Bartender shares 'quick tip' to make life easier for restaurant workers: 'Don’t do that'
A bartender on TikTok is sharing one simple yet clever tip to help restaurant servers avoid a common headache at work: Put the straw in the customer’s drink as soon as you pick it up from the service area so it won’t wind up on the floor.
“You’re gonna rip the bottom of the straw and place it in the drink for them,” the bartender shares, referring to the wrapper. “That way, you don’t find these all over your section.”
By “these,” he’s referring to the straw itself, as well as the paper wrappers that often get crumpled up and discarded on the table or left on the ground. While that may not sound like much, picking up a million of them at the end of the night can be a hassle, the TikToker argues.
Doing it this way assures there will be “less sweeping, less stress” before you close up, the bartender notes.
@turningtablesmoremoney shared the video, and it’s a fairly new TikTok account that reveals lots of tips and tricks within the restaurant industry. Many times, they’re about things like keeping table sections clean in between customers or how to suggest extra drinks and apps without sounding pushy.
But so far, the straw tip seems to be getting the biggest response from viewers — for better or worse.
Some commenters wondered why they hadn’t thought of this themselves and thanked the bartender for passing it on. Others said they also do this, but only in cases where they have large tables or need to differentiate between a diet soda and a regular soda.
At the same time, commenters strongly urged servers not to do this for several of reasons.
For one thing, they felt that leaving the tiny piece of paper on top of the straw still meant that customers could toss them on the floor, so the extra effort wouldn’t really be saving much clean-up time. Others worried about how sanitary the whole thing actually is.
“And I’m going to ask for other drink cause don’t do that,” one commenter wrote.
A few people also called out how impractical (and not entirely helpful) something like this can be during busy times.
“Used to do this , then a senior server told me ‘ain’t nobody got time for that with a dinner rush,'” another commenter shared.
People did, however, defend the TikToker — including one person who wrote, “There’s always going to be people who complain, but I love the idea.”
Lately, bartenders and servers have been taking viewers behind the scenes of the restaurant industry in all sorts of ways.
Recently, a bartender went viral for telling customers why they should never ask a bartender to “surprise me” with a drink order. Servers have also been testing out the so-called “pigtail theory” at work, which claims that female servers who have pigtails get better tips. And one former bartender came clean about five things she would never do at a bar after working in one for nearly two decades.
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