Food & Drink

Science determines best way to get a bartender’s attention

"Jesus," you think, "I'm never gonna get a beer." Or will you...? Photo by Mary Dorn
“Jesus,” you think, “I’m never gonna get a beer.” Or will you…? Photo by Mary Dorn

We’ve all been there: at the bar, it’s crowded, and all you want to do is get your drink and get back to your date and hey who’s that guy talking to her? So you try in vain to get the bartender’s attention but it just isn’t working. Will you ever get a drink? Now with this one simple trick, you’ll get the bartender’s attention and get back to your date in no time.

The simple trick is to just stand there and look at the bartender. Yep, that’s it. Science, which has been relatively trustworthy in the past, has determined that walking to the bar, squaring yourself up to it and looking at the bartender with an expression that says “I’m a man and I know what I’m ordering, damn it,” will get you a drink quickly.

Important alcohol scientists studied the behavior of thousands of nightclub patrons to see the body language of the people who got served most often. Squaring up to the bar beat talking with friends, looking at the menu, and it sure as hell beat waving the bartender over, as if your bartender is some kind of dog. What is wrong with you?

And we weren’t joking about the people behind the study being important alcohol scientists: these are folks trying to make the perfect robot bartender, so they need to program it to know when to serve people. Otherwise that thing is just gonna go around force feeding booze to people, which will be fun until we all blackout.

2 Comments

  1. Sadly this does not work in SF where you could give a bartender a death stare from 5 feet away in a nearly empty bar and they will keep talking to their friend at the end of the bar.

Leave a Reply