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Generalisations about beer culture opinion pubs

Waiter service in pubs

waiter.jpgWaiter service in bars is one of those things you often hear British people complain about when they come back from holiday.

Queuing at the bar is so ingrained in our culture that the idea of a bloke in an apron bringing our drink (and expecting to be bloody tipped for it, too, cheeky sod…) is almost as upsetting as having to use a funny foreign toilet.

But we’d like to see a bit more waiter service in Britain, now. More and more, we’re put off going to particular pubs because we know we’ll have to stand in a crowd for what feels like 30 minutes, craning our necks, hoping to catch the eye of a barman. How much more civilised to pay a measly tip for the privilege of sitting on one’s behind while fresh glasses of tasty beer are brought to your table.

This would also save us the sight of tourists in England sitting glumly waiting to be served, too. And, vice versa, standardising across Europe would save your continentals from having to watch British people whispering awkwardly near the door:

“I can’t tell if it’s waiter service. Should we go up and order? Maybe we should go up. That looks like a bar. Oh, but look, they’re getting served at the table. Shall we go up?”

“No, Brian. That would be a breach of etiquette, and then they’ll kill us or, worse, laugh at us. Let’s just go back to the hotel and drink from the mini-bar for the next week until the holiday is over.”

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Picture by independentman, under a Creative Commons license from Flickr.

13 replies on “Waiter service in pubs”

British people whispering awkwardly near the door
So that’s not just me and Mrs Beer Nut, then? That is good to know.

I do like waiter service in pubs, but I hate having to wait for a bill, or for change. It has to be the full continental model of staff wearing money belts. Preferably with the beers you drink being marked on a scrap of paper which stays on your table.

How about leaving things as they are? As someone who has whispered at the entrance to a foreign gaff many times, it’s part of the holiday fun. Same too for Johnny Foreigner I’ll bet. The tales they’ll tell when they get back home. Why spoil it for everyone?

My loathing of people who stand at the bar to drink and not just to order is on record on several blogs. ‘Waiting’ service would remove this irritant. I’ve been in bars in the States where you sit at tables and are served and it all works very smoothly. The joy of entering a bar in France is wondering how surly the staff are going to be, it’s a great game.

Tipping usually gives the server an incentive to keep your glass filled.
Especially when tips are the bulk of their income, unlike on the continent.

But could we come up with an international standard that does not play to our basest instincts for parsimony. When I used to bartend/wait tables as a student, if I heard a commonwealth accent I would be struck with dread. I knew that the tip was 70% likely to be shitty, my culturally ingrained cheerfulness would earn me some scorn or distrust and there was a high likelihood these folks would drink a lot quickly. In the states the tipping rate has been 15-20% at the table or a buck a drink at the bar for the past twenty years, and the owners pay the servers $2 an hour since they have excluded tipped employees from minimum wage legislation. Working overseas, I tended to tip on the generous side without skewing to ostentatious displays, since I was on company money. But there are countries, like Japan, where it is rude to tip. Always

I think the answer to this:
could we come up with an international standard that does not play to our basest instincts for parsimony

is by not allowing this:
the owners pay the servers $2 an hour since they have excluded tipped employees from minimum wage legislation.

Aw, c’mon then we would have to reflect the real cost of the beer/food in it’s pricing up front. Bar owners would not be able to make you feel like you were getting a good deal…

Years ago in Lancashire it was the norm for there to be waiter service on a saturday night in a busy pub, I am talking the late 1960’s early 1970’s if you gave a tip on the first round you always had good service for the rest of the night. AH those were the days

And of course waiter service was common in the lounge bars (i.e. posh bits) of divided Victorian/Edwardian pubs. Sometimes there were even bells you could ring for attention, and these survive in a few places. At least, the fittings do – I’ve never seen a working one!

One of my favourite bars in Venice, El Pesador, is particularly enjoyable because it has bar service – a novelty in Italy that I rather enjoy. Likewise my number one pub in the world, the Football Pub in Rome.

Thinking back, waiter service, while not common, certainly wasn’t rare when I lived in Liverpool 20 odd years ago. You rang a bell and usually it was an old biddy with a tray that came scurrying. But that’s when pubs were pubs!

Years ago in Lancashire it was the norm for there to be waiter service on a saturday night in a busy pub
So is waiter service the same as floor service, ‘cos we still had that here in the mid-1990s, and probably still do. It’s not the same as on the continent because you’re paying for each round as you go rather than settling up with your server at the end.

Cocktail/Bar table service can run both ways here in North America. You either settle by round or run a tab for the evening.

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