Rules in Cocktail Bars - Codified and Understood

[eje]

Think a moment about the circumstances of the old original speakeasies.  They were illegal operations flying under the radar.  They'd likely have been quite paranoid about making sure that drunken rowdiness didn't attract unwanted attention...  I'd not be surprised if there was a code of conduct (whether it had been formalized into a list of rules or not) that was enforced.  (Anybody know any sociologies of speakeasy culture to check into this hypothesis?)

Most of the rules listed in the article aren't things I'd generally fall afoul of whether I knew they were rules or not, so they're not an onerous obligation on me...  hence my attitude that they're no big deal.

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I'm with you at the end.

I don't find any of the rules listed in the article particularly onerous and most come down to common sense, at least for me.

I will say, though, I've read figures ("Alcoholica Esoterica" or "Mondo Cocktail", maybe?) which indicate there were more speakeasies in New York by the end of Prohibition (Volstead Act's repeal in the US) than there were bars before prohibition started.

Surely, in this case, the well lubricated throat or greased palm in the correct professional circles would be far more effective and likely at avoiding inauspicious discovery than simple, "Ssh, everybody, be quiet, the cops are on the corner!"

After all, the whole country was very, very thirsty...

[jsmeeker]

To me there's a bit of irony that modern "Speakeasies" are at the forefront of this rule making.

Were the Speakeasies of the 1920s and 30s places of refinement and gentle conversation?

[. . .]

I'm all for the elevation of cocktail arts and its practitioners.  I think, though, that modern libation artists should recognize that they are trying to create something new and not encourage false histories and a nostalgia for an age that never existed.

I don't think these are "speakeasies" in any sense other than (usually) being small and not copiously signed/advertised. And I think the "modern speakeasy" meme is one picked up by the press more than deliberately promulgated by cocktail bar owners. Dave Kaplan of D&C touches on this when he explains that some places have rules "because speak-easies had them and speak-easies are in vogue " on the one hand or because they're "simple guidelines of etiquette" on the other hand. -- the implication I take from this is that the former is silly and the latter is useful.

Of course speakeasies (which is to say, places to get illegal booze during the Volstead Act from 1920 to 1933) were likely horrible places to get a drink after stocks of pre-Prohibition booze ran out. But I'm not sure that modern cocktail spots are trying to emulate them so much as some of them are trying to evoke a time still associated with quality mixology in America. This is mistakenly thought to be the Jazz Age, but more often than not the actual iconography comes from the post-Prohibition period (e.g., the Thin Man movies) or from the (Nineteen) Teens.

As to your larger point, I'm sure that many a saloon was a rough and ready place back to whichever day one would like to harken. But I don't get the impression that anyone is furthering the belief that cocktail bars during the previous great cocktail ages were like monastaries. Sam Ross at M&H/Little Branch does say, "Everything we do is a throwback to the early 20th century . . . The bartenders are inspired to bar-tend at a different level . . . We're seen as a draw for the place." But I don't see that as quite the same thing as creating a false mythology.

I'm not so sure if this is the case. At least based on what I read in the article about some of the bars in Los Angeles.  There were references to the types of shirts and pants people were wearing in one place, plus another mention about the doorman keeping people out who don't belong.  How does the doorman know if you are the type to order a Negroni or a Red Bull and Vodka?  Does he ask?  I somehow doubt that.

I assume you are thinking of this:

"I like policies," said Sang Yoon, who is opening a second Father's Office, in Culver City, planned for December. "It gives us choices; 'that place is for me, that place isn't.' " And for bar owners, it's saying, 'Here's who we are, and here's who we want our customers to be.' You can't say, 'No schmucks.' "

At SBE Entertainment Group's new Philippe Starck-designed S-Bar in Hollywood, there aren't any rules per se, but the "schmucks" might be discouraged not only by the doorman and velvet ropes but also by the price of a cocktail -- $20 for an Imperial Prince of Wales (Cognac, Benedictine, angostura bitters and brut Champagne) or $19 for a horseradish and pomegranate margarita.

"You can't do it with pricing," Yoon said. "You get rich schmucks."

Yoon has rules, but they're not written anywhere. "The way I set rules is by not offering certain choices," he said. "You rid yourself of pitchers of beer, or light beer. No beer from a bottle."

And no vodka. You won't find any on his cocktail menu at the new Father's Office. . .

I think you may be misreading this part. They're not talking about a doorman making arbitrary choices based on appearance to keep out the Red Bull and Vodka drinkers. They're talking about keeping out the Red Bull and Vodka drinkers by not offering any vodka and not offering any Red Bull (among other things).

I'm not sure where you are getting the idea that they are regulating shirts and pants and things like that (one customer at PDT made a joke about Oxford shirts). All I see is that some places ask men to take off their hats or disallow baseball hats.

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I suppose I did misread it, then. Somewhere I saw doorman and velvet rope and automatically came up with the sterotypical red rope and doorman at a night club image in my mind. Controlling the crowd at what seems to be a whim soley to generate hype by making it tough to get in.

[thirtyoneknots]

Re: rules in Prohibition era bars, p. 34 of The Joy of Mixology has a list of 10 such rules from a NYC joint that opened in 1924, so the concept is not entirely new.

-Andy

[lostmyshape]

I suppose I did misread it, then.  Somewhere I saw doorman and velvet rope and automatically came up with the sterotypical red rope and doorman at a night club image in my mind.  Controlling the crowd at what seems to be a whim soley to generate hype by making it tough to get in.

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got to experience little branch last week. my wife and i get to the (inconspicuous) door, surrounded by who i thought were just smokers and the door man turns us away. points to the smokers, indicating that there's a line. we were like, "oh, crap," i didn't think it was this type of place. however, we only waited 13 min, and when we got in, the small space wasn't so packed that we couldn't enjoy ourselves. the line at the bar was long, but the bartender was great. as soon as i caught her eye she leaned toward me a took my order. superb drinks, and i'm actually glad we had to wait rather than being packed in. i'm all for sensible rules!

[Nathan]

I just look at it is different sets of social expectations for different bars:

1. see and be seen lounges have one set of rules.

2. meet markets have another.

3. serious cocktail bars have another yet.

I enjoy all three...often on different nights...sometimes at different times in the course of the same night.

of course, category 3 also overlaps with category 4 ("closing the deal" bars)...but this shouldn't be news to anyone...that's always been the primary point (to customers anyway) of both Angel's Share and M&H. and PDT and D&C work admirably in that role as well.

unfortunately, sometimes category 4 lends itself to some drunk making-out which may not exactly what category 3 is intended for...and I know that I've occasionally been guilty of that myself....but I figure that's more forgiveable at 3 or 4 in the morning...(civilized drinking ends by 1 or 2 in my experience)

of course, sometimes bars perhaps intended to be one...and ended up being another. Employees Only probably intended to be category 3 but it ended up in category 2 a long time ago....(and it's marvelously ideal for that purpose)

[eje]

Sadly, I have to agree with Sam and Toby et al. here. Drastic times demand drastic measures. If P.G. Wodehouse and Raymond Chandler were required reading in high school (is grade school too early?), then maybe civilized bars wouldn't have to resort to writing down the (formerly) unwritten code that used to govern how one behaves in a bar and shove it under their customers' noses. But people don't know, because nobody ever told them (that might impair their self-esteem, and we can't have that, can we?), and so there, in loco parentis, stands the bartender. (Shades of Slim Gaillard's song, way back in the be-bop era, "The Bartender's Just Like a Mother.") Would that it weren't so, but it is.

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You don't have to tell me. Every weekday I ride a bus whose stops include San Francisco's Bayview district, Juvie, and two schools. It's a lucky thing Alembic isn't open at 8:30 AM, or you might find me there, weeping for the future of civilization, instead of at work.

Still, the demise of civilization and downfall of humanity has probably been predicted since before Cain killed his brother Abel, even if old guys, (and I mean that affectionately and inclusively,) like us no longer recognize its shape or direction.

There has to be a way for these guidelines to be presented without a bar or club being perceived as exclusionary.

After all, if the goal is to raise the standards of cocktails in all bars, we can't just be preaching to the choir in shoebox size private clubs. Though, that is a good place to start.

Edited November 29, 2007 by eje (log)

[Alchemist]

A bar is a bar. We are not selling booze; we are selling the idea that everyone is witty, cute and going to get laid that night. There is a certain decorum that should be met. If one is a gentleman or lady, one should abide by rules that were ingrained in him or her by the time they were two, not 21, and we wish they surely didn't need to be posted on the bathroom wall.

When taverns turned into speakeasies and women came into the mix, we as humans had a conundrum, where bellying up to the bar became a suave, if indelicate, dance among the patrons.

There will never be a perfect meeting of the knuckle-dragging troglodyte, the cosmo-swilling Carrie Bradshaw clone, and the sporting dandy. We behind the stick must ascribe to not only make those two worlds collide but make them mesh, i.e., the Red Bull guy meeting the gentleman who can tell upon entering the bar if Kold-Draft is in the shaker.

I, as a barkeep, tip my hat to those bacchanalian revelers who in their cups will stand tall at the mahogany and tip their faux-hawks to any genteel young lady who walks in in Blahniks. Here's where the rubber hits the road: in a perfect world, every patron who walks in the door would be of quality, but due to the rather rambunctious times, that is not the case. Those of us who try to preserve a quiet, gentle bar have nothing to do but sadly base our judgments on the first thing they order, and try to swerve them from their reprehensible instincts.

And at the same time, we know that these condemnable activities are worth their weight in gold as long as they're done in their own place.

[notahumanissue]

A bar is a bar.  We are not selling booze; we are selling the idea that everyone is witty, cute and going to get laid that night.  There is a certain decorum that should be met.  If one is a gentleman or lady, one should abide by rules that were ingrained in him or her by the time they were two, not 21, and we wish they surely didn't need to be posted on the bathroom wall. 

When taverns turned into speakeasies and women came into the mix, we as humans had a conundrum, where bellying up to the bar became a suave, if indelicate, dance among the patrons.

There will never be a perfect meeting of the knuckle-dragging troglodyte, the cosmo-swilling Carrie Bradshaw clone, and the sporting dandy.  We behind the stick must ascribe to not only make those two worlds collide but make them mesh, i.e., the Red Bull guy meeting the gentleman who can tell upon entering the bar if Kold-Draft is in the shaker.

I, as a barkeep, tip my hat to those bacchanalian revelers who in their cups will stand tall at the mahogany and tip their faux-hawks to any genteel young lady who walks in in Blahniks.  Here's where the rubber hits the road: in a perfect world, every patron who walks in the door would be of quality, but due to the rather rambunctious times, that is not the case.  Those of us who try to preserve a quiet, gentle bar have nothing to do but sadly base our judgments on the first thing they order, and try to swerve them from their reprehensible instincts.

And at the same time, we know that these condemnable activities are worth their weight in gold as long as they're done in their own place.

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Been reading some Charles H. Baker Jr, Toby? Methinks, methinks...

[Chris Amirault]

It strikes me that pretty much every bar has a whole lot of rules, some of them more explicit than others. It also strikes me that, while we seem to be focusing on the persnickety nature of cocktailian bars, lots of other bars -- gay, college, hotel, beach -- have just as stringent rules, though perhaps not the same sort of rules that would make Nick and Nora beam. The punishment for falling afoul can be more fierce as well: try ordering one of Audrey's Earl Gray MarTEAnis at a biker bar (offering to guide the mixologist if s/he's ignorant, of course) and see what happens.

But isn't variety the spice of life here? I had a glorious time at Alchemist's Violet Hour recently, and the points Sam and others have made about the environment contributing to the quality of the experience are spot on. Four of us quietly savored our cocktails; I enjoyed a friendly chat with one bartender without competing with a din or throng; on and on.

However, I also had a great raucous time not too long ago at the Red Fez, a Providence hang-out with a dark, extremely loud second-floor bar that fits my elbows just right now and then. You can't hardly hear yourself think in there over the drum-and-bass or Roxy Music, much less chat reflectively about the Laphroaig smoke lingering across your rocks glass.

I remember the first time I had a drink at the Plaza in NY, a wonderful experience that taught my twenty-something self a lot about what Manhattan was and Manhattans are. But isn't a boilermaker in a dive just the thing now and then, even for those of us who don't drag knuckles on the ground nor order drinks with -- shudder -- vodka?

[slkinsey]

I don't think anyone is arguing that beer-and-shot neighborhood bars or even frat bars don't have their place. I think it's rather that most cocktailians aren't likely to demand quiet and order a Pousse Caffe at a Red Bull and Vodka-serving pickup bar full of frat boys, whereas the converse is often not true.

[Chris Amirault]

I didn't suggest that anyone was making that argument, Sam.

[slkinsey]

Perhaps I misconstrued the thrust of your post. I guess I don't understand why else you would make a point of saying that "variety [is] the spice of life" and "isn't a boilermaker in a dive just the thing now and then" in a thread about rules of etiquette and behavior in upscale cocktail bars unless you were implying that the counter-argument had been implied by this discussion. It seems self-evident that different genres of bar can be valued for different reasons, and that different behaviors are commonly understood to be acceptable and correct in different genres of bar. One reason upscale cocktail bars have had the need to resort to actual rules as opposed to the commonly understood "rules" at, e.g., your example of a biker bar, is because the behaviors which are acceptable and correct in the upscale cocktail genre of bar are not sufficiently commonly understood and appreciated. I would also assert that, in most genres of bar, the commonly understood modes of behavior are significantly more rowdy and "lower brow" than what is desired in upscale cocktail bars (the exceptions being things like upscale restaurant bars and upscale hotel bars, where the expectations as to behavior carry over from the superordinate entity).

[eje]

Been reading some Charles H. Baker Jr, Toby?  Methinks, methinks...

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Better channeling Baker than Embury...

Edited December 1, 2007 by eje (log)

[mbanu]

The punishment for falling afoul can be more fierce as well: try ordering one of Audrey's Earl Gray MarTEAnis at a biker bar (offering to guide the mixologist if s/he's ignorant, of course) and see what happens.

The regulars enforce the bar's rules for it, so it doesn't need to spell them out very often. New bars don't have regulars, and some bars never cultivate them, so they have to be more explicit.

The customer is always right, if you are the right kind of customer!

This should be on a plaque somewhere.

I guess the bigger question is, if you don't want the drinks or atmosphere that are a bar's specialty, what is your reason for going there? It's like going to a Chinese restaurant and being frustrated by the lack of French fries.

[slkinsey]

mbanu's examples both come down to, for lack of a better way of putting it, narrow-mindedness and a sense of entitlement. To look at the last example, I don't think the discussion we're having in this thread is so much like going in to a Chinese restaurant and expecting French fries, or going into a biker bar and asking for a Pousse Caffe -- those are perhaps inappropriate expectations as to availability of certain dishes or skills, but not exactly inappropriate behaviors. Rather, I would say it's like going into Otto and behaving as thought you were at Chuck E. Cheese -- or, for the "hooting and hollering" boys at Milk & Honey, it's like going into Jean-Georges and behaving as though you were at a roadside honky-tonk barbecue.

Edited December 2, 2007 by slkinsey (log)

[Alchemist]

And then being genuinely shocked and then angry when asked to either adjust their behavior or leave. Usually followed by them running to the nearest Internet café to say how much the bar “Sucks” on Yelp.

[evo-lution]

Aren't rules there to be broken, or is that just me...

On a serious note, I don't see the problem with some bars having rules in place. If you have a problem with it, it's obviously not the bar for you.

We mustn't forget that all 'cocktail bars' don't come from the the same mould though. Milk & Honey versus Trailer Happiness for example. Both great bars in their own right, but from completely opposite ends of the spectrum IMO. They both share one common denominator though, and I think the philosophy of Montgomery Place (London) sums it up perfectly :-

What's the secret to a great bar?  Is it new, trendy or outrageous drinks?  Is it being filled with celebrities?  No.  The secret to a great bar is doing the simple things well.  Great drinks, great food, great music and great service, all in comfortable, relaxed and inviting surroundings.  That's what makes a great bar, and that's the philosophy behind Montgomery Place.

Ciao,

Adam

Edited December 3, 2007 by evo-lution (log)

[markemorse]

Oh, yes!  "No Cellphones," should be the 21st Century equivalent of, "Check your weapons at the door," standard in every bar and restaurant!

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I'd definitely prefer weapons to cellphones any day.

[thirtyoneknots]

Oh, yes!  "No Cellphones," should be the 21st Century equivalent of, "Check your weapons at the door," standard in every bar and restaurant!

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I'd definitely prefer weapons to cellphones any day.

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Maybe the compromise is that those with iron are authorized to use it on those who are discourteous with their phones.

[haresfur]

Oh, yes!  "No Cellphones," should be the 21st Century equivalent of, "Check your weapons at the door," standard in every bar and restaurant!

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I'd definitely prefer weapons to cellphones any day.

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The bars that say, "Check your weapons at the door." are ones where I'm not about to!