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Warming: Contains Profanity
You used to be able to enjoy a drink out. Not any more. No bartenders know what they are doing. They used to go to bartending school. No cocktail waitresses know what they're doing. It wasn't that hard. No regular waitresses or waiters know what they are doing. They used to have bus people, and that helped.
Last night I went to an expensive bar in a upscale neighborhood. It charges a lot for drinks, but the decor isn't working. The seats are hard plastic. Their outdoor seating is peaceful, but they decided to stop having table service there. Now you have to go up to a counter and start a tab. Someone will bring you your drink. I guess you still have to tip but you semi-wait on yourself. They said that their regional manager decided to do this because it was taking too long for people to be greeted before, and now they will have a "visual" on how many people are before them [as they wait in line to place their order]. That is the fucking stupidest thing I've ever heard. They need a bus boy. I sat inside where they still have table service. They don't have margaritas. They have a bunch of made up cocktails. One of the waitresses is very nice but as usual, you are looking for them more than once. The wait help looks like they are dressed to work in a leftist bookstore. That can't help with tips. The drink was $7.00.
There's an art to being a cocktail waitress. You are are around when needed. You are intuitive. You aren't a buzzkill. Everyone used to know this. Every bar knew this. Now they don't.
Before that, I was in a Mexican restaurant. I ordered a margarita. I could hardly taste the lime but the tequila was resiny. Clear Jose Cuervo used to be fine. Why did they mess with that? They managed to freeze the actual margarita and make it into slush, so it gave me an ice cream headache. It was all "fresh," the sugar, water and traces of lime juice, so it cost $7.50. They are pushing margaritas with added flavors, because they can't make a normal one right.
There's a very nice open air bar that makes you give them cash or a credit card before you start drinking. You'd think the five car-sized bouncers would be sufficient to prevent drinking and dashing, coupled with the fact that the nice after-work crowd wouldn't do that. I was once asked to pay my bill while I was eating because of a shift change. Their specialty drink is very watered down. They use "fresh" juice but there's is less than half of the amount that should be there, mixed with a lot of water and corn syrup. Because of this, they recommend you order a special version of this drink that is less watered down and doesn't have the right kind of glass or garnishes. This drink is supposed to pack a punch, but theirs barely affects me. This drink is common here. It didn't used to be complicated.
All three of the places I wrote about are popular. People here will put up with anything and it pisses me off.
Drinks used to be garnished properly. More of them had maraschino cherries and pineapple wedges. They had straws if appropriate.
Gone are the days when you could drink happily knowing that the bartender was competent and the cocktail waitress was simpatico. The people that worked in bars were mostly just regular people but knew how to do their jobs. They taught one another, and went to bartenders school for a few months after work. This isn't that complicated, but for whatever reason I don't know if I'll ever enjoy a drink out of my house again. There's something about the generation running things now that they don't want you to enjoy yourself. This is one of the most complicated, passive-agressive generations ever born. They fuck everything up.
There's a lot of things America can't do anymore. I never thought this would be one of them.
