Bar vs. Banquets...

There is a thin white line between the life of a bartender who works at a bar, proper, and a bartender that works banquets. If you are considering a gig in the poison-slinging industry then you should know the difference and lean in the appropriate direction. I started behind the bar - that's where I cut my teeth so to speak. When I began filling in for banquets on the weekends I already had a bias, even though there are pros and cons to both. Likewise I knew plenty of banquet bartenders who would not go behind a bar to save their lives, so to each their own. My point here is to help folks interested plot a course in the right direction.

You've already heard a lot of what it's like behind the bar, so it only makes sense not to waste time outlining the pros and cons there, as discussing now those of banquets will coversely demonstrate the 'bars' by contrast. Did that make any sense? Anyway, here we go on the great banquet coaster!!!

Banquet's number one advantage is based on a sickening loophole in the tax laws. If you work behind a bar or as a server, legally you HAVE to report your tips and grant the government a portion of them for taxes. In a banquet, you do not.

Now, don't worry, you don't actually HAVE to but you HAVE to, know what I mean? When I started behind the bar the friend that trained me told me, 'do what i do, once a week you have to file this tip sheet right? So just put ten bucks in for every day you work.' Now granted, this position I was taking from him was technically 'barback' on the establishment's records because they wanted to have two bartenders on weeknights and three on weekends, but they didn't want to have to pay them the extra fifteen cents or whatever an hour for the elevated position, so 'barback' it was.* Now, barback is a tricky thing. In my experience at the hotel it was great, because it was really a bartender position. But most of the other barbacks positions I've seen are what equates to a busbuy for the bartender, ie you run and fetch barrels or cases of beer for them, empty dishes and glasses and take them wherever, etc. Grunt work that gets, mostly, a small percentage of the bartender's sales. If you're young and can find no other way of getting in the business then go ahead and take it, but you won't make much and most of what I discuss on this site won't apply or even make sense to you until you're behind the bar. If you want to get into the real business however, don't go this route.

Anyway, to get back on point, yeah, as a banquet bartender you DO NOT legally have to claim you're tips because you do not, for the most part, have 'sales'. Most banquet gigs are tending open bars - that is weddings and company shindigs and the like, where the cost of the bar and everything the guests might drink is included in the cost of renting the banquet hall's room out for the party to begin with. This works to the bartender's advantage in a second way as well, as most folks, when a bartender is promptly making or handing them whatever they ordered without charging them a cent, are quick to tip a buck or two. This combined with the amount most people will drink, acquired through numerous trips to the bar, amounts to more and more dollars in your jar. Think of the last wedding you were at. How many people? Maybe it was small, under one hundred people. But these days when the wedding industry is an ever-escalating behemouth sprouting more and more tentacles folks tend to invite more and more people, until family becomes extended family (Hey! Great Aunt Jackie, her three kids, now grown up with families of their own, and even a couple of guys she used to fuck in the forties on Tuesdays! Glad you could all make it!) and friends become friends, acquaintances, co-workers, doctors, lawyers, friends of friends, etc. You get the point. If that's the case (as in my experience it is more than not) think of all those people returning again and again to the bar. Even if only 75% leave you $1 each time, well, that's a fucking lot.

And it's all under the table.

Plus your hourly. If this is the case, be smart, sign up for direct deposit for your check and never touch them, just let them accumulate like that wedding industry Cthulhu I mentioned before and in seemingly no time you'll have a nice big account for emergencies or eventual nesting.

Now, all that being the upside, here's the downside.

The music. If it's a wedding especially, but anything with a DJ in general, get ready to hear endless streaming of audio diarrhea and watch a ton of uncoordinated white folks do the Macarena, Electric Slide and all other manner of hell-spawned gyrations. I once saw an old man with a walker head out to the dancefloor and attempt to 'cut a rug' to Cher's atrocity 'Power of love'. If I knew then what I know now, I like to think I would have slipped roofies into everyone's drinks and attempted to leave psychologically unscathed. Unfortunately I still wake late at night sometimes screaming from dreams of that horrible sight.

Coupled with this, banquets rely on staff other than the bartender, same as any other service establishment, and for some occult reason banquet facilities almost ALWAYS line their ranks with all manner of sick freaks and losers. I've seen women with facial hair, young kids to stupid to understand the words 'that goes to the bride, the woman sitting at the head table with all the other flowers around her, the one who looks just like the enormous photograph hanging above the cake'. Women to large to fit through side by side loading dock doors, hunched and riveted spines, rheumy eyes, you name it. And what's worse, THEY ARE ALL STUPID. Usually. Not always. I worked with some that weren't, but of course the number of morons in any given event staff are stupid enough to more than out weight the advantages of those who are intelligent and agile.

Also, banquets do not provide the solace of regulars. Meet and greet, drink and eat, goodbye godspeed, now go on home and rest your feet.

Hah, now I'm a fucking poet, huh? Maybe I should change this to 'The Poet Chronicles'? Naw. Generally I hate and do not 'get' poetry. Unless of course some wealthy European ruler would like to pay me to sit around and smoke opium and drink Laudunum, composing verse. THAT I could get into.

So, there's the low down. Read it over and choose wisely. The best gig is one that offers a mix of both of these types, with the bulk of the time being spent behind the bar and a banquet here or there for extra cash. But of course, you can't always get what you want. Let's hope though, that you get what you need.