Life is Funny

Oh yes, it happens more often than you think.

(First of all, why the heck do we have so many names for a Pub, Bar, Tavern, anyway?)

Scenario 1

So you’re out for the night at your local bar, and your waitress comes by and asks you if you want another beer. You’re there for 4 hours, and get ready to leave. Your waitress presents a bill to you and your wife, showing that 17 drinks were ordered, and you owe $85 plus taxes = $91.02, plus tip it would be $100

You wonder how you both could put away $100 worth of drinks, and you scan the bill. Wait a minute! There’s a vodka/ginger ale on here. We don’t drink that. Oh says the waitress and says yes, I rang it in by accident, it should have been (insert whatever you and your wife were drinking).

You pay the bill, scratch your heads in wonder as you leave, realizing you’re not even that buzzed, how could you both drink so much without realizing it?

Answer: Sit by the cash register POS terminal. Watch how fast she tells the bartender 8 different drinks that need to be made, and she frantically flips in/out of table screens adding 1 drink per person. It’s chaotic there. She’s in a hurry, you see her making errors and fixing them as fast as she makes them. It soon dawns on you.. how many times does she ring in your brand of beer, and accidentally charges you for it, eventhough someone else in the bar is drinking it too?  Ahh.. they are all drunk anyway she thinks. I usually get it right most of the time..

So in fact you might have other people’s drink orders on your tab, and they might have some of yours on theirs..

Scenario 2

You walk up to the bar and ask for a Pepsi. The bartender tells you its $3.35 and you hand him $5 and tell him to keep the change. He pours you the pepsi, hits the cash button on the register, the drawer pops open and he sticks the $5 in while you watch.  Wait a minute, he didn’t ring that in did he? Well, its no skin off your back, you just walk away. Yes he’s cheating the owner, but that’s not your problem. How many times is this guy doing it? Is this why drinks are so expensive? The bartender is skimming the profits.

Scenario 3

You order a fancy mixed drink like a Pina Colada. By the time they run it through the blender, add all the fancy garnishes, etc.. What happened to that 1oz of booze that was suppose to be in it? Oh well, she won’t notice they say. So they serve you a virgin drink (no alcohol) which means your are liable to drink it fast, and order more drinks since they are not having an effect on you.  This is why many times experienced drinkers will ask for their booze and their soda pop to be brought in 2 glasses, so they can see the booze and mix it themselves.

Scenario 3

You walk up to the waitress, plunk down $5 and say whatever that guy is drinking, I’ll buy the next one. She nods, and gives the guy his next drink. He’s 1/2 way through the drink, and you say “hey, did she mention I bought you that one?” Nope, instead, she charged him on his tab, pocketed your $5, and said nothing to no one..

Scenario 4

The bartender’s bar gun has a counter in the back room that increments everytime they push a button for the bar rye, vodka, rum, etc. He knows this, and he knows that the owner will check the bar gun counter along with the cash register summary to see if they match.

Instead, the bartender brings in his own bottle of rum and sits it nearby. When someone orders rum, and they are paying cash, he pours the rum out of his own bottle, and makes change. This way he turns his $30 bottle of rum into $150 and there is no way to trace it.

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As you can quickly see, there are many ways to cheat the customers by overcharging them, not giving them their proper amount of alcohol, and ways to skim money from the bar’s profits resulting in higher drink costs.

They know that many of the patrons are intoxicated so a greedy bar manager can take advantage of people this way, and they will rarely know it. The only thing that suffers at the end of the day is the customer’s wallet.

Be careful and mindful about what is happening at your local pub / bar / tavern. You might be surprised when you see what is happening right infront of you.