- Don’t order Guinness last – I love a Guinness as much as the next person but to have the perfect serve on this pint, it requires time to settle. This means that if you order after we’ve already pulled the rest of your drinks, you’re going to just have to sit and wait, it takes unnecessary time for all involved. Ordering your Guinness first means that we can allow it to settle and pull the drinks in the meantime… clever ey?
- Please remember your table number – It’s rare that us pub workers can photographically remember the placement of each table dotted around a pub, especially with the addition of a beer garden too! This is relevant because if you point and say “That table down there, next to a door”… we won’t understand. Save yourself the journey and grab your table number before you come to the bar.
- We appreciate happy customers – We’re all human and of course, everyone has bad days… it’s a factor of life. If you see someone that appears a bit down, give them a little boost. I can’t tell you how much it makes my day when a customer walks over with a beaming smile and a bit of chit chat. The saying of ‘happy customers, happy staff’ is very true and we really do appreciate you lovely lot offering a bit of shine to our day!
- Manners don’t cost anything – For this, I don’t mean that we expect grand gestures but a simple please or thank you can go a very long way in a pub! It would shock you how much we don’t hear these words.
- Don’t be afraid to ask – Do you need some help getting drinks to the table? Unsure of how to use the coffee machine? Want to make sure you enjoy an ale before you buy? Please ask, more often than not, staff love to help out customers (particularly when asked politely). We’re not grizzly bears and often jump at the idea of helping!
- Don’t put change in bar puddles – This issue is a lot better than it used to be thanks to the introduction of the new banknotes but regardless, putting your money into a puddle of ‘bar juice’ isn’t particularly pleasant for us to retrieve from.
- Please don’t hit on us – We are just there to get our job done, earn money and go home. We’re not coming to work to play Tinder. It’s so unbelievably awkward and when you have to then stand in front of the said customer whilst politely smiling, there feels like no escape. The awkward giggle should be the sign that it will never happen, sorry!
- We’re doing the best we can – The world is struggling, we’re all trying to make ends meet and are often facing understaffing on a crazy level due to the pandemic. Please don’t get angry at us because you can see an empty table but we haven’t had the chance to clean it yet – there are probably six trays of drinks to run and a screen of food that is screaming at us. I think now is such an important time to be nice to everyone in every industry, you can never understand the true extensity of what may be happening for them.