while there's a line (wait until the show is on). If you do, one of them is likely to get skipped. Long Island Iced Teas are immune to this rule because it's a quick and easy keypress on the gun. 5) We see you. That's why we made eye contact with you. All the other rules on this list... I mean, are bartenders so slow elsewhere that you could actually pull this stuff off? The "confused look" would simply get you ignored until you came up with something quick. A "high maintenance shooter' would simply earn you a "no." A lemon drop, by the way, is not a "high maintenance shooter" - you can make one of those in seconds (same with a buttery nipple, same with a brain tumor). "high maintenance shooters" are anything with floats, and you have to be suicidal to ask someone to make you one when there's a crowd standing behind you. And if you're in the band, you get drink tickets. Otherwise the band (and its entourage) would drink you out of house and home. Something people don't understand about clubs is that they exist solely to sell liquor - yeah, they were opened for romantic reasons, but their profit center is all about selling alcohol at inflated prices. Bars that survive know this. Further, bars that know this know that the bartenders rule the roost - they can be as surly to patrons as they want because it's a volume business and one high-maintenance bitch needs to drink three times as much as anybody else because she takes to long.
The ones that get pissed off are the ones that are going to be doing something else very soon.
For the record, I'd MUCH, MUCH rather patron a good dive bar. Also, it's not just the clubs that survive based on alcohol sales, it's the restaurants too. Food costs are WAY higher than beverage costs and fluctuate much more frequently and unpredictably. The most profitable (percentage wise) thing on most menus is either coffee or iced tea. The most profitable dollar wise is usually wine. The restaurant I managed (back in the day) used a very straight forward pricing strategy: take the cost of the bottle x 2 + 5. That meant a bottle that cost $10 would retail for $25. -This is actually a pretty reasonable pricing system too. Alcohol is king in the restaurant world. Which is why a good bartender is a very, very valuable thing. Any restauranteur worth his salt, treats his best bartenders like the profit generating kings/queens that they are.
I bailed on bars right about the time those fuckheads out in Montauk invented "bottle service." That, right there, was a capitulation of the art of bartending - so much so that the people who still could decided they were "mixologists" and magnified their douchebaggery by a factor of ten. Fact of the matter is, at an "upscale" bar you pay $18 for a double of Maker's. Same double is $7 at a dive bar. That's an increase of $11 on something that has a raw cost of approximately $2 to start with. And you know what? If I'm charging some asshole $7 for a Newcastle, he can hem and haw all he wants about "eclipse amber" or some shit. I'm making $1 or $2 for pulling the handle on that one and the bar is making $4 for the labor equivalent of playing a slot machine; I can STFU about my patrons.
Rule the roost with less d-bags - $125 a night
Put up with d-bags - $200 a night These are made up figures from 2002 btw. My point is when the shit hits the fan and you're potentially "in the weeds", it may be an easier scenario in the dive bar. Bottle service, well that's a whole different world that I've only once partook in and left feeling slimy as hell but with a group of 4 twenty something girls at our sides. (shhhh, what happens in vegas..) -$800 for a bottle of Kettle One. WTF???! The things you'll do for your brother at his bachelor party!