Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #10

#10: The customer is not always right, especially in a strip club.

Working in a bar is completely different than working in an office or working in any type of retail position. Granted, bartenders are still in the business of customer service and catering to the needs of the customer. When alcohol is added to the mix, it changes the playing field entirely. Most customers don't have a problem controlling their alcohol intake. It's the people who can't control themselves after consuming alcohol that makes the job interesting.

I always managed to work the whole "the customer is not always right" to my advantage whenever I worked behind the bar. Granted, only the most awful customers would ever experience the wrath of my "the customer is not always right" bartender attitude. Nice customers always received my best customer service. I was always considered one of the nicer bartenders behind the bar at the club I worked at. As glamorous and fun as bartending in a strip club may seem, if you work behind the bar long enough in one of those places, it eventually starts to eat at your soul and make you bitter. The bitterness eventually comes out in the form of a "take no shit" attitude towards the customers.

Tell, Don't Ask

In a regular bar or restaurant, if a customer becomes overly intoxicated and starts bothering other paying customers, they will probably be given a warning or two and eventually be asked nicely to close out their bill and leave. It doesn't quite happen like that in a strip club. Sometimes customers might be given a warning or two for their bad behavior. If the customer fails to comply with the rules consistently, no one will ask the customer to leave. They will tell the customer to leave.

When you have a club full of scantily dressed women and drunk men, it makes perfect sense why there are strict rules in place. If a customer wants to stay, the customer has to play by the club's rules. When it comes to club management, there is no room for discussion. You either follow the rules or you leave.

Non-Tippers

My philosophy when bartending in a strip club was if you're there, you're there to spend money. If you had money to buy a lapdance, you had enough money to tip the bartender a dollar or two for your drinks. It always irritates me whenever I get stiffed, but it really got under my skin when I was bartending in a strip club. I would always give customers two chances (two rounds) to redeem themselves. If they stiffed me on the first round, I figured they were probably short on cash and would hook me up on the second round after they paid a visit to the ATM machine. If the customer stiffed me on the second round, I'd give them a dirty look. On the third round, I'd avoid the stiffing customer as long as I could. I would make sure to help everyone else around them. Sometimes the customer would catch on to my passive scolding and put money on the bar. As soon as that would happen, all would be forgiven. If the customer still didn't have a clue and asked me why I wasn't helping them, I'd kindly explain to them that since they had chosen to stiff me two times in a row, I'd no longer be serving them for the rest of the night.

The Snappers, Whistlers and Wavers

If you want to piss off a bartender, try snapping your fingers or whistling at them. It's the fastest way to either get kicked out of a place or to not be served at all. In the strip club, if a customer snapped their fingers or whistled to get my attention, I'd be sure to stop whatever I was doing and inform them in front of the entire bar that I wasn't a dog and I refused to be treated like one. This was always quite effective on a Friday or Saturday night when the bar would be packed. The public scolding would work twofold. First, the Snapper/Whistler knew right away that his bad behavior would not be tolerated at the bar. If he wanted to be served, he had to be polite and wait his turn, at the end of the line. Secondly, the rest of the bar would shame the Snapper/Whistler on his outrageous behavior.

The Wavers just get on my nerves. Wavers are always the people whom you know have never worked a day of their life in either a bar or restaurant. They have no clue as to how bar etiquette works. To them, they think as soon as they approach the bar, someone should be willing and able to serve them right away, never mind the rest of the people who were at the bar before them. The Wavers always seem to be the leader of their group. As soon as they approach the bar, they wave at you and then turn around to ask all of their buddies what they want to drink. Whenever I had a Waver come into the strip club, I'd mock them by waving right back at them and then purposely help the person right next to them. I knew I could always get away with going out of my way to piss off the Wavers in a strip club. My mocking them and their self-righteous attitude always taught them a valuable lesson in bar etiquette: if you want to be served at a bar, don't wave at the bartender and have your drink order ready.

Rude People

Most times in a customer service situation, if a customer is rude to you, you have to be nice back. It's the nature of the business. Working in a restaurant, I constantly have to bite my tongue and have a completely different conversation with a rude customer than the one I have in my head. That didn't seem to be the case in a strip club. If a customer was rude to me, I was always rude right back to them. I refused to take any of their crap. Management always backed us up too. I guess they figured with all of the crap we already had to put up with all of the sleazy dudes trying to pull one over, if someone got postal on us, management had no problems yelling at them as they kicked their rude ass out.

Whiners

Bartending in a strip club, it was a requirement that we had to measure out all of the alcohol for every single drink we poured. This rule was definetly not up for discussion between the management and staff. People would get fired for not using their jiggers to pour alcohol into drinks. There were cameras everywhere watching our every move. The club made a lot of money on alcohol sales. In the management's minds, if a bartender wasn't properly measuring out the alcohol for a drink, the bartender was stealing. Stealing is always the quickest and easiest way for any bartender to get fired, at any bar.

So if a customer ever complained about there not being enough alcohol in their drink, I'd snatch the drink right out of their hands and look them dead in the eye as I poured their drink down the sink. I would then grab the glass, set it on the bar and have the customer watch me remake their drink using the jigger. I'd inform them that it was the club's rules that every drink have a specific measure of alcohol in them. If they had problems tasting the alcohol, they could either order a double and pay for a double or drink somewhere else.

I have found in my experience as a bartender that whenever a customer complains about not being able to taste the alcohol in their drink, they're being cheap and trying to pull a fast one by getting more alcohol without having to pay for it. This customer probably even stiffed me on the first round. And then there's the customer who orders a drink that is loaded with sugar and mixer and complains when they can't taste the alcohol. If you want to taste the alcohol, then order alcohol, not a drink that is loaded with sugar and mixer.

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #18

#18: The drunker a customer gets, the more generous the customer gets with their money.

I've worked in a variety of bars over the past 8 years such as nightclubs, college bars, lounges, restaurants, private parties, a strip club and live music venues. Whenever there is alcohol involved, people tend to get more generous the more they drink.

Out of all of the bars I have worked at during my bartending career, I'd never seen money flowing so freely like it did in the strip club. First, you have to pay to get in the door. Once you're inside, you have to pay for drinks. Then you have to pay for the company you keep while enjoying those drinks. When guys came into the strip club, they anticipated on spending some cash. Guys generally weren't there for the food or the beer. They were there to have their egos stroked and for some one-on-one attention with a pretty girl that normally wouldn't give him the time of day outside of the club. Those girls weren't there for fun. They were there to work. Just like the saying goes, "No money, no honey"

I noticed a common trend when I worked behind the bar at the strip club. Guys would come into the club sober. It would take them a few rounds before I could get them to start warming up to me. Once they got enough liquid courage, they would leave the bar and hit the floor looking for company. It wasn't until these guys were comfortable (and loaded up with liquor) that they would show me the love too. What would start off as tipping a dollar a drink would quickly turn into 2 or 3 dollars per drink. If they were sitting with a girl, the tips would increase even more. Who wants to look like a cheapskate in front of a pretty girl in her underwear?

Later on in the evening, I was not only a bartender, but I was also a change machine and a tour guide. Guys would approach the bar needing singles for tipping at the stage. The drunker they were, the more likely that they were to tip me for giving them change. Also, guys would run up to the bar frantically in search of the nearest ATM machine. I was always there to point out the machine or show them in the direction of where they could purchase funny money with their credit card. Once they had cash and approached the bar for another round, they'd tip me extra for all of my help.

Liquor courage in the strip club proved to be quite profitable for me.

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #24

#24: It's never a good idea to bring your significant other to a strip club.

95% of the customers who come into a strip club are male. The few female customers who come into a strip club usually come in with their significant other. I understand why couples come into a strip club. Some of them want to rev up their sex life. Others are curious. Let's be honest, what guy wouldn't want to jump all over the chance to watch his girl be smothered by another female? But at what price? I'm not talking about the nominal fee that you have to pay for the attention, but the emotionally charged insecurities that a strip club can bring out of that significant other.

Most of the time whenever couples came into the club, they would be pretty low key. They would either stop by the bar on their way in for a drink or two before finding a table out on the main floor. Some would skip the bar all together and hide in a corner, scouting out all of the girls and build up their liquor courage with each round the cocktail waitresses would bring them.

One couple stood out in particular as being the worse case scenario couple to have ever come into a strip club. When this couple first started their adventure at our club that night, their first stop was the bar.

The woman was clearly uncomfortable. The first thing the woman had told me was that coming into the strip club had not been her idea and that she didn't want to be there. I couldn't blame her. My heart went out to her. Her husband was clearly trying to fulfill some selfish sexual fantasy of his at his wife's expense. She warmed up to me almost instantly, probably because out of all of the girls in the club, I was wearing the most clothes.

As the husband excused himself to the restroom, the woman confided in me that she had never been in a strip club. I made it my mission to make this woman feel as comfortable as possible. I quickly assisted my cocktail waitresses and random customers that were ordering drinks at the bar while I still maintained my full attention on my conversation with this woman. I quickly gained her trust as I gave her the "ins" and "outs" of the club. I gave her a full layout of the land. I pointed out where things were in the club like the dj booth, restrooms and champagne rooms. I even made a point to show her the entertainers who I thought were cool and "girl friendly."

When her husband finally came back to join us at the bar, I could tell that the restroom hadn't been his only stop. Apparently he had made a few friends along the way and had been doing a little scouting for him and his wife. He started a tab with me and told me that for each round he ordered, he wanted his drink to be a double and to go light on the alcohol for his lady. I didn't really understand where he was going with his request, but I obliged. I decided to make a mental note to keep a close eye on the couple. I had a strange feeling about these two.

The first couple of rounds the husband and wife had at the bar seemed pretty harmless. One by one, the entertainers made their introductions to the couple. With each girl that came by, the wife would turn around to me and seek my approval. I gave her a wink for the girls I thought were cool and a little shrug for the girls I thought she should steer clear of. She appreciated my nonverbal clues and gave me a secret thumbs up for when she agreed with my taste.

Eventually one of the girls whom I had given the woman a wink about made her way into the champagne room with the couple. The hour they spent in the champagne room went by without a hitch. Once their time was up, the couple and their entertainer of choice emerged from the champagne room with smiles on their faces and saddled up at the bar together. It was clear that the wife no longer felt insecure or uncomfortable even though she was amongst girls half her age, running around in their underwear.

It wasn't until half way through the couple's next round at the bar that things started to take a turn for the worse. While the woman had been involved in a conversation with the entertainer who had joined the couple in the champagne room, her husband had managed to strike up a conversation with another entertainer. As soon as the wife realized that her husband was talking to another woman, something inside her snapped. She got up from the bar abruptly and stormed off to the restroom. The entertainer who had been talking to her followed her into the restroom to make sure she was okay.

The husband remained at the bar, unfazed that his wife was upset with the fact that he was talking with another woman. It wasn't until the man had decided that he wanted to go back into the champagne room with his new friend that he noticed his wife was no longer at the bar.

For the next two hours, I had to watch the wife trying to be coaxed out of the restroom in tears by a group of entertainers while her husband told me how crazy his wife was. According to the husband, it was the alcohol that made his wife crazy and insecure, never mind the wife's the realization that her husband loved spending time in strip clubs on a regular basis without her. Ouch!

I felt sorry for the wife. The first thing she had told me when the two of them had come in that night was how she didn't want to be in the strip club in the first place. It was obvious that she was insecure. She knew deep down inside that her husband frequented strip clubs. His insistence of her being in the club with him that night only solidified that insecurity. She could only play along for so long before the alcohol kicked in and her insecurities came rushing out.

Do yourself a favor. If your significant other tells you that they don't want to go to a strip club because it makes them feel uncomfortable, don't take that as an opportunity to get her drunk and force her to live out your girl-on-girl fantasy. Nothing says buzz kill like having the girls who are suppose to be creating a sexy fantasy for you, trying to calm down your girl who can't stop crying in the restroom.

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #2

#2: Two lime garnishes = no alcohol

This rule isn't so much for the customers. It's more like an unspoken rule between the staff such as the dancer, the cocktail waitress and the bartender. It's the easiest way for a dancer to communicate to the bar that she doesn't want alcohol in her drink without letting her paying customer know.

Why would a dancer not want her paying customer to know that she doesn't want to drink alcohol? Its the same idea as when a customer wants to buy the bartender a shot. If a bartender accepted shots from every customer who offered, it's highly unlikely that the bartender would be able to finish out their shift on their own two feet. Trust me, I've tried. Even in my prime time of drinking behind the bar while bartending, I was always more careless and sloppy when I drank with my customers than if I was sober. So could you imagine if a dancer drank with every customer she sat with in a given night? The poor girl would be stumbling around the club and crawling onstage, slurring her speech in her underwear and plastic high heels.

Now that I bartend in a restaurant, I just tell my customers that it is against company policy for me to drink on the clock. I thank them profusely for the offer and then blame the no-drinking policy on the bosses. If the customer pushes back, I say something along the lines of "Hey, you don't want me to lose my job, do you?" while flashing them a big, fat smile. That usually does the trick and they stop trying to make me feel guilty for not accepting their drink offer.

Working in a strip club or any kind of nightclub environment for that matter, it's not as easy to turn down a customer who REALLY wants their dancer, cocktail waitress or bartender to drink with them. It's a loud, party environment. If a customer wants to buy a staff member a drink and the staff member turns them down, they will take it personal. Money talks in a strip club. The customer will take their money to someone who WILL drink with them. Trust me, I've seen it a million times. Drunk people are not rational, remember?

So here come in the two limes...

If a dancer doesn't feel like drinking or if she legally can't drink (she's not quite 21), the easiest way to not turn off her drinking customer is to order a drink and request it with two limes, along with a little wink. That way the customer THINKS she's really drinking with him and she doesn't have to worry about getting wasted or breaking any rules.

For us bartenders, it's easy for us to get out of a drinking situation in a dark environment like a strip club or nightclub. A splash of Sprite, Coke or a mixture of juice make for great, fake cocktails. Customers never know unless they reach for the glass and take a sip. ;)

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #15

#15: You don't always get what you pay for in a strip club.

In strip clubs, customers believe that they get what they pay for. The more expensive the dancer, the better she'll be. The more expensive the alcohol, the classier it is.

I'm here to tell you that it's a big, fat MYTH. You do not get what you pay for in a strip club. In fact, the more you spend on something in a strip club, the bigger a loser you are. You better believe that the entire staff is watching you and snickering behind your back.

It would always crack me up when young guys (just barely past legal drinking age) would come into the club and make a big deal about ordering chilled shots of anything ("Goose", Patron, Belevedere) with pineapple backs, "Henney" and cokes or request Hennessey mixed with apple juice. Seriously? Take the bottle out of your mouth. We don't even carry apple juice. No legit bar does.

Real drinkers understand that top shelf alcohol (the expensive stuff that is so good, it has to sit on the back shelf of a bar and not in the well) is meant to be enjoyed on its own. It's not made to shoot back. It's not made to mix with soda, juice or any type of mixer. It's really not even meant to muddle with fresh fruit.

Bartending in a strip club, I recognized my place. I wasn't there to educate my clueless customers. I was there to sell drinks. My sole purpose was to make money for the club and fill my tip jar. There were plenty of times during a shift when all of us bartenders would share plenty of rolled eyes and "You're never going to believe what this asshole did..." type of stories. This is part of the reason why bartending in a strip club was the easiest type of bartending I had ever done. Certainly not the proudest moments of my bartending career, but it paid the bills and was a lot of fun.

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #30

#30: Every strip club needs a bar.

Let's face it. Strip clubs ooze sex. They are filled with desire and hope. Customers desire the attention of the dancers. The dancers hope the customers will give them money for their time and attention. Bartenders hope to make a drink and tips off any customer that comes to their bar, whether it be an actual customer or a dancer.

It's rare that a customer will patronize a strip club without having some sort of alcohol in his system. When a customer comes into a strip club, the first place he usually stops at (besides the ATM machine right outside the club) is the bar. It's a transition for the customer. He is mentally adapting from the outside world to the inside of his carnal desires. The bar gives the customer a chance to take a breath, relax and form some sort of game plan in his head before venturing out to the floor filled with plastic shoes, glitter and g-strings.

Bars are the social epicenter in any strip club. Dancers use the bar to seek out potential customers. Dancers can smell money all the way from the dressing room. Dancers know that all the fresh meat in the place (the guys who still have cash in their pocket) will be sitting at the bar. Customers might think they are the only ones who are sizing up the inventory. Little do they know, the dancer has already decided on which guy at the bar has the most money. This assessment will determine which guy she will introduce herself to first.

Throwing a bartender in the mix acts as a buffer for both the customer and the dancer. The bartender acts as the middleman, the innocent party if you will. While the customer and dancer are busy sizing each other up, the bartender is busy lubricating the newly acquainted couple with alcohol. The customer knows that the odds are in his favor. His wallet can have any girl he desires in the strip club. But he knows that the one girl he doesn't stand a chance of being able to have an intimate, one-on-one interaction with is the female bartender. If the female bartender plays her cards right by flashing a few smiles and having a friendly chat with the customer, the customer's desire is more likely to leave her a bigger tip.

A strip club is a social circus where the traditional roles are reversed. Men come inside for the attention and become the prey for the women who come inside for the money (and sometimes attention). When you add alcohol to the mix, everything gets a little easier for everyone involved. The customer relaxes. The dancers generally make more money. The bartender walks away with a healthy tip bucket. It's one of the only triangles where everyone involved walks away a winner.

Things I've Learned Bartending in a Strip Club #7

#7: The bar is the bartender's stage.

So bartending in a strip club has its perks. The money is good. It's great for people watching. The "scenery" isn't too shabby. Working in a strip club, its obvious that the dominant clientele is going to be male. There are many reasons why men frequent strip clubs. Where else can a guy grab a beer and look at women running around in their underwear, willing to talk to them? This attention comes with a price, but that's what the men come for and they're willing to pay for it.

Believe it or not, there are strip club customers out there who come in for the bar staff and don't get lap dances. I didn't believe it until I started meeting regular customers who would come in and not once ever leave the bar area. That's right. Not everyone coming into a strip club is looking for a lap dance. I have guys who come in during my shifts every week who chat it up with me at the bar and candidly tell me that they have no interest in the ladies performing on stage.

Which brings me to the question I get asked every night:

"So when do YOU go on stage?"

I have customers all the time, at least once a night, ask me if I dance or when it will be my turn to get onstage. My reaction is always the same. I smile and laugh while pointing at the bar and say "This is my stage and I'll be performing here all night." It seems to be working because the customers always come back to saddle up at my bar, each week.

It doesn't matter what type of bar you bartend at. Having a sense of humor and a good personality will always help you build up a regular clientele base, even when you are competing with half naked girls running around all over the place.