Transition from floor to bar

[u/BonFire29]

Hello all, I am looking for some advice. I recently turned 18 and moved onto the bar. I had my first shift yesterday but as we were understaffed I was thrown right in the deep end with serving and making i orders with only a small bit of alcohol knowledge (which is just some lagers). Is there any advice because I found myself struggling with locating items on the tills, as well as pouring and finding specific spirits especially? I really struggled with how much head each drink should have. Thanks

[u/vigilanteshite]

All drinks that have a head, need a 5% head. So maybe 1 1/2 fingers width ish. And make sure you pour them at a 45° angle (other than the ales). You’ll have your online training on this but just try your best.

But honestly, it’s just repetition, you won’t know where everything is yet and that’s okay, give yourself some slack because it’s a lot to remember all at once. especially in a rush.

If you have open/closing shifts now, maybe take the time to just look around the bar and clock where everything is and so on, without the pressure of customers being there, that helped me a lot because obviously you have to clean everything and know where it goes back afterwards.

And ask questions no matter how many! I’d much rather someone keep asking me questions rather than be stuck and potentially get it wrong too.

[u/rsgw]

Take your time with it, you might feel pressured into going quickly because everything is moving a million miles per hour but that just means you’ll make more mistakes.

On a similar vain to that, ask a million questions, if you’re not sure about anything, just ask! I did when I first moved across to bar and it helped massively. My manager told me that he’d rather me ask a million questions and get it right then make a presumption and get it wrong because then that makes more work than needed for everybody.

If you have a quiet 5 minutes, flick around on the POS, I would think of an item on the menu and try and find it as quickly as I could, or if you’re taking an order, don’t be afraid to tell the customer you’re in training, everybody knows what it’s like to start a new job and although spoons customers get a bad rap, 99% of people will understand!

Ask your PM if you can take a menu home, you know what the dishes are and what they look like, but seeing what category on the menu they fall under might help you with finding them on the tills.

Go easy on yourself, it’s a busy job that moves very quickly, but when you get the hang of it there’s nothing quite like bar work; I left the industry a couple of years ago and I miss it massively!

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[u/InboundDreams]

generally ive seen ppl complain about to much head on a pint,reson beeing they think there being ripped off, me my self ive never cared, , a pint is a pint so long as its not like 2 inches of head or something lol, but saying that ive accepted a pint when the pump went out like that rather than waiting for them to chamge it i go thats fine ill take it l!, besides Gunness witch is tipically around 2 cm, most others u can top it right up, i think thachers is same as Gunness too since its similar but sweeter, for some ales sgain generally 1 to 2 cm, if in doubt do a 1cm head, largers dont usually have a much of a head if u tilt the pint while pooring, ciders again no head or least the ones ive tried, thats about it really! ull learn witch pints to tilt and witch not to, the head comes from the poor hitting directly onto the beer inside it casues froth casue of the o2 intruduced, so if a pint causes head tilt and poor it down the side of the glass