“To some, I am known as Chief. And these are usually people who work in Radio Shack or try to sell me shoes. To others, I am known as Buddy. These are people who dwell in bars and wonder if I’ve got a problem or what it is that I am “looking at.” And to still others, who are in that same bar, standing just off to the side, I am “Get Him!” - Demetri Martin
Anyone who frequents bars has definitely seen some crazy stuff in their time. This is not only because some people just can’t hold their liquor, but because there are some truly crazy people in the world. Not a patron of the bars? Then go ahead and just ask a bartender friend. Oh, no bartender friends? No problem. We’ve scoured through Reddit, just for you, and have collected 41 of the craziest stories that bartenders have shared. Enjoy!
41. Drinking The Mysterious Liquid
From our Christmas party when the bar gets opened up to the staff after everyone goes home and the place is cleaned.
We were all standing around the bar area when the roof started leaking. It was coming out of a light fixture and there was some discussion as to what it was. It was really close to where we were all standing and a few people put their hands under it. It was about this time that someone came from behind the bar laughing saying one of the staff member was in the roof. Someone yelled out "Oh it must be alcohol, Jeremy's pouring his drink out" then without thinking another staff member puts his head under the stream and lets it drip into his mouth.
Anyway, turns out it was pee.
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40. Beer Puke
I served a guy (that didn't seem intoxicated) who took a sip of his beer, threw up straight back into his glass, and then walked away continuing to drink the beer/vomit as if nothing had happened. I've also seen a guy light a shot and then spill the burning liquid all over himself. I have seen a gang fight and some police brutality, and an epic power spew.
The power spew was perfectly executed and beautiful to watch. It was from a guy running to a car in order to get a lift from someone waiting in the car park. On his way to the car he passed a garden, turned his head slightly, spewed (whilst maintaining full speed and composure), continued running and then jumped into the car as if nothing had happened.
39. Fighting Irish Boss
I worked for these two brothers who owned an Irish pub, they're from Ireland. Anyway, the cops in this town are EXTREMELY power crazy, from lack of anything better to do in an affluent area. This guy is at the bar getting super drunk. He's nice though. He walks outside for a cig, stumbles a little bit, leans against a tree, finishes up and comes back in. A couple cops follow him into the bar and come up behind him.
They accost him.. .not sure for what reason, he was quiet outside and I watched him the whole time, and he didn't do anything out of the ordinary. Anyway, they grab him and say "You're Drunk! You're under arrest for public intoxication." Now, yeah the dude is drunk, but he's been in before and he always cabs home or something.
I say "Hey he is NOT drunk in public, he's in a private establishment and leave him alone, he's not harming anyone." I admit, I'm no lawyer, so I'm not sure of the technicalities behind him being in public or not, but it was still messed up.
The cops tell me to shut up, which I don't, so they then say "OK fine, now he'll be drunk in public!" and drag this guy out of the bar into the street.
I'm flipping out, but what could I do? One of my bosses was in back and hears what's going on (only a few seconds have passed). Now, I had worked with the other brother before, and this was my first time working with/meeting this particular brother.
Being the scrappy little Irishman that he is, he comes out and screams "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!" And hops over the bar, runs out the front, and TACKLES one of the officers to defend his patron. Other cop lets go of their original target, and whips out his nightstick and starts taxing my boss, while he wails on the other cop.
He gets beaten pretty badly, and there's a lot of folks watching by this point, and the cops look around and simply leave. A couple employees bring my boss back in, and he's got blood all over his face, he looks at me and says, "Hey there, what's your name, lad? Don't believe we've met yet".
This all went down so quickly that I just stood there poker-faced until that moment, then we all had a laugh and got drunk.
There were no legal repercussions on any party involved in this event.
38. Bloody Sunday
It was Sunday at around lunchtime at our pub, lots of locals would come in for the food (which was excellent) and nurse their hangovers. Because the food was so good we'd have families frequently come in with kids and get stuff to eat on Sundays.
This one time a group of older folks come in, men and women, and proceed to rage it up. No problem... it is a bar after all, but we have a few families in there. They start to get really rowdy, and I tell them to keep it clean. They get all pissy with me, so I remind them that there are kids in here, and they need to keep it down (I'm trying to be diplomatic about this). Then one lady gets super worked up and starts bitching at me, at this point I tell them they need to stop now or get out, and the bouncer comes over to help facilitate this action if needed.
Well, one of the guys gets in the bouncer's face... bad idea. My bouncer tosses this guy outside quicker than that Japanese guy can eat a hot dog. Everyone in that group FLIPS OUT! Things move outside. Other guy grabs my bouncer from behind and gets him in a headlock, while the ladies start beating on him. Bar staff runs out to the rescue, and an all-out brawl ensues. Cops arrive, everyone in that party is arrested, and all of the families in the bar applaud the staff. One of the family dads (a regular) actually got up and helped pull people apart.
This event was referred to, from that point on, as Bloody Sunday.
37. Two Soldiers, One Lobster
My favorite bartending story involves a lobster and two soldiers. I was working one slow Monday and two gentlemen in their uniforms walk in with a bag and sit down. They already seem kind of tipsy, and the one with the bag proceeds to pull out a stick of garlic butter and put it on the bar. Next, the other soldier pulls out a live lobster and sticks it next to the butter. "We have to get it acquainted with its fate," says the one. I am working alone, so I quickly grab a newspaper and stick it under the lobster so it doesn't get all over the bar. They decide it's probably time to go when the other customers start making a fuss. Put it back in the bag, and the one carrying the bag proceeds to slip and crash down on the bag. There was an awful CRUNCH THUD sound. Last I heard, they went to the bar next door and the lobster escaped under a cooler. I hope he is doing alright.
36. Open Your Mouth and Day AHH
I was bartending at this German sports bar in the late afternoon/early evening when two of my regulars came in. After a few rounds, one of the men says he's going to take a smoke and for his friend to watch his things.
The guy gets up from his chair, takes a few steps patting down his pockets and realizes he forgot his smokes. While still walking toward the door, he says "Hey 'Cleetus,' throw me a cig." His friend opens his pack, and without looking chucks it in the direction of his friend walking toward the door.
At that exact moment, he spun around, and the cigarette landed straight in his mouth, in smoking position. He continued to turn back to face the door then stopped dead in his tracks, realizing what had just happened. We all then continued to freak out and realize that will never happen again in a million years.
35. Having Fun With The Bartenders
I worked in a very high volume cocktail bar, one night around Xmas there was a DJ playing pumping big band swing. This was in the UK so everyone was annihilated. There was this really hammered dwarf who would repeatedly stagger over to the bar, get a bartender to lean all the way over to hear him and then whisper, "I'm sorry I'm a little drunk" before exploding with laughter and then staggering back to the dance floor. I can think of crazier stories but this one stands out as one of the funniest scenes.
34. Offering Up The Sweet Life
I had a customer who asked me to be his permanent mistress, as his wife is chronically ill. He offered to buy me a house and a car—and pay all the bills, as long as I gave him a boy child heir. True story.
I said, "no, but thanks" :)
33. The Sad Side of Drinking
I used to bartend for an upscale catering company—weddings, corporate events, etc. Worst story ever was a white-trashy re-wedding. They only contracted our company for the bar, and it was a cheaper place doing the food. Worst night of tips I had at that job, by a large statistical margin. But that wasn't the worst part.
Both bride and groom had children from a previous marriage. The groom's son, in particular, was quite endearing to me. He was middle-school age, and smart as all hell—the rare small child who can hold a semi-adult conversation and hold his own. I kept him stocked with Shirley Temples all night, and we talked a fair amount of baseball.
So the wedding party decided to commemorate the occasion with shot glasses for the wedding party. Said shot glasses were put to use, aggressively, throughout the night. At the end, as we're packing everything up, one of the shot glasses is left on the counter.
Most of the guests have gone by this point. Both bride and groom are well into their 40s, so by 10:30, even, the place was fairly empty. I ask around about the shot glass, and find out that it belongs to the groom. He is seated with his son and the bride's daughter at a table by the dance floor. I walk over.
The groom is barely coherent, passing out in the chair. The children are trying in vain to keep him awake. At the same time as me, a few other people notice this situation and begin assisting with him. With the situation under control, I want as little to do with this sordid reminder of the broken home I come from. I set the shot glass on the table, and go to leave. But as I take a step away, the little girl tells me "Please don't give it back to him, he'll drink more then!"
I stop, and the son grabs the shot glass and pockets it. He reassures me that he'll keep it from his dad for the rest of the night. The look in his eyes tells me that he means it. It's a look I know all too well.
I've never wanted to quit a job more in my life than that drive home.
32. A Rabbi Walks Into A Bar
I was a bartender for ten years in NYC and saw tons of crazy and messed up things that I don't want to repeat. Here's a good one. I worked a neighborhood bar and had tons of regulars from all walks of life.
Every bartender has a gift and mine is remembering people's drinks and the specific way it's made. If you're picky about your martini, you want me to be your bartender. Anyway, a Rabbi in his late 60s would come in every Monday at 6:30 pm- not dinner rush yet (8pm in NYC) but people are starting to trickle in. I never knew his name and just always called him "Rabbi."
Rabbi's drink was a Rob Roy, straight up with Red Label scotch and barely a splash of sweet vermouth shaken in plain ice then drained. Then I added the booze and swiftly stirred in order to cool the drink without watering it down. Finished it off with a lemon twist wipe on the rim of a chilled glass.
Rabbi had been a regular for four years when one day, I saw him walking in so I began making his drink. The bar was unusually busy and all six tables and all bar stools were filled. I poured Rabbi's drink and then went to take care of tables. I was slammed.
Was making a drink order when I notice Rabbi not drinking, but instead stiffening up for a moment before he fell backwards and completely hit the ground... hard. I jumped over the bar and saw that he was holding his arm. I thought it was a heart attack but not sure. He asked me to call a special ambulance service (can't remember the name but it was Hasidic).
I ran across the street to a Bodega and hurriedly asked for aspirin. Didn't have time to pay, just ran back to the bar and shoved it in Rabbi's mouth and made him swallow it with water. I was shocked when dinner customers were complaining about not having ketchup and yelled at the entire bar, "Can't you see we have a man who may be having a heart attack? Screw your ketchup."
The ambulance showed up and unfortunately dropped him twice. I got fed up with them and called 911. The fire dept. was there first and took care of the entire situation.
I thought that Rabbi had died because I hadn't seen him in several weeks. One day, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw Rabbi limping into the bar with the assistance of a younger man who turned out to be his son. His son told me that his dad had insisted on visiting me to thank me for saving his life. It turned out that three of his arteries were almost fully closed and if he hadn't had the aspirin, he would have died.
31. Garlic Lover
I work in a big brewpub right on the edge of a big nightlife/swanky section of town. One night it was pretty slow and this one woman walks in and sits at the bar and asks for garlic. I assume she's from nearby, nicely dressed and polite speaker, maybe she needs some garlic to cook with. So I run down to the kitchen and fill a small to-go box with some garlic cloves. I come back, hand her the box, and she can barely contain herself. Saying how I and another server she had seen that day (apparently she had been at a friend's party earlier on, might explain the odd behaviour) "restored her faith in people."
She handed me a ten dollar bill to try and pay, I told her it was on the house. So she put the bill in my pocket, sat down at the bar, and started munching on the raw garlic cloves. She ordered up a Grey Goose and soda, so I certainly didn't mind her hanging around the bar. So she proceeded to munch on garlic and tell me a bit about herself, how she was a local, doing well with her and her friend running a small business together, and asked if I was single because she knew some girls who would absolutely love me (I lied on that one because I wasn't too comfortable with the thought of a slightly-off-her-rocker 40-year-old trying to set me up). After another vodka soda and some more garlic, she proceeds to give me a $20 tip (more than 100% tip) and a scarf from her business to "give to your girl," as she put it.
I proceeded to trade the scarf for 15 beer slips from my boss.
30. It’s-A Me, Mario
I used to work in a small pub on the bottom floor of a fairly large concert venue. During our Halloween party, I had to jump the bar and break up a fight between two guys dressed in the same exact Mario Costume
Apparently, Mario A asked Mario B's girlfriend, who, ironically enough, was dressed as Princess Peach, if she wanted to get with the "real Super Mario" he then showed her his erection pressed through his uber-tight overalls and said, "How about that Mushroom?"... At that point Mario B went all Smash Bros. on him.
The expression on the Police Officer's face was priceless as he walked in and saw us trying to separate two drunk, bruised and bloody Marios.
29. Phantom Pooper
I work in a hotel bar in the UK, I've seen some interesting things over the last three years of working in this place. Bar fights between the fathers of the brides and grooms on the wedding day, full blown marital arguments, drunken millionaires, inappropriately aged women slipping me their room keys, drunken Japanese businessmen falling asleep at/on the bar and 18 hour shifts over New Years.
My favorite story, though, is the one I trot out when I talk with the new staff that I end up training on the bar. The day that I turned up to find a poop behind the bar. It was a lovely color of brown, a bestial brown, if you are a Warhammer fan. I was a little surprised, so I informed the duty manager of it, who came around, had a little laugh about it with me then I cleaned it up.
End of the story? No. I started asking around the staff to hear if anything else similar had happened in the last few days, trying to identify our phantom pooper. It turned out that this one guest had some mental problems and had been defecating at random throughout the hotel and on the bus that he was part of the tour with. I think he was with his parents on the trip. He'd poop in his room, he'd poop outside his hotel room door, he'd poop on the coach. He also wandered out of the hotel on his own and into the town center and was terrorizing the local branch of the Halifax bank. I like to use it as an idea of how each day at work can be completely unlike the one before.
28. Crazy Bar Lady
I am not a bartender but security—this just happened the other night...
So we are closing up the joint and this crazy lady who has been talking to herself and cursing for the last half hour decides to go into the bathroom. She is in there for maybe eight minutes and we are trying to get everyone out so we make her come out. She finally leaves the bathroom and this dude gives her a little bit of crap about hogging the one bathroom (the ladies room was out of service so we were down to one).
She proceeds to start screaming every curse word I can think of at this guy, and while she is yelling at him she just starts pissing her pants. Well she finishes pissing and we push her out the door, and then she comes around knocking on the windows and flipping people off. She looks at me, blows me a kiss and I bow in return, and then she goes back to flipping everyone else off. A girl who was with the guy goes "What is she saying?"
I tell her that she is telling me to have a goodnight but apparently everyone else can go screw themselves.
27. Falling Into The Ladies Room
I got a pretty good one.
I used to work at a horse racing track, the place was over a hundred years old and had all sorts or weird corridors and cheap walls.
We did Friday night racing and about 5 pm this guy was already drunk drinking Scotch, he offered to slip me $5 if I would give him free booze all night.. yeah right LOL.
Eventually, he goes missing and his friend who was a lot more sober and quite nice asks if I've seen him, I say no I haven't seen him since around 6 pm and now it's about 9. All of a sudden I hear BAM!!!! BANG!!!! BOOM!!!! an extremely loud commotion coming from the ladies washroom soon followed by a man covered head to toe in blood casually walking out of the bathroom trying to act as nonchalant as possible, like nothing happened and the whole bar wasn't staring at him.
Turns out the guy had found a place were there was some construction in a restricted area and was climbing around in the walls and eventually found the ladies room where we suspect he was watching women pee.
A support beam must have gave way or he just slipped, he must have fallen at least 20 feet through all sorts of wood, metals, wires and then into a bathroom stall.
The average age of a women customer in my bar was at least mid 50s. And yes, he was apprehended by security and arrested.
26. Newspaper Burrito
Naked man comes in, asks for a drink. The bartender calls the police. Police come, cuff him, wrap him in newspaper because he had crapped himself, and carry him away.
25. Too Afraid To Ask
Semi-regular drops a bag with a good amount of weed in it. Once we close, a server finds it and puts it in the safe for me. Guy comes back the next day wondering if "um, anyone found, you know... anything on the ground." We respond, "Well we can't tell you if we found it unless you tell us what it is." He shakes his head and leaves.
24. The Poker
Guy tries to get the server's attention by poking her with a fingernail file. Draws blood. Bartender boots him with extreme prejudice. Guy comes back later that week and the same bartender was working. Bartender asks him what he thinks he's doing there and guy rears back and pokes the bartender in the eye as hard as he can. Not a he-tried-to-hit-him-but-accidentally-poked-him poke, but a I'm-gonna-poke-you-in-the-eye-like-I've-done-this-1,000-times-before poke. Apparently, eye-poking is all in the elbow. Cops cart him off and server and bartender eventually testify against him in court.
23. Sink Drink
Pack of girls enter and try to order everything we specifically don't carry because we try to keep the frat guys/sorority girls out: flavored vodkas, Jagermeister, energy drinks, pitchers of beer, etc. They finally settled on Long Island iced teas. Bartender eventually cuts them off because they're wooing so loudly it's driving out everyone except the lurchers/probable sex offenders.
Becky FLIPS OUT and demands another LIIT. She's so drunk she doesn't notice the bartender fill up a glass out of the rinse compartment of the sink, squirt a little coke on top, and charge her $9 for it. She gladly pays, downs the sink water, and leaves.
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22. Hands Of Blood
Bartender shatters a pint glass and manages to get multiple cuts on both hands. There's no back up and it's too many cuts for bandaids. He puts latex gloves on, duct-tapes them around his wrists, and bartends with the gloves slowly filling with blood for a couple of hours.
I've also been punched in the face but that story is no fun.
21. Seriously, Don’t Touch The Tips
Umm, there are two that stick out to me...
Once a guy tipped me with a coupon for McDonald’s and that was awesome.
But a major thing that I've had to deal with it people stealing stuff from the club I work at when they think I'm not looking. One of my co-workers had previously beat up a patron for attempting to steal a tip jar. He was just like "I honestly didn't even think about it, I just went for him... that's our livelihood!"
So what happened a few months later is, I'm working the bar on a busy night and my tip jars are full, and I'm watching them like a hawk. What do I see? Some asshole trying to take one! My co-worker was totally right about acting before thinking because before the guy even knew it, I had squirrel monkey’d over the bar and grabbed this guy. I had my tip jar and was just going at him until the bouncers came and took over. I'm sorry but there was at least $100 in that tip jar, and I can not afford to lose that. I am a 5'3'', 120 lb. girl by the way. Yes, I felt like a superhero.
20. The Size of The Bartender Doesn’t Matter
I am 5'3" tall and and 93 lbs. of fury and as the only female bartender at my job, took a drunken 5'7" tall self-proclaimed "Latin King" out front on a cigarette break and beat the crap out of him after he had grabbed me and called me names for refusing to serve him after entering shipwrecked. I have never before hit anyone out of anger, but it felt damn good.
For clarification, this was after my drunken boss refused to turn down any form of cash, regardless of how disrespectful the customer was.
19. Watch Momma Go
I've been raised in the hospitality industry in Australia, my family have owned and run hotels and bars since well before I was born.
Needless to say I have seen some pretty incredible stuff in my time, but by far the best was watching my mother (all 5'7" of her) come out from behind the bar to grab two brawling bikies by their beards, twist the hair in her fists till their eyes watered and they stopped punching on, and then demand that they each took a bar stool and sit in opposite corners of the bar or she would, and I quote directly, "give them a hiding that their mothers would be proud to witness."
At this point I'm figuring that I'll be burying my mother the next day unless I do something, so I grab hold of the baseball bat we keep under the bar and go to launch myself over the counter when, to the surprise of everyone in the pub, these hard bikies do exactly as they're told and don't move until my mother tells them to get up, shake hands and buy each other a beer...
From that day onward I never stepped on the wrong side of the old girl again.
18. No Bathroom Break
This is more of a short, sad one.
I work at an Irish pub in the Netherlands and we have slot machines. Our regulars spend a lot of money on them. When I first started working there almost a year ago there was a female regular so caught up in the machine that she didn't want to stop and take a bathroom break.
Keep in mind that it was a quiet afternoon and the only ones there were her and some other regulars, so she would not have to be afraid of losing her spot.
So she proceeded to urinate on the stool she was sitting on. So we kicked her and the stool out, got a new stool and I personally never saw her in the pub again.
17. Face Planting Into Your Own Ferrari
I used to work at a real down-south redneck bar called Harold's Corral in Cave Creek, AZ. The regulars that would come in were generally pretty nice, and even with a large amount of Hells Angels bikers coming in, and the occasional fight, it was actually pretty tame.
One Saturday night there was an absolute jerk sitting at the bar. He was in his late 50s, and all night he was hitting on the young (under 18) food runners, and bar backs, and just being a general nuisance. The situation only got worse later on that night when he was properly wasted off his rocker. I only noticed that he was drunk when he got off... well fell off his stool to go the the bathroom.
Usually in these situations the best thing to do is just stop serving him and let him find his way home. Regardless, I didn't really care all too much because I just got to go home early. I walked outside the front door, where there was an outdoor patio area, and the parking lot for the bar. I lit up a cigarette and was checking out a sweet yellow Testarossa parked right at the entrance, when out of nowhere, the drunk bastard from the bar, keys in hand, trips, falls, and smacks his face on the driver's side door of the Ferrari.
Broken nose, blood everywhere, and dirt and rocks all over his face. It turned out it was actually his Ferrari, and the owners of the bar knew him by name. So here's where it gets even funnier. The owners, bouncer, and some people who just saw the incident are helping him, I see my manager calling his wife to come pick him up. Five minutes later and he's in his wife's minivan going home to the kids. Nighty night.
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16. Cheating In The Bathroom
I was bartending/waitressing in a bar back home. Small town, this bar tends to attract the older crowd, more of a pub really. One of our busier nights we had a decently mixed crowd including two young couples sitting together. They were all nice enough, polite and tipped well, each guy had an arm around their respective girl and they seemed to be having fun.
About half an hour later the other waitress comes up to me and asks about the table. It's not a huge bar, I know who she's talking about when she describes them. She says we have to kick them out. I thought maybe they got in a fight with someone or something, so I asked her what happened. "I just caught them having sex in the bathroom." That's right, not one guy and a girlfriend, the two guys. I guess she had been standing beside the door when a customer opened the door and everyone got an eyeful. (We had single occupancy bathrooms, with a damn lock!) The girlfriends had been sitting at the table the whole time, unaware as far as I know. When we went to ask them to leave they were already gone.
It wasn't anyone having a problem with two guys having sex, it was the fact that anyone was having sex in that tiny bathroom. When the other waitress told me we both had a good chuckle and were glad they were already gone so we didn't have to do anything about it.
15. Do Not Talk About The Bartenders Mother
Not my story, but the story of my 60-year-old coworker.
This guy I work with is very quiet but friendly. Everyone loves him and comes to see him serving drinks. This man is old enough to retire but chooses to stay because he loves what he does.
One night, this man gets too drunk and starts calling him names. Bartender remains not at all phased.
Finally, the man calls the bartender's mother a prostitute.
In one leap, the bartender jumps about five feet into the air and on top of the bar. No hands. He used his 60-year-old legs.
He then jumps off the bar and says to the drunk man, "You can call me old. You can call me ugly. But don't you EVER talk about my mother that way. Now get out."
We never saw that drunk man again. My guess is he went to therapy after realizing he confronted old Superman in a bar...
14. Chuck Norris On You
I was bartending in a sports bar when a customer started getting rather unruly. He was shouting loudly and crudely at women, and pushing his friends around when they tried to control him. The owner of the bar, my boss, came up to him and asked him to leave. The customer was probably 6'4" tall and 230 lbs, and my boss is a 5'4" tall, 150 lb. Korean dude in his forties with a bad temper. The big guy tells him off while his smaller friend is in front of him, holding him back.
My boss jumps up and ROUNDHOUSE KICKS THE GUY IN THE FACE over his friends head. Guy drops like a rock and everyone is stunned. Guy's friends pick him up and they leave, cops eventually come but don't care.
13. Wrong Place For Bland Food
Bartending at an Indian restaurant just outside of DC. Big bar, not many people ever come to the actual bar, simply go straight to dinner. But one woman sits at the bar and looks at our appetizer menu. She asks if there's anything that isn't spicy because apparently, she had just come from surgery where a portion of her tongue was removed. I pointed out the blandest thing and put in an order while she ordered a vodka tonic.
When the order comes out, she eats a few bites and proceeds to sweat profusely. She runs to the bathroom repeatedly and is freaking out all the while asking for multiple vodka tonics. After our owner came out and apologized, he offered to take chicken and have it cooked in bland yogurt. He gave her the drinks for free and the specially made chicken as well.
She then freaked out a little further when he left, saying she would take it and feed it to her dog and asked for one more vodka tonic before she left. Either she was seriously crazy, or deviously smart. Who comes to an Indian restaurant after having a portion of your tongue removed and sensitivity to spices?
12. Parting The Sea of The Bar
I'm a fairly young bartender (21 and working my way through college), so my story repertoire is fairly limited, but when my friends ask I always tell this one:
The bar/club I work at gets a very diverse crowd; on Fridays, it's the college kid crowd (usually from my university) and on Saturdays, a more mixed crowd rolls in. One Saturday as we were getting busy a gargantuan person walks into the bar with long blonde hair, long pink fingernails, big gold earrings and a short tight black dress. She saunters up to the bar and the crowd seems to part before her, except for one very drunk overweight gentleman.
She wraps her arms around him, picks him up, and lifts him out of her way. The guy was so surprised that he just stared, and left. She proceeds to order, almost in a whisper. I can't hear or read her lips beneath the blonde weave, so I lean in closer. Still nothing. I got closer and turn my ear toward her. She begins to lick and suck my earlobe like it's a jolly rancher, and not the disgusting sour apple. Then she hands me $20, says sex on the beach, and in a throaty, hoarse, and incredibly deep voice says "keep the change."
11. Mankinis Aren’t Funny At The Bar
I work in a music venue/nightclub and it's generally quite boring, you get the general crap you wouldn't be surprised to see when you go out but nothing special, two particular customers stick in my memory though, one was during a student night, at some point a guy strips down to a Borat mankini, he's drunk and obnoxious but isn't hurting anyone, but at closing time the guy just refuses to leave, dodging around the bouncers and no one particularly wants to drag him out, anyway one of my favourite bouncers just comes up behind him, grabs the mankini and pulls it up, hard, he was escorted out like this down two flights of stairs, I think some friends finally gave him his clothes after he was thrown out into the cold.
The other one was less exciting but made me chuckle, at around four or five am a guy who's gotten pretty drunk and tired lays his head down on the corner of the bar, I was tempted to get him taken out but it wasn't long before the end the bar was quiet and he wasn't hurting anyone, next thing I know he's puked on the bar without getting up, raises his head up for a second before planting it back, face first down in his sick, I radio for security to come escort him out but before they get there his friends find him, take photos, shake him awake and take him out, luckily it happened right next to a bin so it didn't take much cleaning
10. Most Interesting Bartender In The World
In my years as a bartender I have:
*Had guns put to my head
*Been in fights that flipped pool tables and broke windows
*Got piss drunk with pro football players
*served (separately) Quentin Tarantino, Suge Knight, Topanga from Boy Meets World, Stephanie Tanner from Full House, Venus Williams, Sam Rockwell, Paris Hilton, Robert Downey Jr., Daniel Craig, and more...
*Jumped across the bar (several times) in a club and violently pushed two guys apart who were (in some cases) seconds away from straight murder.
*Met a couple who took me down to New Orleans for blackout drinking for a week.
*Met a redhead who took me (from Baltimore) to Chicago, then Omaha, then Denver on a week bender with her and her friend (who I subsequently got gonorrhoea from, tried to take a pill to heal, upset my stomach and crapped my pants, and chucked my dirty pants in the wash with my phone in the pocket).
9. Upselling The Traveling Salesman
I worked in a bar that was really shady and had a deadbeat owner, but then I started booking punk shows there and it got to be a really fun spot. One night out of nowhere, two traveling salesmen came in and started into a long night of drinking. Then the bands show up, and all of a sudden it gets really busy but I kept on treating the salesmen really nicely because I think they were enjoying how much they were sticking out, and a lot of other people were enjoying it too.
They ended up having a great time and were blown away by the music. At the end of the night, one of them wanted to take something home as a souvenir. They had an eye on the drink mat. People often commented on it. It had an old style PBR logo on it with the "what'll you have" slogan, but other than that it was just a dirty, worthless falling apart piece of junk. He offered me $40 for it, but I said I'd turned down $50 before (I hadn't.) We finally settled on $55 and he left feeling like he'd made the score of the century.
8. Fun Times At The Bar
Worked at a tavern on a beach.
Worst Parents: They've had their kids there since eightish and we had live music. They clap along, like it, and kids put their heads down on the table with coats for pillows—obviously exhausted. Parents continue to party (not at the bar, at a table, dumb waitress continues to give them booze). At 10 pm we convert to a bar from table service and I kick them out—they wake their kids up and storm out.
Best fight: Some redneck calls one of our employees the n-word. The ex-Marine bartender working with me grabs the brass beer taps on either side of him, and uses them to lift and hurdle the bar in one smooth motion, like Olympic vaulting over the bar, and clotheslines pottymouth in the process. Punches him a couple times and drags him to the door. We both pick him up and throw him out the door (which had stairs). He calls us names and bleeds out the front door.
Best tip: Regular tipped us $1,000 on NYE. Aloha could only process a $999.99 tip. Also sprayed the entire bar with champagne at midnight—good times.
Worst shot ever taken (we were bored and had a nasty shot contest): Microwaved house (Juarez silver) tequila, snort the salt, take the shot, lime juice in the eye. Awfulness.
Worst shot ever served: Hippy comes in at closing. "Give me a shot." "Sorry, we're closed but you can have a mat shot (nasty mat that catches run off and gross stuff)." "Ok!" He proceeds to take two and then goes and vomits in the street and stumbles off.
Funniest thing ever: The journal of hilarious notes that guys write to the hot female co-workers. "I will take you to my private island and name a waterfall after you." Seriously. Poems were classics too.
Best prank pulled on me: I obviously wore a sign that said "Cowboy's butts drive me nuts" on my back during the dinner rush.
7. New Voice Box Excitement
I had a regular. He had had a tracheotomy, and wore a scarf to cover the hole in his throat. He spoke with a "voice box" (or as the other patrons called it, the "Cancer Kazoo"). He was a really nice guy and smart too. He drank Paulaner Weiss, with a lemon. We served them properly with the tall 1/2 liter glasses. He was a large man, and could drink seven or eight before showing signs of drunkenness.
And that, of course, is when the fun started. The first sign was he would quiet down for a while (I was often amazed at the power of his voice boxes' battery, that dude could talk). Then he would start to lecture me about my smoking (this was in the early '90s, when you could smoke in bars.) And then I would start to ignore him. I learned soon enough that if I ignored him long enough, he would leave. It was time for him to go anyway, because he was drunk.
And he was easy to ignore, because of the limited volume capacity of his "voice box."
Then one day, after he was drunk and I had begun the not-so-subtle step of ignoring him to make him go away, I hear this loud buzzer. It sounded like a frigging cow getting electroshock therapy. I look down the bar at the direction of the sound, and there is my friend, wearing the biggest goddamn grin you have ever seen.
He had gotten a new "voice box." This one had a buzzer. A very annoying buzzer. I had to actually start cutting him off when he used it... because he was in fact quite drunk, and ignoring him was no longer an option.
Fortunately, I moved on to a career in my field of study shortly after this, so only had to suffer this sound for a few weeks.
6. Salami Surprise
I was working the night of the 2010 Grey Cup game (Canada's Superbowl), it was a super busy night (the Riders were playing so the place was PACKED) and during half time this huge bastard walks in wearing giant sunglasses, a trench coat and a hard hat, drunk. I watch him take a step towards the bar and he stops dead and just stands there for a few seconds. All of a sudden he opens his coat and pulls out this giant salami, takes a bite, yells "OH ya!" as loud as possible while holding up the three foot long salami log and just walks out stumbling.
5. Bad Mouthing About The Wrong Country
Was bartending at a family owned Tex-Mex place in New Hampshire. A coworker and I were chatting about something on the news and I said: "Yeah, at least it's not Russia!" Suddenly from the end of the bar a massive woman with a thick accent yells, "VAHT YOU SAY ABOUT RRRUSSIA?"
She then started regaling the entire bar with stories of the Soviet glory days, babbling on in a crazy Bond villain accent about how great everything used to be. She proceeded to finish her margarita, left a $10 on the bar, and walked out. We then noticed that she'd peed all over the stool.
We ended up throwing away the stool.
4. Bomb Threat
I was working one Sunday as the only competent server (I bartended nights) in the building and my bartender was at the bar. We had a full house (never happens) tons of regulars at the bar and tons of religious people at the tables. We were just chillin, hung over and finally finished working our asses off as the rush was subsiding. My bartender—let's call him Chez, comes to me and says "That shifty guy at the bar keeps asking where the nearest hospital is, can you look it up on your phone?" "Ok." I look it up as we stand in the corner of the bar. A couple from one of the hi-tops comes over and tells us that they are leaving and to tab them out. Chez goes to tab them out, and they tell me the guy we were talking to was muttering to himself about a bomb. He had a huge backpack on with cellophane sticking out the top. This seems like it could be legit. I tell Chez, and he goes to get the manager. The manager comes over and is like "Alright, do we call the cops now?"
We all agree we better call the po-pos. We do, tell them what's up, and wait. The guy just stands there muttering to himself as we freak out. Finally, he gets up to leave. As he walks across the street to the hotel next door, cops finally roll up. They come in and we tell them where he went.
In about 15 second flat the hotel is surrounded, and roped off. News crews showed up about seen minutes later. Now, with this going on and the street closed off, all the people from the hotel come over and chill at the bar. The place was packed (thanks bomb guy for all the cash flow, btw).
I found out later the cops apprehended the mental patient dude and did find a home made bomb on his person.
Absolutely nuts. True story, I don't really know how to verify it.
3. Only I Can Call The Cops On Me
I tend bar at an Irish pub in MN. I like to work weeknights because they aren't as busy as weekends but I still make plenty of dough.
Anyway, this was a Monday night, it was late in the evening so I was the only employee left working. The manager and other servers had gone home and I was left alone with eight to ten of my regulars. In walked a young man who had clearly been over-served somewhere else. He sat down and tried to order a drink but couldn't articulate what he wanted. I told him that all I was giving him tonight was water. He was actually really cool about this and drank a few glasses while he sat at the bar.
After a while he asked if he could have a drink now? (Kinda reminded me of a young child asking for a treat). I told him no and he said "that's cool, I am just gonna go home." I asked if he was driving and he said "Yep." I told him I couldn't let him drive and that I would call him a cab. He said that was stupid and he could drive home fine. I told him that if he got in the car I was obligated to call the police. He snapped!
He said "You want to call the cops? Damn, I'll call the cops myself!" He proceeded to dial 911 and hand me his cell phone. I spoke with the dispatch and explained what was going on (she actually laughed). While I was talking to the 911 dispatcher, the young man realized what was going on and started asking for his phone back. I hung up with the dispatch and tried to keep the young man in the bar till the police arrived.
He was getting very angry and so I finally gave him his phone back and he ran out of the bar and climbed into his car, peeling out of the parking lot and through two red lights. Two seconds later four squad cars came flying down the street and proceeded to pull him over.
2. Easy Catch
My uncle (Irish) runs an Irish pub in NY. He was in the back one night doing paperwork after hours when he heard glass clinking in the alley behind, someone was stealing his bottles or something. He reaches above the bar and grabs a hurley (like a cricket bat) signed by the Galway All Ireland winners from 1988 that was hanging on the wall. He runs out the back and sees a seven-foot-tall guy who weighs more than two fat people put together. He bangs the hurley against the wall and starts running at him with it. The guy starts screaming and runs off, dropping whatever barrels and glass he was robbing.
My uncle goes back to the paperwork and an hour later, there's a knock at the front door. It's the guy with two NYPD officers and the guy shouts, "That's the guy, that's the dude who came at me with the giant wooden spoon!!"
1. Don’t Drop The Baby
To be honest upfront: I am not a bartender. But I was IN a bar staffed by a friend of my boyfriends, and it's a fairly quiet night, and suddenly there's this muffled thwump sound, and utter silence falls over the entire room.
A woman halfway down the bar had actually dropped her baby on the floor.
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