How do you get a job as a bartender in New York City?

Answer 1

Restaurant and bar owners in New York City do not want to hire bartenders who have little or no experience. It is very difficult to find a bartending job in New York City (and especially in Manhattan) if you don't have at least 6 months to a year of experience.

Restaurant and bar owners in other towns and cities are not particularly thrilled to hire someone who has no experience, but you have a much smaller chance of finding a bartending job with no experience in New York City. In New York City, there are 18,000 restaurants and probably at least half as many bars. Most new restaurants and bars in Manhattan go out of business within a year.

Bar/restaurant owners in New York City -- and especially Manhattan -- face fierce competition for customers. Thus, they do not want to take a chance on an inexperienced bartender, who probably will not be able to handle a busy bar packed with customers, and who will not be able to keep customers in the bar, buying more drinks.

A bar's success or failure is largely dependent upon its bartenders. Specifically, it is dependent on the personality and the competence of its bartenders. The main reason customers choose to come back to the same bar over and over and over again is the bartender. A bartender who has a great personality and can handle a large crowd will attract lots of customers, and will keep them coming back.

Not only do you need to know how to make drinks -- and make them well -- but you also have to be fun and enthusiastic. You have to be able to handle a large crowd and stay charming while you do it, rather than getting stressed and overwhelmed. Everywhere except for large clubs -- where interaction between the customers and the bartenders is minimal or non-existent -- bartenders provide entertainment as much as they provide alcohol. You can't be entertaining unless you are experienced enough to take care of a large crowd without getting stressed out.

If you have no experience, you will have to work your way up. You can try applying for barback/barmaid jobs. A barback/barmaid is basically a bartender's assistant. You won't be serving drinks, but you'll be behind the bar, watching everything the bartender does, and eventually you will learn enough to do it yourself.

You can also try bartending school. Most bars will not hire people who have no experience, but have only gone to bartending school. However, if you're lucky, you may be able to find a new bar or restaurant that has just opened, or is about to open. They might hire you to work the day shift (which is much slower, especially at a new bar). You will make very little money, working the day shift at a brand-new bar, but you will get the experience you need to find a better job later.

New bars have little to offer an experienced bartender (at least, for the day shift). Someone who is experienced enough to work a busy bar does not want to work a slow bar where they'll make little money. But the owner still needs someone to work the day shift. Thus, they may be willing to hire you straight from bartending school. You don't have experience, but you at least know how to make all the drinks.

That is actually how I got my first bartending job. I went to bartending school (The New York Bartending School), and then I found a new bar that was about to open. They needed someone to work the day shift, noon to 6 PM. I had practically no customers -- it was a good day if I got more than 5 customers the whole day -- but I got the experience I needed to find a better job.

You can also go to bartending school, and then lie and make up a fake resume. Most places will not bother to check your references. You can't really make up a fake resume if you haven't gone to bartending school, because they will soon notice that you don't know how to make any of the drinks and you don't know your way around a bar. Don't overdo it; don't claim that you have years of experience working at busy bars, because they will know you're lying when the bar gets really busy and you can't handle it. But you can say you've worked at a couple of not-so-busy places, and fake it reasonably well.

As for actually finding a job: the best ways to go about it are to check Craigslist every day for ads looking for bartenders or barbacks/barmaids, and to just go around dropping off resumes. Go around door to door, neighborhood to neighborhood, and drop off a resume at every bar and restaurant you see, even if they are not hiring. Most of them will take your resume anyway. Some of them will throw it in the garbage the moment you walk out the door, but a lot of them won't. They will keep your resume in a drawer.

The bar/restaurant business has an extremely high turnover rate, especially in New York City (this is why they usually don't bother to check your references). Pretty soon, one of those places is going to have someone quit suddenly on them. Or they suddenly and unexpectedly need to fire someone. Now they are short one bartender, and they are desperate to find another one, fast. That's when they reach into the drawer, pull out your resume, and give you a call. I got more than one bartending job that way.

If you have no experience and you don't want to lie on your resume, then put down any and all customer service jobs you've had, like, store clerk, cashier, etc. Bartending is a customer service job (and you usually have to cashier as well), so most places will be more willing to hire you if you have experience in other kinds of customer service jobs.