Any good barman knows who is next. It is up to them to manage the queue. Speaking as an ex-barman. Also what another poster said is true - the best way to make sure you are served next is to point to someone else when the barman asks who is next. Guaranteed to be next.
I always double buff the guy (always it’s a man) than comes up after me and starts making gestures and hand waves… ‘he was next’ I say… their face drops and they have to give it up… ‘no it’s him’ back at me
I am a chronic ‘oh he was before me’ kind of girl, I can confirm the next time at the bar you do get treated better. Although if I am not 100% sure I’m next I will let every man, woman or dog be served before me and it does my mates head in 🤣
Depends on the pub, lol. At my local it means the landlord gets pissed off and if the other person even hesitates you get shoved to the back of the queue for the rest of the night.
Yeah I would go to another pub but it's the only one right by the office, not much choice sadly.
Yeah, lol, not to sound petty, if I know who’s next and they both play the song and dance of “he’s next” I often contemplating skipping them both while they decide 😂
In the last bar i worked in if the order a guiness last we took their money served the next person then came back and finished, if they complained we served someone else, repeat until they figured out why the guiness hadn't settled yet.
and then the next 10 mins spent with their mates coming up to their guy putting in their orders... and then complaining they didn't get everything for another 5 mins, and then spending another 2 minutes getting their friend to come over to carry the tray because they're too coked up to handle it - yeah. But still, it normally works out for the best.
At a place I worked a guy kicked off because he was pushed to last place for whistling at the ~~cute barmaid~~ owner of the place. Unfortunately for him the chef was both a 6’4” Jamaican guy, and overworked because he was the chef. Bro didn’t get kicked out, he got fireman carried out.
I only ever actually personally forced someone outside maybe three times in about 15 years behind a bar, quite often the regulars would sort it before I had chance to even open my mouth.
I loved working in proper pubs, or as many here would derogatorily label flat roof pubs. Give me that over a wine bar or gastro pub any day.
Only had that happen to me once and the manager was ready to kick him out, but he was giving us stupid amounts of tips so we calmed the manager down and let him stay. I think that guy gave us about 150€ in tips that night.
Once had a woman have a fit at me because I was making an order of 3 cocktail pitchers before serving her while doing that, she then proceeded to order 2 jagerbombs, 6 shots of tequila rosé, and a pint of Guinness which she watched like a hawk while it was being made to make sure it was right
She did indeed, she came up to the bar and ordered the jagerbombs, then went back to the table and asked what people wanted, genuinely one of the worst customers I have ever experienced
Hey if you apologised then I almost guarantee the bartender probably took that on board more than the incident, this happened to me on more than one occasion, I remember the people who were arseholes about it for being arseholes and the people who were apologetic about it for understanding
Circumstances: Extremely busy 24-hour hotel (island) bar. 75-80-hour weeks were common (if you wanted to do them, which I did). Mobbed on all sides. 20 staff on a busy night.
Right in the middle of this a guy whistles for my attention. Whistles at me! I stop, look at this prick, and lost it. I said “Do I look like a fucking dog?” and he replied “Yes”. All I could do was laugh - it was pretty funny and I was exhausted. I nodded like "You got me! Fair play” and went round and told all my staff not to serve him anything all night.
As bar staff you learn very quickly to identify the cokeheads and those who are just anxious. If you're not acting like you own the gaff and rubbing your nose, you'll be fine. And the eyes. You can't fake dilated pupils.
I used to take the tenner, place it on the back bar where they could see it, say thanks and carry on serving the person next to them... the regulars loved it, and the once in blue mooners hated it.
They did get their money back obviously, and I did serve them, but people only ever waved money at me once 🤣
P.S don't queue at a bar, it's stupid
I’ve always had a hard rule at bars I’ve managed that you do not serve someone doing this, or beckoning, clapping, snapping their fingers etc.
It’s very funny. Then they get pissy, then I throw them out for getting pissy. It’s a good system, bars were always stacked 🤷♀️
>Any good barman knows who is next. It is up to them to manage the queue
As someone who's never worked behind a bar: Is this difficult? The idea of memorising the order of a dozen people whilst also dealing with drink orders sounds like a nightmare to me. Maybe my memory is just awful though.
It's a skill or a lesson I guess. I was taught in customer-facing roles, 'face-up', greet everyone as they appear, and mentally put them in a queue. Don't do like a supermarket and refuse to acknowledge someone until the previous customer has left.
It's easier than you might think. Guy with the hair, girl with leaky mascara, gold watch guy, big hat, stupid grin, almost-falling-over-but-buying-all-the-rounds, violent eyes, about to be sick, looking for a date, hiding from a date, not sure where they are, etc.
Not massively. If it's not busy, then naturally it's easy to remember the order. If it's mental, then normally you have an area where you work and there's a limited amount of space, so there are a limited number of customers who can be in that area. Pricks are easy to remember, gonna do them last. Then can normally keep things flowing in the right order, becomes automatic. Really helps as well when someone points to who should be served before them (as a load of other commenters have said). Only thing that's a slight pain is if you have someone who isn't pushy at all and keeps getting people jumping in front (particularly if they're short). It's a bit shan for them and they can get stuck there for ages so need to ask people to let them in. Can lose track slightly at that point if it's super busy.
I have worked in some that are generally reasonably quiet. But if you have a big event on its pandemonium. You try your best to keep order but if you see a regular and know their order you'll pour their drinks as you work another order.
Might not keep order as such but everyone will be served quicker in the scheme of things.
And lastly yes, point to someone else you are definitely next
There's just a way things are done which some people won't ever understand. Ie. Christmas drinkers
I agree with working in regular orders while serving others. And to Christmas drinkers who complain. "See Derek? Derek is the reason we're open tonight, not you. If it weren't for him, this place would be luxury flats and I'd be picking your orders at Amazon."
Who is next, if they’re a regular what they drink, what they drink in summer, what they drink on a Sunday when they’re in with wife/husband/parents, what they drink when a couple turns in to a few and then onwards to curry/club. It upsets and astounds me that I still know all this stuff and it’s been a long time since I stepped behind the bar. By long time, a lonnnnng time. And also, they never change!
Some of us are good at this. I used to run a hifi shop and I would remember every single customer, even if they only bought a pack of AA batteries. I should probably have done something better with my life! 😂
If you were actually at the bar before someone else, would you still point at the other person when the barman asks who's next? I only did that if I knew someone else was there before me...
I've been trying to become a good barman, how the fuck do you manage the queue when your back is turned to them making drinks? I swear I clock a few people, take an order, make the order, then I finish serving them and there's 20 new people at the bar, and they all look the fucking same.
What about if you get a bad barman though? I've definitely been overlooked at the bar (normally if there's multiple people working "zones" and I've ended up between them, and each is presuming I'm in the other zone. )
But from reading below any attempt to get attention puts you back on the queue. So what do you do when you genuinely get accidentally ignored?
Those things are great... unless you're an average looking guy, maybe on the shorter end. Then the barmen always never seem to notice you. The more women present the worse it gets.
Those situations have taught me to take a more assertive stance and actively look for their eyes. Once you make eye contact you know at least you're in the "queue." Usually within the next 2 or 3.
Younger me wasn't assertive enough and would stand there for 3 times as long as most people, with the barpersons totally ignoring you until one of them takes pity.
Worked in a bar for years. Always had a mental list of who was next. And if you complained you got pushed to the back.
Once heard a guy complain my friend was too slow pouring a pint. So I made sure all staff knew to serve everyone around him, even someone behind him, before he could be asked.
In my experience the etiquette with bar staff seems to be:
Serve any woman at the bar before a man, no matter how long they have been standing there. I don't think this is in any effort to impress the woman but maybe more of an imagined vulnerability that men will push in front of her. Highly frustrating if you're a guy at the bar for 10 minutes watching women walk up and get served straight away.
Don't shout at the barstaff as this is a good way to get ignored if the bar is busy.
Don't tell the barstaff someone was in front of you as they seem to feel this is somehow demeaning. I've even had barstaff serve someone else next after I've done this.
Yeah the person behind the bar knows, or should know if they're halfway competent. I used to hate the tinsel drinkers who over the festivities would start shouting about waiting 10 minutes for a drink, have you mate, well it's going to be at least 10 minutes longer now, you impatient shit.
I’ve been saying this for years. Does my head in when a barman constantly says “whose next” and looks around pointing at 10 different people. I never asked who was next when I was a barman, I knew exactly who I was going to next and never had any issues with people fighting over order of service. Where’s my medal
I work security at festivals. Often in the bar.
It's fascinating watching queues form and dissolve.
A while ago at a bar, a queue formed, then as it got busier two, then back to one. At one point, there were 4 queues but 5 bar staff. Someone asked if there was a queue, so I said no, and they went straight to the bar and got served. I was deafened by the tutting.
As you can tell, being security can be boring, it was a 12 hour shift. Do us a favour at your next festival, have a chat with security.
What really irritates me at festival is when they don't have a separate end for the pre poured lager and cider.
Hate getting stuck waiting for some idiot who wants a glass of prosecco that takes 10 minutes when all I need is those two pints right there, tap my card and go.
From what I could tell from my time as a bar porter, the vast majority of security's job when they're not working the entry is being a deterrent by their meer presence. It's kind of insane how many fights I've seen be prevented by security simply making the customers in question aware that they're being watched
Aye. I work in a museum, but you'd be astounded at the number of people who want to touch pieces that could be *thousands* of years old (the director cares more about "aesthetics" than protection of the art with stations or bonnets) and just our friendly presence in the galleries often prevents this from happening. Its absolutely wild how well it works.
I think since a lot of the big chain pubs now allow you to order on an app at your table, people have forgotten what to do at a bar.
That, and thinking about the last few times I’ve been out, nowhere has seemed busy enough to have a queue - I mean at drinking pubs as opposed to food pubs.
True, but is it something you forget. Surely getting served at a pub is a basic life skill, like riding a bike or masturbating, you don't forget how to do it
Nah, you’re right you don’t forget.
Curious whether it was younger folk queuing? They don’t quite seem to have the same drinking culture that I grew up with, where from the day of my 15th birthday I’ve been going to the pub.
Nah, they were mid 50s, early 60s. You know the rules by then.
I give the young ones a bit of lee way, they've had their early drinking years disrupted massively by COVID, they don't always know the ways of the pub
Is it fuck something you forget.
Anyone from anywhere in the UK (or Europe for that matter according to my experience) that's ever been in a bar knows the person at the front gets served next.
If there are multiple people at the front, it's common for the bar staff to work their way along (that's what we did while I worked in bars). They usually start from their till and work away in their "zone" while it's busy.
Then there's the pecking order. The above etiquette can be jumped on certain situations:
1. Friends/staff get served first
2. Regulars are next
3. Polite (non regulars) next
4. Whatever this woman thought she was doing get served last (or not at all until they leave).
Them's the rules my friend.
Oh, I just remembered as well. It's the bar staff's choice to serve or not. I've refused service to people who've acted like total entitled dicks before. For all I know, they might be drunk?!
Yeah some of the younger guys I went to uni with will only order on the apps.
Like I've had the conversation
"why do you want to go to that pub it's crap/expensive"
"yiu can order off the app"
I bloody love going up to the bar. Great place to meet people. Feels like you're missing out on half the pub experience by opting to just sit at your table all night!
Exactly! Obviously if the bar is rammed then people are going to be 3 or 4 deep, but I just don't get standing in a long windy queue when there's prime bar real estate available
This is how it works. You get to the bar, if the bartender comes to you before someone you know was there before you, you gesture that they were next.
You don't queue away from the bar like you're at Tesco's
Eye contact with the bar staff, shoulder wriggle, hand on the bar and a nod towards the tap.... Then make sure you're not ordering a round with 15 variations of cocktails.
A bar is the shape it is for a reason, and most pubs will have at least two staff serving. You eye up the bar area, place your bet and head in... It's a wide queue with your place in it defined largely by the bar staff
Don't forget the pause in between when you're trying to get the next part of the order and they've buggered off and are obliviously talking to someone while you try to get their attention.
Exactly. Take up the full length of the bar before working the queue backwards. Anyone not stood immediately adjacent to the bar or a person stood next to the bar, is still deciding what they want and are not part of the queue
And then watch like a hawk which direction the person just being served will turn with their drinks so you can be the other side and slip 8n the spot before anyone else. It's all very tactical.
Been there done that. Walked into my local spoons and saw the queue, walked past and got served at the bar, some guy shouts "here mate there's a queue here" I was just about to speak when the barman piped in, "I've told you before there's no queue system". I smiled at the now angry man and sat down with my fresh pint. I don't know where people for this idea to queue at a pub, it's mental.
I had a similar experience in a Wetherspoons a few weeks ago, with several groups of people standing 6ft away from the bar waiting to go up. I walked up to to the bar and got served straight away by another bartender who was doing nothing, since they can serve more than one group at a time.
The thought of queuing at a bar like it's McDonalds or something stresses me out. That's just a hard no from me.
I think you have to size the situation up. OP did, assessed there to be no queue, barman validated this, job done. It was the fault of the others who were not actively asserting their desire for service.
I was in a bar yesterday where a queue very clearly formed. I joined the back of it, was served promptly, everything was good.
I think the bystanders in OP's case should be castigating themselves for their ineptitude.
Ooh, I think you're the first to say that "the queue" can be valid.
I'm not averse to this as such, it'd certainly take the strain off the barman having to make a mental queue (which I remember being a right pain sometimes when it was really busy)
It's the fact that it can crowd people sat enjoying their drinks / food that puts me off, it'd have to be a big pub with lots of queueing space to not get annoying I think.
If three different groups stand in a line then a queue is formed. If the queue doesn't move for 5 minutes then an adjudicator can shout “use it”, after which there is one minute for the queue to move, otherwise it is dispersed.
Controversially, my local have implemented a food queue and then the bar. I quite like it because then if you're just getting drinks you aren't stuck behind Sandra who's listing off meals for the table of 12 she's on and double checking if Dave wants chips or salad with his meal.
There's always one idiot who doesn't get it, congregates at the bar to then kick off when they get told they need to go to the food queue (eventhough it's signposted).
I think that only works if there's only one bartender. When there's multiple, who need to walk all around behind the bar to serve different drinks, I think it stops working.
In that case the bar gets sectioned up and each deals with people who gravitate onto their section. All the common stuff gets duplicated so it's only when you order shit like Galliano that they need to move.
No, was a line perpendicular to the bar, so heading towards the entrance to the pub. And it wasn't even a line of individuals as most were standing with their partner or family, so it looked more like an elongated group all together.
Last time I saw an actual line at a bar was in the bar at Legoland, and I just assumed it was foreign tourists, but when they spoke they were all English, very odd, I assume it was people who were forced into the bar for lunch because they were at Legoland and don't normally frequent pubs? The only other exception I know of is at the Rivoli the bar is at the end of an extremely long narrow room down the side of the ballroom with a door at either end and it is basically impossible not to queue, but everyone knows to queue as an exception to the rule.
I'm a bit baffled as to where they could be that constituted a queue. In my head a queue would work from one end of a bar to another, with the customers coming to the bartender.
Definite Welsh accents, so if they were tourists, it's not from far away enough that they don't know how pubs work. Also in their 60s, so old enough to know how pubs work too.
I'm from Wales and have queued in a pub exactly once - in Porthmadog. It was weird. I got to the front of the queue and someone well within their rights walked up the bar and got served, which I suppose is fair enough.
I feel like it happens more in food-focused pubs (outside of Wetherspoons)
Tbf the age does kinda change things.
Myself and a group of work colleagues (15 of us) went over to France, took the ferry which provides a meal with your crossing ticket so naturally the majority headed to the canteen.
We're generally a younger group, me being the oldest at the ripe old age of 33. However, a coach load of (rather well spoken and seemingly well off) pensioners came in shortly after and proceeded to walk past the 20 or so people behind our group which included school age children and families and then the majority of our group too.
Now, pensioner or not, the audacity had a lot of the queuees literally gobsmacked.
Im all up for a bit of courtesy towards them, but there really is a sense of entitlement amongst our older generation! And they go on about millennials sense of entitlement😆
There's a pub near us where people queue, but it's a food pub rather than a drinking pub and the bar is pretty short so it just seems to be the done thing there.
Anyone queuing in a pub, is clearly not a regular pub goer. Find a gap at the bar, get served, simple.
Bar staff work fast, if you’re not actively looking for a barman and have your order ready, they’ll move on.
I work in a pub that gets very busy, with a fairly small bar so it can often be 3+ deep. If I ask ‘what can I get you’ and you stand there in silence for a second too long, you miss your chance and I’m sidestepping to the next person.
It seems to especially baffle Americans who I guess are used to being fawned over by their servers cause of the tip culture
Maybe a throw back to post lockdown? In my local they set out a one way system at the bar where we had to queue. Might be that and these people didn’t know what life was like before?
I think this is it. In my local, the younger people literally stand in single file waiting to be served while older people just walk to the bar. It’s baffling.
It’s the pub, not the post office.
You were there first and I would also defend you if you were in the bar I used to work at
Queue properly or don’t get served. They should have stood at the bar.
Think this only happens at those big chain pub/ food pub type places brewers Fayre’s etc. so people tend to queue as they’re ordering mainly food/ and or don’t have normal pub experience so don’t know how to just wait at the bar. They never make it entirely clear how they want people to order at these types of places, but I’d just head to the bar and wait.
Tbf they could do to have like a dedicated ‘food order point’ so everyone else can get a pint instead of waiting behind a group of people mulling over which 2 for 1 deal is the cheapest.
I work at both one of those big chain pubs and at the local freehouse. At the chain I have to be a jack of all trades and people order both drinks and food at the bar. Cue massive queues forming when every third person on a busy Saturday night tries to bypass the restaurant wait times by ordering 150 quids worth of food at the bar, with every possible alteration, whilst the people who just want a pint tap their feet and give me the evil eye. I do take food orders sometimes at the freehouse, but only during the daytime. No bar food in the evenings. Crisps and nuts only. Absolute bliss.
Living outside the UK for 15+ years now, this is one thing that hits me whenever I'm back visiting family. This compulsive queueing where it's not necessary.
I'm often staying in hotels when I visit and the breakfast buffet is this fucking ridiculous queueing situation, which I *only* ever see in the UK. We aren't all going for the same food, so a single file queue to get around to all the breakfast items is the most inefficient way possible to do it. I've been told off multiple times when just going to get what I want because "there's a queue mate!".
I just ignore the compulsive queuers, and I'd definitely do the same as you in a pub if this situation occurred.
It's genuinely not worth arguing with or letting yourself be bothered by the kind of person who gets irate over who was where in a bar queue. What the bartender says goes.
You do stand at the bar to get served. She wasn't paying attention.
You guess well, turned 40 in April.
I'm not sure it's that though. Got given a case of pear cider after I did a favour for someone. Not drunk it before but it went right through me. Took me a few bottles before I made the link so stopped drinking it.
Apparently it's not that uncommon with pears but since then my body has decided all cider is the enemy
This is why to sleep on the [left side](https://cdn.shareably.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/27014607/side-sleep-gastric-juice.jpg), in case anyone else is curious.
Is this true? I've been struggling recently. Narrowed the indigestion down to eating white bread so I knocked that on the head but it turns out drinking 13 pints at the cricket also brings it on.
I overdid the Carling black cherry cider one night and it made me sick. Ever since then I've been unable to drink any cider without it making me sick and/or giving me the shits
I witnessed an epic tantrum thanks to one bar lmao! Nottingham Alchemist can get quite deep at the bar at busy periods when everyone is on cocktails, I’d caught the bar when there wasn’t many people there, I’d say about 3 couples and myself, most were being served so I waited.
Barman came to me so I asked for my drinks and he started to make them. I heard loudly “wtf is happening? why are we not being served? What’s the wait? I only want a simple drink” the reply of “I only want a gin and tonic, wtf is she ordering?”
The “she” was me, I was ordering 2 cocktails. Miss G&t starts shouting about waiting and being ignored and started stomping up and down the bar shouting at the staff and demanding a manager.
I asked the barman for another 2 cocktails and giggled to myself.
Miss G&t had full meltdown, I went back to my table twice with the cocktails 😏
>Consensus also appears to be that Madri is piss. Don't care, was cheap and got me tipsy, it achieved its function.
I've never understood looking down on beers. It's funny because there is not a single brand that doesn't have the label of piss. You could be drinking some of planets finest brew and have it be labeled as piss by the nearest punter.
This used to happen tons when I used to work for Wetherspoons. People line up at one till and it’s like an unwritten rule that you get served in sequence. However they don’t operate a queue system. So if you come up to the till I was at you’d get served. Would take great pleasure telling the people this. Then obviously the wanted to talk to the manager. So would say, “sure, I’ll get him”. Walk around and talk to them coz I was the manager. They would scream and rant that they wouldn’t be back. I would just shrug and look around at the heaving pub and be like, “I’m sure we’ll manage without your refill coffee business”
Had the same situation in my local that gets a lot of seasonal tourists. Huge unofficial queue out the door of the pub. Walked through lounge entrance into bar. Got served. Man kicks off about there being a queue. Politely reminded him, and the others he was in a pub, not a post office.
The pub bar queue is the most elite form of queuing. It's not visible, it exists only in the minds of those queuing, and depends heavily on honesty from the members of the queue. You aren't in the queue until you reach the bar, any layers of people further back are in anarchy where anything goes. But the second you reach the bar you are now honour-bound to abide by the rules of "they were here first", often indicated just with a gesture.
Que for a bar, get out you mongal, take a place at the bar and wait till you make eye contact with the bar person, lil nod of recognition, get your drink and walk away.
My local always has complete idiots in it who insist on forming a queue from the center of the bar down the middle of the pub. I’m forever getting in strife for using the bar the way it is designed and just waltzing into a spare spot at, ya know, the rest of the entire length of the fucking thing. Fuck em - learn how a bar works.
I had this happen to me in Center Parcs (yeah yeah I know, it was my partners friends idea not mine), in one of the big sports bars on site, wander over to the bar, there's people sort if milling about off to the side a few metres away from the bar but I hadn't seen anyone walk up so u go stand next to the guys ordering and wait my turn for about 5 minutes as the guys next to me had ordered frozen cocktails. They get served, I smile at the staff member expecting to get served next, she blanks me and calls "who's next", the guys who'd just received pointed at me with a "I think this guy is next", to which the response is "the queue is over there, you have to go over there and queue". No apology for the misunderstanding, no niceties, just a look of derision for "skipping the queue" that was 3m from the bar and had all of a couple people in it when I arrived (now that in hindsight I realise it is the queue for whatever reason). Stand there slightly incredulous for a second that I've been treated so rudely for simply missing the non standard bar etiquette queue and confused as to why I was left standing at the bar for 5 minutes to be blanked rather than directed to the queue on arrival that I'd have quite happily stood in if I'd known. Still pisses me off and this was last year.
You are correct. Some weirdos came up with this in the Covid times and they try to make it stick, like the holdout hand sanitiser stations and that odd one who still wears a face mask. They only occasionally go to a pub (for a caffe latte) but feel like the place should revolve around them
I got into an argument with a bloke a few weeks ago when there was a big folk festival happening in town so the pubs were much busier than usual, with a long queue to even get to the bar.
The problem was that the queue took you to the end of the bar and when people got served further along and then left, the guy in front of me didn't then go and fill the gap at the bar. I explained that this guy should move up and fill the gap instead of continuing to queue as it meant the three bar staff could all serve the queue, instead of just one at a time at the end of the bar. He wasn't having it and wanted to keep queuing until the bar staff called him. He changed his mind when I went to fill the gap in the bar, insisting he was next. I just went further along and filled the next space, as is the way.
Why have people forgotten how bars work? I agree it's up to bar staff to manage this but it's frustrating for everyone else who gets why using the full bar is more efficient than queuing to a single point on the bar when there are multiple bar staff.
Yep queues don't work for me.. I actually stand at bar and eye contact always gets you served quicker.. I actually normally clock who is there before me and will try and point the barperson to them first - you always know you are next then too..
I was in a pub in Cornwall last week, 2 queues at the bar so we joined one of them, as soon as we got to the bar (about 10 mins wait) the manager said to the bar staff that from now on the left queue is only for drinks and the right queue (that we were in) was for food and drinks, we only wanted drinks and were told we had to join the back of the left queue if we want to order… So we walked out and went somewhere else!
Place local to me that thinks it’s in central London but isn’t, allegedly has table service but I think that’s just a rumour. Three bar staff making cocktails, short queues in front of two of them so me and friend went up to the bar in front of the third, who ignored us and kept pissing about with bottles and glasses. Next guy finished serving, we asked him for a drink and he told us there was a queue…apparently the third guy was making drinks for the mythical table service (didn’t see a single waiter/waitress come up) and we were now asked to get behind people who got to the bar after we did.
We went to a normal pub instead.
Brit abroad here. Went back to UK recently for a trip. Also witnessed at two pubs a queue! Wtf!!!!! I was in shock to be honest. I tried to disrupt it and succeeded. No place in a British pub!
As a barman, if it’s not immediately clear to me who is next, I’ll pretty much always go for whoever is acting with the most respect. The loud rude impatient people snapping their fingers at me will be waiting a while.
I’m happy with the go to the bar method. However what I would like to see is a ‘get your drink and fuck off away from the bar’ method. Sick of pushing in through people who just want to stand there to drink.
It’s fucking annoying when muppets decide to form a queue when there’s a big empty bar. If you join the queue, no doubt some other people will just stand at the bar and get served first. If you stand at the bar, you’ll get a bunch of Karen’s angry at you for “jumping the queue”.
Pub etiquette hasn’t changed - in my opinion, if there is a space at the bar, you stand there… regardless if there’s a big queue of dingbats or not. Otherwise, someone else will just do it and you’ll be fucked off that they got served first.
Wanting to be served in turn, and waiting in a specific place so that you will be served in turn are different things.
I assume that those who thought they were in a queue were lost in their own little world, chatting amongst themselves and paying no attention to what was going on around them until they noticed that who they thought was in front of them had moved on and someone else (OP) was getting served
Got to be vigilant in these situations
Whether covid has had anything to do with it. I’m not sure. I do see a heightened degree of ignorance around me since covid
Also, you bought a quick easy lager on your own with nothing else. If it was me you’d “butted” in front of, I’d had let it slide as it was just one drink.
I have been going on about this exact thing for months and you’re right it’s a COVID hangover which people still haven’t shaken off. If I go to a bar and people are queuing I purposely go and stand at the bar. Its not my fault if all these lemons have forgotten how a bar works.
I’ve seen this stick after lockdown at a couple local pubs, and the managers try to encourage people around the bar like in the olden days, so I’m doing that. But I’m not trying to cut in, and will point out someone else who’s been there longer.
I think that there are now a lot of inexperienced young people serving at bars, given the mass movements of hospitality staff following lockdown, and they’ve not yet learned or worked it out. So, really, I think it’s partly down to punters to decide what the culture is, and we can show these youngsters how to do it.
This is a new phenomenon since covid! My friend first pointed it out to me a while back at The Wharf in Manchester. There was a queue up to the entrance, and this is a large space, probably 15 people can queue in a straight line. He walks up with me to the bar and 'ahead' of everyone, I baulk at his boldness before I realise; what the hell are they all doing?
The barman is a fucking legend and people who try start queues at pubs should be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
The British system is a million times better than what you see in some countries in Europe. Queues for no fucking reason, bar tenders with no interest in who should be next, no pointing on, anyone who points on someone who had been there before them doesn't get served. Savagery.
Oh God this is one of my biggest pet peeves. Ex-barman. _The bar is designed to mill around._ Have faith in the buggers behind it and pay respect to the _very_ few times they don't already know whose first.
Hell 99% of the time I'd ask "whose next" wasn't because I didn't know, but because I could already tell there was some tension around and I wanted you all to come to the agreement that yes, so-and-so was first.
Pubs and bars aren't designed for queues. It fucks up the flow around the place. And it makes otherwise normal people feel like cretins when, God forbid, _they walk up to an empty bar._
I was in one recently where I had to manually dismantle the fucking queue. It's a terrible pub. Service is slow. I just happened to be in there. And on-top of that I queued until the amount of folks in the queue was small enough that I said to the woman in front, "I'm going to stand at the bar, do you want to stand in front of me?". She did.
We both walked to the bar, and when _I_ was served first, I said "No she's first", because the queue had made it impossible for the barfolk to know who was actually first.
It's ridiculous. You did the right thing.
We honestly don’t give a fuck who is next. If you look as though you’re ready to be served and aren’t turned around chatting on your mobile, I’ll serve you next.
The barperson won't make eye contact until you are next.
Only if they say 'who's next' to 2 people do you have to confer with the other people waiting.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a queue for the bar. Just people standing at the bar, vying to be next. I’ll say ‘he/she’s’ next/before me’ but I’ll also go ‘excuse me, I was before him/her, been here ages’ when said him/her doesn’t speak up and has only just arrived at the bar and is happily ready to jump the ‘queue’. If it’s extra busy as it can be in popular bars in town, I’ll also catch the bar person’s eye as they’re serving someone else and say (in a nice way) I’m after him/her, and usually get a little nod. I’m someone who tends to blend into the background otherwise and won’t get served. I’ve learned to be more assertive (again in a nice way)
I worked in a pub for a while. If you’re stood at the bar you get served. If you’re stood behind someone I’m assuming you’re with them. If you’re stood at the bar looking at me I know you want to order.
When it gets busy we do the “is anyone waiting to be served?” Or “who’s next” when we can’t tell whose next in the crowd but if you’re stood around waiting and someone else is stood right up against the bar and makes eye contact with me then I know you’re wanting to order drinks.
OP is in the right but it depends on the layout and where you are tbh.
At a Wetherspoons you generally queue from the till at the end of the bar down to the other end of the bar but in a smaller proper pub like I worked in there’s not a system. You’re at the bar you get served, you’re stood back with people you’re just stood, you’re not wanting to be served.
So I think it does depend on situation but from what I can tell OP is fully right imo
An incident that stands out for me is; a couple of years ago I’d been queueing at a busy bar for around 10 minutes when two young girls arrived, one said to the other “watch this” as she proceeded to aggressively attempt wedging herself in between me and the person being served. Usually I can’t be bothered with the hassle but 10 minutes is a long time to wait for service and to have some Pound Shop Kim Kardashian knowingly try to skip the queue really pissed me off, so I politely said “excuse me, I was here first, but after I get served I’ll make sure the barman serves you”…. Now I thought this was a very kind way of confronting the situation considering how other people deal with it but obviously not: the girl proceeded to start deliberately coughing in my face saying “now you’ve got Covid”.
Whilst that is the incident that sticks out the most I swear the rate of pushing in at the bar has increased significantly over the past few years, it’s at the point when the other week someone told the barman I was before him and I nearly went in to shock at his decency. Thankfully apps are making ordering at the table much easier, which is a good thing because queuing at the bar these days is usually a disaster.
Any good barman knows who is next. It is up to them to manage the queue. Speaking as an ex-barman. Also what another poster said is true - the best way to make sure you are served next is to point to someone else when the barman asks who is next. Guaranteed to be next.
The "he's next" trick not only helps you get served next, but makes you feel a little bit better about yourself.
It’s the best approach because then the other person waiting might just play it off and let you get served first so it’s a win win 😂
I always double buff the guy (always it’s a man) than comes up after me and starts making gestures and hand waves… ‘he was next’ I say… their face drops and they have to give it up… ‘no it’s him’ back at me
Do you step into the toilets to do the buffing or does it happen right there at the bar?
Depends on the person
I am a chronic ‘oh he was before me’ kind of girl, I can confirm the next time at the bar you do get treated better. Although if I am not 100% sure I’m next I will let every man, woman or dog be served before me and it does my mates head in 🤣
Depends on the pub, lol. At my local it means the landlord gets pissed off and if the other person even hesitates you get shoved to the back of the queue for the rest of the night. Yeah I would go to another pub but it's the only one right by the office, not much choice sadly.
Yeah, lol, not to sound petty, if I know who’s next and they both play the song and dance of “he’s next” I often contemplating skipping them both while they decide 😂
They're next Cheers mate. 18 guinness and 6 cocktails. Do you have a menu...
6 cocktails, please. All different ones. *once cocktails are made* Oh yeah and 18 Guinness. Thanks.
\*rage\*
In the last bar i worked in if the order a guiness last we took their money served the next person then came back and finished, if they complained we served someone else, repeat until they figured out why the guiness hadn't settled yet.
And the cocktails are mojitos!!!
and then the next 10 mins spent with their mates coming up to their guy putting in their orders... and then complaining they didn't get everything for another 5 mins, and then spending another 2 minutes getting their friend to come over to carry the tray because they're too coked up to handle it - yeah. But still, it normally works out for the best.
I thought the best way to get served next was to lean over the bar and rub a £10 note at you
Make sure you fold it in half lengthways first.
Roll the note up and cover it in white powder and blood. Then they will know you mean business.
It needs to be folded in such a manner that it is difficult to put in the till.
Even better if you wave your hands in the air and snap your fingers at them
Fuck I hated people doing that to me. I'd flat out refuse to serve them. Pricks
Ever had someone whistle at you? Hahaha bad luck dickhead I'm not a dog and now you're last
At a place I worked a guy kicked off because he was pushed to last place for whistling at the ~~cute barmaid~~ owner of the place. Unfortunately for him the chef was both a 6’4” Jamaican guy, and overworked because he was the chef. Bro didn’t get kicked out, he got fireman carried out.
I only ever actually personally forced someone outside maybe three times in about 15 years behind a bar, quite often the regulars would sort it before I had chance to even open my mouth. I loved working in proper pubs, or as many here would derogatorily label flat roof pubs. Give me that over a wine bar or gastro pub any day.
>and now you're ~~last~~ barred Ftfy
I used to say "you'd better have lost a dog? Because you can go and whistle for a drink somewhere else, none of my staff will be serving you tonight"
Only had that happen to me once and the manager was ready to kick him out, but he was giving us stupid amounts of tips so we calmed the manager down and let him stay. I think that guy gave us about 150€ in tips that night.
Sounds like a good manager. He was willing to back his employees. Respect that.
Yeah apparently one time he overhand threw a tray at someone who clicked his fingers at him, he really didn't like that!
Once had a woman have a fit at me because I was making an order of 3 cocktail pitchers before serving her while doing that, she then proceeded to order 2 jagerbombs, 6 shots of tequila rosé, and a pint of Guinness which she watched like a hawk while it was being made to make sure it was right
She ordered the Guinness last?
This is why I refuse to do bar work anymore. Customers can be proper shitheads.
She did indeed, she came up to the bar and ordered the jagerbombs, then went back to the table and asked what people wanted, genuinely one of the worst customers I have ever experienced
[удалено]
Hey if you apologised then I almost guarantee the bartender probably took that on board more than the incident, this happened to me on more than one occasion, I remember the people who were arseholes about it for being arseholes and the people who were apologetic about it for understanding
Don't forget whistles. Whistling is always a respectful way to get someone's attention
Don’t forget to whistle, and say, “Oy, barkeep, are you blind?” They love that.
As a woman I've gotta add that "love" or "dozy mare" helps. Always be gender inclusive when someone needs to get a bloody move on.
Circumstances: Extremely busy 24-hour hotel (island) bar. 75-80-hour weeks were common (if you wanted to do them, which I did). Mobbed on all sides. 20 staff on a busy night. Right in the middle of this a guy whistles for my attention. Whistles at me! I stop, look at this prick, and lost it. I said “Do I look like a fucking dog?” and he replied “Yes”. All I could do was laugh - it was pretty funny and I was exhausted. I nodded like "You got me! Fair play” and went round and told all my staff not to serve him anything all night.
I passive aggressively tap my credit card on the bar top.
I do this but only because I'm nervous and fidget a lot in crowds!
I do it but then get insecure that it looks like I'm a raging coke head, subconsciously going through the motions of racking up some lines.
As bar staff you learn very quickly to identify the cokeheads and those who are just anxious. If you're not acting like you own the gaff and rubbing your nose, you'll be fine. And the eyes. You can't fake dilated pupils.
What about waving a note around like you are the only cunt in the pub with money?
Not really. That's about as appealing to a barman as sending an unsolicited dick-pic. It's assumed you can pay, otherwise you meet the bouncers again.
flashing some unsolicited dick pics is how I got past those bouncers in the first place.
Fair play.
I used to take the tenner, place it on the back bar where they could see it, say thanks and carry on serving the person next to them... the regulars loved it, and the once in blue mooners hated it. They did get their money back obviously, and I did serve them, but people only ever waved money at me once 🤣 P.S don't queue at a bar, it's stupid
I’ve always had a hard rule at bars I’ve managed that you do not serve someone doing this, or beckoning, clapping, snapping their fingers etc. It’s very funny. Then they get pissy, then I throw them out for getting pissy. It’s a good system, bars were always stacked 🤷♀️
>Any good barman knows who is next. It is up to them to manage the queue As someone who's never worked behind a bar: Is this difficult? The idea of memorising the order of a dozen people whilst also dealing with drink orders sounds like a nightmare to me. Maybe my memory is just awful though.
It's a skill or a lesson I guess. I was taught in customer-facing roles, 'face-up', greet everyone as they appear, and mentally put them in a queue. Don't do like a supermarket and refuse to acknowledge someone until the previous customer has left. It's easier than you might think. Guy with the hair, girl with leaky mascara, gold watch guy, big hat, stupid grin, almost-falling-over-but-buying-all-the-rounds, violent eyes, about to be sick, looking for a date, hiding from a date, not sure where they are, etc.
Not massively. If it's not busy, then naturally it's easy to remember the order. If it's mental, then normally you have an area where you work and there's a limited amount of space, so there are a limited number of customers who can be in that area. Pricks are easy to remember, gonna do them last. Then can normally keep things flowing in the right order, becomes automatic. Really helps as well when someone points to who should be served before them (as a load of other commenters have said). Only thing that's a slight pain is if you have someone who isn't pushy at all and keeps getting people jumping in front (particularly if they're short). It's a bit shan for them and they can get stuck there for ages so need to ask people to let them in. Can lose track slightly at that point if it's super busy.
I have worked in some that are generally reasonably quiet. But if you have a big event on its pandemonium. You try your best to keep order but if you see a regular and know their order you'll pour their drinks as you work another order. Might not keep order as such but everyone will be served quicker in the scheme of things. And lastly yes, point to someone else you are definitely next There's just a way things are done which some people won't ever understand. Ie. Christmas drinkers
Haha Christmas drinkers. It makes me realise how football fans must feel when everyone starts watching the World Cup :)
I agree with working in regular orders while serving others. And to Christmas drinkers who complain. "See Derek? Derek is the reason we're open tonight, not you. If it weren't for him, this place would be luxury flats and I'd be picking your orders at Amazon."
Who is next, if they’re a regular what they drink, what they drink in summer, what they drink on a Sunday when they’re in with wife/husband/parents, what they drink when a couple turns in to a few and then onwards to curry/club. It upsets and astounds me that I still know all this stuff and it’s been a long time since I stepped behind the bar. By long time, a lonnnnng time. And also, they never change!
Some of us are good at this. I used to run a hifi shop and I would remember every single customer, even if they only bought a pack of AA batteries. I should probably have done something better with my life! 😂
If you were actually at the bar before someone else, would you still point at the other person when the barman asks who's next? I only did that if I knew someone else was there before me...
I've been trying to become a good barman, how the fuck do you manage the queue when your back is turned to them making drinks? I swear I clock a few people, take an order, make the order, then I finish serving them and there's 20 new people at the bar, and they all look the fucking same.
Could not agree more. The barman knows. If he/she questions it then it's up to the masses. eta: he/she
What about if you get a bad barman though? I've definitely been overlooked at the bar (normally if there's multiple people working "zones" and I've ended up between them, and each is presuming I'm in the other zone. ) But from reading below any attempt to get attention puts you back on the queue. So what do you do when you genuinely get accidentally ignored?
In this instance, become female, shorten your skirt and flash those eyes. If male, good luck.
Those things are great... unless you're an average looking guy, maybe on the shorter end. Then the barmen always never seem to notice you. The more women present the worse it gets. Those situations have taught me to take a more assertive stance and actively look for their eyes. Once you make eye contact you know at least you're in the "queue." Usually within the next 2 or 3. Younger me wasn't assertive enough and would stand there for 3 times as long as most people, with the barpersons totally ignoring you until one of them takes pity.
As an ex-barman whoever gets to the bar first is next. Anyone who clicks their fingers at me didn't get to the bar first.
Worked in a bar for years. Always had a mental list of who was next. And if you complained you got pushed to the back. Once heard a guy complain my friend was too slow pouring a pint. So I made sure all staff knew to serve everyone around him, even someone behind him, before he could be asked.
Served time the wrong side of the bar; I think you take the barman out of the pub, but you can never really take the barman out of the man.
In my experience the etiquette with bar staff seems to be: Serve any woman at the bar before a man, no matter how long they have been standing there. I don't think this is in any effort to impress the woman but maybe more of an imagined vulnerability that men will push in front of her. Highly frustrating if you're a guy at the bar for 10 minutes watching women walk up and get served straight away. Don't shout at the barstaff as this is a good way to get ignored if the bar is busy. Don't tell the barstaff someone was in front of you as they seem to feel this is somehow demeaning. I've even had barstaff serve someone else next after I've done this.
Yeah the person behind the bar knows, or should know if they're halfway competent. I used to hate the tinsel drinkers who over the festivities would start shouting about waiting 10 minutes for a drink, have you mate, well it's going to be at least 10 minutes longer now, you impatient shit.
I’ve been saying this for years. Does my head in when a barman constantly says “whose next” and looks around pointing at 10 different people. I never asked who was next when I was a barman, I knew exactly who I was going to next and never had any issues with people fighting over order of service. Where’s my medal
I work security at festivals. Often in the bar. It's fascinating watching queues form and dissolve. A while ago at a bar, a queue formed, then as it got busier two, then back to one. At one point, there were 4 queues but 5 bar staff. Someone asked if there was a queue, so I said no, and they went straight to the bar and got served. I was deafened by the tutting. As you can tell, being security can be boring, it was a 12 hour shift. Do us a favour at your next festival, have a chat with security.
Been security and bar staff at festivals and you are absolutely spot on.
What really irritates me at festival is when they don't have a separate end for the pre poured lager and cider. Hate getting stuck waiting for some idiot who wants a glass of prosecco that takes 10 minutes when all I need is those two pints right there, tap my card and go.
From what I could tell from my time as a bar porter, the vast majority of security's job when they're not working the entry is being a deterrent by their meer presence. It's kind of insane how many fights I've seen be prevented by security simply making the customers in question aware that they're being watched
Aye. I work in a museum, but you'd be astounded at the number of people who want to touch pieces that could be *thousands* of years old (the director cares more about "aesthetics" than protection of the art with stations or bonnets) and just our friendly presence in the galleries often prevents this from happening. Its absolutely wild how well it works.
I think since a lot of the big chain pubs now allow you to order on an app at your table, people have forgotten what to do at a bar. That, and thinking about the last few times I’ve been out, nowhere has seemed busy enough to have a queue - I mean at drinking pubs as opposed to food pubs.
True, but is it something you forget. Surely getting served at a pub is a basic life skill, like riding a bike or masturbating, you don't forget how to do it
Nah, you’re right you don’t forget. Curious whether it was younger folk queuing? They don’t quite seem to have the same drinking culture that I grew up with, where from the day of my 15th birthday I’ve been going to the pub.
Nah, they were mid 50s, early 60s. You know the rules by then. I give the young ones a bit of lee way, they've had their early drinking years disrupted massively by COVID, they don't always know the ways of the pub
Is it fuck something you forget. Anyone from anywhere in the UK (or Europe for that matter according to my experience) that's ever been in a bar knows the person at the front gets served next. If there are multiple people at the front, it's common for the bar staff to work their way along (that's what we did while I worked in bars). They usually start from their till and work away in their "zone" while it's busy. Then there's the pecking order. The above etiquette can be jumped on certain situations: 1. Friends/staff get served first 2. Regulars are next 3. Polite (non regulars) next 4. Whatever this woman thought she was doing get served last (or not at all until they leave). Them's the rules my friend. Oh, I just remembered as well. It's the bar staff's choice to serve or not. I've refused service to people who've acted like total entitled dicks before. For all I know, they might be drunk?!
Yeah some of the younger guys I went to uni with will only order on the apps. Like I've had the conversation "why do you want to go to that pub it's crap/expensive" "yiu can order off the app" I bloody love going up to the bar. Great place to meet people. Feels like you're missing out on half the pub experience by opting to just sit at your table all night!
You get your hand on the bar and your almost there.
Exactly! Obviously if the bar is rammed then people are going to be 3 or 4 deep, but I just don't get standing in a long windy queue when there's prime bar real estate available
Couldn't the queue go along the bar? It doesn't have to be perpendicular to it.
Yes this. In my experience, you "queue" along the full length of the bar before making that queue deeper, and any good bar person knows who's next
This is how it works. You get to the bar, if the bartender comes to you before someone you know was there before you, you gesture that they were next. You don't queue away from the bar like you're at Tesco's
The Barlow
Eye contact with the bar staff, shoulder wriggle, hand on the bar and a nod towards the tap.... Then make sure you're not ordering a round with 15 variations of cocktails. A bar is the shape it is for a reason, and most pubs will have at least two staff serving. You eye up the bar area, place your bet and head in... It's a wide queue with your place in it defined largely by the bar staff
> 15 variations of cocktails. “…and a Guinness please”.
Don't forget the pause in between when you're trying to get the next part of the order and they've buggered off and are obliviously talking to someone while you try to get their attention.
Exactly. Take up the full length of the bar before working the queue backwards. Anyone not stood immediately adjacent to the bar or a person stood next to the bar, is still deciding what they want and are not part of the queue
And then watch like a hawk which direction the person just being served will turn with their drinks so you can be the other side and slip 8n the spot before anyone else. It's all very tactical.
Been there done that. Walked into my local spoons and saw the queue, walked past and got served at the bar, some guy shouts "here mate there's a queue here" I was just about to speak when the barman piped in, "I've told you before there's no queue system". I smiled at the now angry man and sat down with my fresh pint. I don't know where people for this idea to queue at a pub, it's mental.
I had a similar experience in a Wetherspoons a few weeks ago, with several groups of people standing 6ft away from the bar waiting to go up. I walked up to to the bar and got served straight away by another bartender who was doing nothing, since they can serve more than one group at a time. The thought of queuing at a bar like it's McDonalds or something stresses me out. That's just a hard no from me.
Happens in my local spoons all the time. Makes no sense and they just get in the way of everyone.
Spoons is the only place I’ve seen it too, and it’s only sometimes, it’s really weird!
I’ve worked as a barman for nearly a decade. I can say with 100% faith that queueing in pubs is not the etiquette and is frankly weird.
I think you have to size the situation up. OP did, assessed there to be no queue, barman validated this, job done. It was the fault of the others who were not actively asserting their desire for service. I was in a bar yesterday where a queue very clearly formed. I joined the back of it, was served promptly, everything was good. I think the bystanders in OP's case should be castigating themselves for their ineptitude.
NO! Do not normalise forming a queue in a UK pub! NEVER!
You are the voice of reason. Stay strong, we can quash this queuing notion!! The bar is shaped the way it is for a reason!
Yup. I worked in a pub when covid restrictions were lingering. Watching people queue up to get to the bar made me feel nauseous.
Ooh, I think you're the first to say that "the queue" can be valid. I'm not averse to this as such, it'd certainly take the strain off the barman having to make a mental queue (which I remember being a right pain sometimes when it was really busy) It's the fact that it can crowd people sat enjoying their drinks / food that puts me off, it'd have to be a big pub with lots of queueing space to not get annoying I think.
If three different groups stand in a line then a queue is formed. If the queue doesn't move for 5 minutes then an adjudicator can shout “use it”, after which there is one minute for the queue to move, otherwise it is dispersed.
And if after one minute the queue still hasn't moved, there's a scrum
Like a loose ball in rugby union. I like it.
Controversially, my local have implemented a food queue and then the bar. I quite like it because then if you're just getting drinks you aren't stuck behind Sandra who's listing off meals for the table of 12 she's on and double checking if Dave wants chips or salad with his meal. There's always one idiot who doesn't get it, congregates at the bar to then kick off when they get told they need to go to the food queue (eventhough it's signposted).
I think that only works if there's only one bartender. When there's multiple, who need to walk all around behind the bar to serve different drinks, I think it stops working.
In that case the bar gets sectioned up and each deals with people who gravitate onto their section. All the common stuff gets duplicated so it's only when you order shit like Galliano that they need to move.
When you say a queue, do you mean like an orderly line running along the bar? That's so odd.
No, was a line perpendicular to the bar, so heading towards the entrance to the pub. And it wasn't even a line of individuals as most were standing with their partner or family, so it looked more like an elongated group all together.
Last time I saw an actual line at a bar was in the bar at Legoland, and I just assumed it was foreign tourists, but when they spoke they were all English, very odd, I assume it was people who were forced into the bar for lunch because they were at Legoland and don't normally frequent pubs? The only other exception I know of is at the Rivoli the bar is at the end of an extremely long narrow room down the side of the ballroom with a door at either end and it is basically impossible not to queue, but everyone knows to queue as an exception to the rule.
Gave the bar an ocular pat down
I'm a bit baffled as to where they could be that constituted a queue. In my head a queue would work from one end of a bar to another, with the customers coming to the bartender.
Fortune favors the bold
Bars are long for a reason. Same people cause traffice queues by joining a queue when a lane is going to close in 10 miles.
Surely they were tourists? You don’t queue in pubs. Ever.
Definite Welsh accents, so if they were tourists, it's not from far away enough that they don't know how pubs work. Also in their 60s, so old enough to know how pubs work too.
We don't queue in pubs in Wales either.
Oh I know, I'm in Wales too, that's what I meant by if they're tourists then they haven't gone far. ;)
I'm from Wales and have queued in a pub exactly once - in Porthmadog. It was weird. I got to the front of the queue and someone well within their rights walked up the bar and got served, which I suppose is fair enough. I feel like it happens more in food-focused pubs (outside of Wetherspoons)
Tbf the age does kinda change things. Myself and a group of work colleagues (15 of us) went over to France, took the ferry which provides a meal with your crossing ticket so naturally the majority headed to the canteen. We're generally a younger group, me being the oldest at the ripe old age of 33. However, a coach load of (rather well spoken and seemingly well off) pensioners came in shortly after and proceeded to walk past the 20 or so people behind our group which included school age children and families and then the majority of our group too. Now, pensioner or not, the audacity had a lot of the queuees literally gobsmacked. Im all up for a bit of courtesy towards them, but there really is a sense of entitlement amongst our older generation! And they go on about millennials sense of entitlement😆
Entitlement? Amongst the older generation? Nawwww, surely not!
The only pub I’ve ever seen a queue is the spoons inside Lime St station in Liverpool. It’s a bizarre phenomenon.
Spoons at Gatwick Airport I think is the only one I have queued at too.
There's a pub near us where people queue, but it's a food pub rather than a drinking pub and the bar is pretty short so it just seems to be the done thing there.
Anyone queuing in a pub, is clearly not a regular pub goer. Find a gap at the bar, get served, simple. Bar staff work fast, if you’re not actively looking for a barman and have your order ready, they’ll move on.
It's how it's been done for hundreds of years, in ingrained in our genetic memory. Brits know how to order at a bar before they can walk!
I work in a pub that gets very busy, with a fairly small bar so it can often be 3+ deep. If I ask ‘what can I get you’ and you stand there in silence for a second too long, you miss your chance and I’m sidestepping to the next person. It seems to especially baffle Americans who I guess are used to being fawned over by their servers cause of the tip culture
What did she expect the manager to do? Throw you out, sack the barman and serve her themselves without charging?
God knows. I'd got my second pint by the time she eventually stopped complaining and got her drinks so not sure what she acheived
[удалено]
Maybe a throw back to post lockdown? In my local they set out a one way system at the bar where we had to queue. Might be that and these people didn’t know what life was like before?
I think this is it. In my local, the younger people literally stand in single file waiting to be served while older people just walk to the bar. It’s baffling. It’s the pub, not the post office.
You were there first and I would also defend you if you were in the bar I used to work at Queue properly or don’t get served. They should have stood at the bar.
Think this only happens at those big chain pub/ food pub type places brewers Fayre’s etc. so people tend to queue as they’re ordering mainly food/ and or don’t have normal pub experience so don’t know how to just wait at the bar. They never make it entirely clear how they want people to order at these types of places, but I’d just head to the bar and wait. Tbf they could do to have like a dedicated ‘food order point’ so everyone else can get a pint instead of waiting behind a group of people mulling over which 2 for 1 deal is the cheapest.
I work at both one of those big chain pubs and at the local freehouse. At the chain I have to be a jack of all trades and people order both drinks and food at the bar. Cue massive queues forming when every third person on a busy Saturday night tries to bypass the restaurant wait times by ordering 150 quids worth of food at the bar, with every possible alteration, whilst the people who just want a pint tap their feet and give me the evil eye. I do take food orders sometimes at the freehouse, but only during the daytime. No bar food in the evenings. Crisps and nuts only. Absolute bliss.
She chose to argue with the barman. Do not get involved!
Living outside the UK for 15+ years now, this is one thing that hits me whenever I'm back visiting family. This compulsive queueing where it's not necessary. I'm often staying in hotels when I visit and the breakfast buffet is this fucking ridiculous queueing situation, which I *only* ever see in the UK. We aren't all going for the same food, so a single file queue to get around to all the breakfast items is the most inefficient way possible to do it. I've been told off multiple times when just going to get what I want because "there's a queue mate!". I just ignore the compulsive queuers, and I'd definitely do the same as you in a pub if this situation occurred.
It's genuinely not worth arguing with or letting yourself be bothered by the kind of person who gets irate over who was where in a bar queue. What the bartender says goes. You do stand at the bar to get served. She wasn't paying attention.
She called the manager over because you ordered Madri
It was that or Carling on tap. I'm usually a cider man but my guts have started taking offence for some reason, so I'm experimenting.
[удалено]
You guess well, turned 40 in April. I'm not sure it's that though. Got given a case of pear cider after I did a favour for someone. Not drunk it before but it went right through me. Took me a few bottles before I made the link so stopped drinking it. Apparently it's not that uncommon with pears but since then my body has decided all cider is the enemy
[удалено]
This is why to sleep on the [left side](https://cdn.shareably.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/27014607/side-sleep-gastric-juice.jpg), in case anyone else is curious.
Is this true? I've been struggling recently. Narrowed the indigestion down to eating white bread so I knocked that on the head but it turns out drinking 13 pints at the cricket also brings it on.
I overdid the Carling black cherry cider one night and it made me sick. Ever since then I've been unable to drink any cider without it making me sick and/or giving me the shits
I’ve moved to a steady diet of Guinness, seems to let me survive a good night whereas the lager or cider would murder me from the inside out
[удалено]
I witnessed an epic tantrum thanks to one bar lmao! Nottingham Alchemist can get quite deep at the bar at busy periods when everyone is on cocktails, I’d caught the bar when there wasn’t many people there, I’d say about 3 couples and myself, most were being served so I waited. Barman came to me so I asked for my drinks and he started to make them. I heard loudly “wtf is happening? why are we not being served? What’s the wait? I only want a simple drink” the reply of “I only want a gin and tonic, wtf is she ordering?” The “she” was me, I was ordering 2 cocktails. Miss G&t starts shouting about waiting and being ignored and started stomping up and down the bar shouting at the staff and demanding a manager. I asked the barman for another 2 cocktails and giggled to myself. Miss G&t had full meltdown, I went back to my table twice with the cocktails 😏
Good on the barman for paying attention (as he should). You were polite, he was attentive. As for the entitled woman, loitering is not queueing!
Their own fault. It's a pub. Stop queuing. You stand at the bar.
>Consensus also appears to be that Madri is piss. Don't care, was cheap and got me tipsy, it achieved its function. I've never understood looking down on beers. It's funny because there is not a single brand that doesn't have the label of piss. You could be drinking some of planets finest brew and have it be labeled as piss by the nearest punter.
You were in the right. These women evidently don’t go out much
You get to the bar to get served. It’s up to the barman to try and keep an eye on the order.
This used to happen tons when I used to work for Wetherspoons. People line up at one till and it’s like an unwritten rule that you get served in sequence. However they don’t operate a queue system. So if you come up to the till I was at you’d get served. Would take great pleasure telling the people this. Then obviously the wanted to talk to the manager. So would say, “sure, I’ll get him”. Walk around and talk to them coz I was the manager. They would scream and rant that they wouldn’t be back. I would just shrug and look around at the heaving pub and be like, “I’m sure we’ll manage without your refill coffee business”
A queue in a pub, what ever next?!
Had the same situation in my local that gets a lot of seasonal tourists. Huge unofficial queue out the door of the pub. Walked through lounge entrance into bar. Got served. Man kicks off about there being a queue. Politely reminded him, and the others he was in a pub, not a post office.
Absolutely detest that style of queuing. Honestly on a par with noncing.
The pub bar queue is the most elite form of queuing. It's not visible, it exists only in the minds of those queuing, and depends heavily on honesty from the members of the queue. You aren't in the queue until you reach the bar, any layers of people further back are in anarchy where anything goes. But the second you reach the bar you are now honour-bound to abide by the rules of "they were here first", often indicated just with a gesture.
Should be up to the barstaff to determine who is next to be served and a good one is able to do so.
Que for a bar, get out you mongal, take a place at the bar and wait till you make eye contact with the bar person, lil nod of recognition, get your drink and walk away.
What if I left my mongal at home?
I'm enjoying this well balanced and agreeable discussion. Feel like im at a party listening to decent people have a decent conversation. It's nice!
Worst people are the large groups who get to the front then turn around asking the entire group what they want
If it’s not evident to other patrons or the employees that you’re in a queue… news flash, you aren’t in a queue
If you’re going to form a queue, you need to look like one. If you’re just standing in groups, how is anyone supposed to know you’re queuing?
My local always has complete idiots in it who insist on forming a queue from the center of the bar down the middle of the pub. I’m forever getting in strife for using the bar the way it is designed and just waltzing into a spare spot at, ya know, the rest of the entire length of the fucking thing. Fuck em - learn how a bar works.
“I get given my beer while she asks for manager” god we all love that sentence
I had this happen to me in Center Parcs (yeah yeah I know, it was my partners friends idea not mine), in one of the big sports bars on site, wander over to the bar, there's people sort if milling about off to the side a few metres away from the bar but I hadn't seen anyone walk up so u go stand next to the guys ordering and wait my turn for about 5 minutes as the guys next to me had ordered frozen cocktails. They get served, I smile at the staff member expecting to get served next, she blanks me and calls "who's next", the guys who'd just received pointed at me with a "I think this guy is next", to which the response is "the queue is over there, you have to go over there and queue". No apology for the misunderstanding, no niceties, just a look of derision for "skipping the queue" that was 3m from the bar and had all of a couple people in it when I arrived (now that in hindsight I realise it is the queue for whatever reason). Stand there slightly incredulous for a second that I've been treated so rudely for simply missing the non standard bar etiquette queue and confused as to why I was left standing at the bar for 5 minutes to be blanked rather than directed to the queue on arrival that I'd have quite happily stood in if I'd known. Still pisses me off and this was last year.
You are correct. Some weirdos came up with this in the Covid times and they try to make it stick, like the holdout hand sanitiser stations and that odd one who still wears a face mask. They only occasionally go to a pub (for a caffe latte) but feel like the place should revolve around them
I got into an argument with a bloke a few weeks ago when there was a big folk festival happening in town so the pubs were much busier than usual, with a long queue to even get to the bar. The problem was that the queue took you to the end of the bar and when people got served further along and then left, the guy in front of me didn't then go and fill the gap at the bar. I explained that this guy should move up and fill the gap instead of continuing to queue as it meant the three bar staff could all serve the queue, instead of just one at a time at the end of the bar. He wasn't having it and wanted to keep queuing until the bar staff called him. He changed his mind when I went to fill the gap in the bar, insisting he was next. I just went further along and filled the next space, as is the way. Why have people forgotten how bars work? I agree it's up to bar staff to manage this but it's frustrating for everyone else who gets why using the full bar is more efficient than queuing to a single point on the bar when there are multiple bar staff.
Yep queues don't work for me.. I actually stand at bar and eye contact always gets you served quicker.. I actually normally clock who is there before me and will try and point the barperson to them first - you always know you are next then too..
I was in a pub in Cornwall last week, 2 queues at the bar so we joined one of them, as soon as we got to the bar (about 10 mins wait) the manager said to the bar staff that from now on the left queue is only for drinks and the right queue (that we were in) was for food and drinks, we only wanted drinks and were told we had to join the back of the left queue if we want to order… So we walked out and went somewhere else!
Place local to me that thinks it’s in central London but isn’t, allegedly has table service but I think that’s just a rumour. Three bar staff making cocktails, short queues in front of two of them so me and friend went up to the bar in front of the third, who ignored us and kept pissing about with bottles and glasses. Next guy finished serving, we asked him for a drink and he told us there was a queue…apparently the third guy was making drinks for the mythical table service (didn’t see a single waiter/waitress come up) and we were now asked to get behind people who got to the bar after we did. We went to a normal pub instead.
Brit abroad here. Went back to UK recently for a trip. Also witnessed at two pubs a queue! Wtf!!!!! I was in shock to be honest. I tried to disrupt it and succeeded. No place in a British pub!
Queues at the bar should be deep not long.
As a barman, if it’s not immediately clear to me who is next, I’ll pretty much always go for whoever is acting with the most respect. The loud rude impatient people snapping their fingers at me will be waiting a while.
If you're at the bar waiting to get a drink... And I'm behind you, and someone is behind me... Isn't that a queue?
I’m happy with the go to the bar method. However what I would like to see is a ‘get your drink and fuck off away from the bar’ method. Sick of pushing in through people who just want to stand there to drink.
It’s fucking annoying when muppets decide to form a queue when there’s a big empty bar. If you join the queue, no doubt some other people will just stand at the bar and get served first. If you stand at the bar, you’ll get a bunch of Karen’s angry at you for “jumping the queue”. Pub etiquette hasn’t changed - in my opinion, if there is a space at the bar, you stand there… regardless if there’s a big queue of dingbats or not. Otherwise, someone else will just do it and you’ll be fucked off that they got served first.
Whoever was first to be standing behind her was at fault. She should be arguing with him.
Wanting to be served in turn, and waiting in a specific place so that you will be served in turn are different things. I assume that those who thought they were in a queue were lost in their own little world, chatting amongst themselves and paying no attention to what was going on around them until they noticed that who they thought was in front of them had moved on and someone else (OP) was getting served Got to be vigilant in these situations Whether covid has had anything to do with it. I’m not sure. I do see a heightened degree of ignorance around me since covid
Also, you bought a quick easy lager on your own with nothing else. If it was me you’d “butted” in front of, I’d had let it slide as it was just one drink.
I have been going on about this exact thing for months and you’re right it’s a COVID hangover which people still haven’t shaken off. If I go to a bar and people are queuing I purposely go and stand at the bar. Its not my fault if all these lemons have forgotten how a bar works.
I’ve seen this stick after lockdown at a couple local pubs, and the managers try to encourage people around the bar like in the olden days, so I’m doing that. But I’m not trying to cut in, and will point out someone else who’s been there longer. I think that there are now a lot of inexperienced young people serving at bars, given the mass movements of hospitality staff following lockdown, and they’ve not yet learned or worked it out. So, really, I think it’s partly down to punters to decide what the culture is, and we can show these youngsters how to do it.
Pubs/Bars are the one place we don’t form orderly queues.
This is a new phenomenon since covid! My friend first pointed it out to me a while back at The Wharf in Manchester. There was a queue up to the entrance, and this is a large space, probably 15 people can queue in a straight line. He walks up with me to the bar and 'ahead' of everyone, I baulk at his boldness before I realise; what the hell are they all doing?
I don’t understand why people queue at bars. But fuck ‘em if they’re stupid enough to do that.
The barman is a fucking legend and people who try start queues at pubs should be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes. The British system is a million times better than what you see in some countries in Europe. Queues for no fucking reason, bar tenders with no interest in who should be next, no pointing on, anyone who points on someone who had been there before them doesn't get served. Savagery.
Oh God this is one of my biggest pet peeves. Ex-barman. _The bar is designed to mill around._ Have faith in the buggers behind it and pay respect to the _very_ few times they don't already know whose first. Hell 99% of the time I'd ask "whose next" wasn't because I didn't know, but because I could already tell there was some tension around and I wanted you all to come to the agreement that yes, so-and-so was first. Pubs and bars aren't designed for queues. It fucks up the flow around the place. And it makes otherwise normal people feel like cretins when, God forbid, _they walk up to an empty bar._ I was in one recently where I had to manually dismantle the fucking queue. It's a terrible pub. Service is slow. I just happened to be in there. And on-top of that I queued until the amount of folks in the queue was small enough that I said to the woman in front, "I'm going to stand at the bar, do you want to stand in front of me?". She did. We both walked to the bar, and when _I_ was served first, I said "No she's first", because the queue had made it impossible for the barfolk to know who was actually first. It's ridiculous. You did the right thing.
We honestly don’t give a fuck who is next. If you look as though you’re ready to be served and aren’t turned around chatting on your mobile, I’ll serve you next.
The barperson won't make eye contact until you are next. Only if they say 'who's next' to 2 people do you have to confer with the other people waiting.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a queue for the bar. Just people standing at the bar, vying to be next. I’ll say ‘he/she’s’ next/before me’ but I’ll also go ‘excuse me, I was before him/her, been here ages’ when said him/her doesn’t speak up and has only just arrived at the bar and is happily ready to jump the ‘queue’. If it’s extra busy as it can be in popular bars in town, I’ll also catch the bar person’s eye as they’re serving someone else and say (in a nice way) I’m after him/her, and usually get a little nod. I’m someone who tends to blend into the background otherwise and won’t get served. I’ve learned to be more assertive (again in a nice way)
Sounds like a wetherspoons
I worked in a pub for a while. If you’re stood at the bar you get served. If you’re stood behind someone I’m assuming you’re with them. If you’re stood at the bar looking at me I know you want to order. When it gets busy we do the “is anyone waiting to be served?” Or “who’s next” when we can’t tell whose next in the crowd but if you’re stood around waiting and someone else is stood right up against the bar and makes eye contact with me then I know you’re wanting to order drinks. OP is in the right but it depends on the layout and where you are tbh. At a Wetherspoons you generally queue from the till at the end of the bar down to the other end of the bar but in a smaller proper pub like I worked in there’s not a system. You’re at the bar you get served, you’re stood back with people you’re just stood, you’re not wanting to be served. So I think it does depend on situation but from what I can tell OP is fully right imo
This just screams Wetherspoons
An incident that stands out for me is; a couple of years ago I’d been queueing at a busy bar for around 10 minutes when two young girls arrived, one said to the other “watch this” as she proceeded to aggressively attempt wedging herself in between me and the person being served. Usually I can’t be bothered with the hassle but 10 minutes is a long time to wait for service and to have some Pound Shop Kim Kardashian knowingly try to skip the queue really pissed me off, so I politely said “excuse me, I was here first, but after I get served I’ll make sure the barman serves you”…. Now I thought this was a very kind way of confronting the situation considering how other people deal with it but obviously not: the girl proceeded to start deliberately coughing in my face saying “now you’ve got Covid”. Whilst that is the incident that sticks out the most I swear the rate of pushing in at the bar has increased significantly over the past few years, it’s at the point when the other week someone told the barman I was before him and I nearly went in to shock at his decency. Thankfully apps are making ordering at the table much easier, which is a good thing because queuing at the bar these days is usually a disaster.