Bartending...

[Ihaveaquestion1]

Okay great, thank you all for the input!

[SmartGXL]

Back in 2003 I went to the Chicago Bartending School, in the South Loop (I think ot was on Wabash St). Anyway, the training was pretty good, and they have job placement assistance. The classroom was set up just like a bar, with colored water in the liquor bottles. I wound up not doing anything with it, though. I work in I.T., and at the time, was looking to go back to school and try to pay for it all by finding a good bartending gig. I had only been in I.T. at the time for a few years and the gig I had wasnt paying the bills, so I was looking for a change, so I went to the CBS school and completed their program.

The job placement assistance was decent, but most of the gigs were at hotel bars, wearing uniforms such as vests and tuxedos, or to work at the Red Lobster in River North and would have had to wear a hawaiian shirt, black pants and black sneakers, haha...and, already working in a white collar job, I just wasnt in the mental space to go back to work at that kind of gig...although the pay might have been pretty decent (not putting anyone down who happens to work at that kind of gig, just didnt want to go down that road job wise).

Some gigs at some places are not just bartending, but will require you to be a server, as well, or will require you to clean the bathrooms at the end of the shift, etc.

Yes, it is true, many of the bars and clubs want a certain type of person to be the bartender...some places want male bartenders (strip joints), some places (like Coyote Ugly type places) want hot babes, etc. It varies greatly.

Back to that job search, yes, it was hard to find a gig with no "real world" experience (even with the cert from the school). Also, just to be clear, the cert is not a state permit, it is just a certificate from the school that states that you graduated, sort of like a diploma. That summer, was the year Crobar had reopened, and they did an open call job interview, which was advertised in the Reader. I went to the interview and was one of the first in line, and literally over a thousand applicants showed up. I was dressed in a suit and tie for the interview, and most of the dolts who showed up up were either dressed like they were going out to a club, or just showed up dressed in jeans or motorcycle outfits, etc (it was funny, several people saw me dressed in a suit, realized they were idiots for not dressing professionally for the interview, and left). The open call was set up like a casting call for an acting gig out in LA, with weird, high maintenance chicks with fake-bake tans, walking around barking orders at the applicants. One of the owners of Crobar interviewed me (interestingly enough, he looked NOTHING like what you think a club owner would look like, he was a white, miwestern guy, dressed in a golf shirt and wearking white khakhis and boat shoes), told me, 'thanks but no thanks' (they wanted bartenders with experience in a high-volume club environment). It is EXTREMELY hard to get gigs in these places. You usually have to know someone to get in. I have heard though, that if you DO get in to a place like Crobar, you can make $100k+ per year (high volume, plus celebs come thru and can pay very good tips - I heard that Brittany Spears came thru and tipped her bartender $1000; this type of thing can happen every weekend at these places). I have also heard that bartenders will get tips in the form of things like imported cuban cigars, illegal drugs, you name it.

Also - some bartenders will work 2 or 3 different gigs per night! As some places have different "peak rush hours" then other places. For example, you might make drinks from 8 till 10 at a tavern, then hop in a cab and head to a nightclub and work the 1030 till 2pm shift.

Best of luck to you!

[Ihaveaquestion1]

Back in 2003 I went to the Chicago Bartending School, in the South Loop (I think ot was on Wabash St). Anyway, the training was pretty good, and they have job placement assistance. The classroom was set up just like a bar, with colored water in the liquor bottles. I wound up not doing anything with it, though. I work in I.T., and at the time, was looking to go back to school and try to pay for it all by finding a good bartending gig. I had only been in I.T. at the time for a few years and the gig I had wasnt paying the bills, so I was looking for a change, so I went to the CBS school and completed their program.

The job placement assistance was decent, but most of the gigs were at hotel bars, wearing uniforms such as vests and tuxedos, or to work at the Red Lobster in River North and would have had to wear a hawaiian shirt, black pants and black sneakers, haha...and, already working in a white collar job, I just wasnt in the mental space to go back to work at that kind of gig...although the pay might have been pretty decent (not putting anyone down who happens to work at that kind of gig, just didnt want to go down that road job wise).

Some gigs at some places are not just bartending, but will require you to be a server, as well, or will require you to clean the bathrooms at the end of the shift, etc.

Yes, it is true, many of the bars and clubs want a certain type of person to be the bartender...some places want male bartenders (strip joints), some places (like Coyote Ugly type places) want hot babes, etc. It varies greatly.

Back to that job search, yes, it was hard to find a gig with no "real world" experience (even with the cert from the school). Also, just to be clear, the cert is not a state permit, it is just a certificate from the school that states that you graduated, sort of like a diploma. That summer, was the year Crobar had reopened, and they did an open call job interview, which was advertised in the Reader. I went to the interview and was one of the first in line, and literally over a thousand applicants showed up. I was dressed in a suit and tie for the interview, and most of the dolts who showed up up were either dressed like they were going out to a club, or just showed up dressed in jeans or motorcycle outfits, etc (it was funny, several people saw me dressed in a suit, realized they were idiots for not dressing professionally for the interview, and left). The open call was set up like a casting call for an acting gig out in LA, with weird, high maintenance chicks with fake-bake tans, walking around barking orders at the applicants. One of the owners of Crobar interviewed me (interestingly enough, he looked NOTHING like what you think a club owner would look like, he was a white, miwestern guy, dressed in a golf shirt and wearking white khakhis and boat shoes), told me, 'thanks but no thanks' (they wanted bartenders with experience in a high-volume club environment). It is EXTREMELY hard to get gigs in these places. You usually have to know someone to get in. I have heard though, that if you DO get in to a place like Crobar, you can make $100k+ per year (high volume, plus celebs come thru and can pay very good tips - I heard that Brittany Spears came thru and tipped her bartender $1000; this type of thing can happen every weekend at these places). I have also heard that bartenders will get tips in the form of things like imported cuban cigars, illegal drugs, you name it.

Also - some bartenders will work 2 or 3 different gigs per night! As some places have different "peak rush hours" then other places. For example, you might make drinks from 8 till 10 at a tavern, then hop in a cab and head to a nightclub and work the 1030 till 2pm shift.

Best of luck to you!

Awesome post, very informative, thank you!

[tonythetuna]

Agree that was a good post.

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by SmartGXL

The job placement assistance was decent, but most of the gigs were at hotel bars, wearing uniforms such as vests and tuxedos, or to work at the Red Lobster in River North and would have had to wear a hawaiian shirt, black pants and black sneakers, haha...

Definitely a great post. What you mentioned above was exactly the type of work I got from getting a certificate (very generic and corporate). I could see that sort of work as a way of getting your foot into the door at other places, as long as you combined it with working the door, bar back, etc. a few times a week at other places. It can give you some decent references and then you can make some connections through doing the grunt work. You can also meet people who work at better bars who just pick up the odd shift or two at the corporate jobs.

[SmartGXL]

I'm glad you guys liked this info!

Yeah the job placement was legit, but at the same time, was mostly a joke. There were all sorts of 'rules' that you had to follow; if you broke even one of the rules, you were kicked out of the job placement for good.

When you graduated, you had to bring a resume, along with a photo. The school would send this to the different bars that used the CBS school to hire bartenders. The bars would look over the recent crop of graduates and look for people that fit the profile that they wanted in a bartender.

You had to call within a certain 15 minute window, like Tuesday at 2:25PM thru 2:40. The lady would read off the bars that wanted to interview you. You were required to then go to that bar and apply for a job.

Here were the rules:

-If you didnt call during the window, you were kicked out.
-If you didnt follow up and apply for a job, you were kicked out.
-If you didnt go to a scheduled interview, you were kicked out.

Basically, the rules were set up for you to fail, as they really didnt want to provide the job placements service, it was just a kicker to get you to pay the tuition. It also helped to get rid of people so that the job placement rate looked higher than what it would be in real life. I guess it also helped to weed out the people who were not serious.

I remember getting leads from the school to Red Lobster, Buddy Guy's, and the Beat Kitchen, as well as to numerous River North hotel bars. After a while I realized this just wasn't what I thought it was, so I said 'forget it' and just kept working in I.T. (glad I stuck with it!!).

[Ihaveaquestion1]

Originally Posted by Attrill

Definitely a great post. What you mentioned above was exactly the type of work I got from getting a certificate (very generic and corporate). I could see that sort of work as a way of getting your foot into the door at other places, as long as you combined it with working the door, bar back, etc. a few times a week at other places. It can give you some decent references and then you can make some connections through doing the grunt work. You can also meet people who work at better bars who just pick up the odd shift or two at the corporate jobs.

Thanks! In your experience, what was the pay like for these more generic/corporate positions the certificate helped you out with, if you don't mind me asking?

Basically, the rules were set up for you to fail, as they really didnt want to provide the job placements service, it was just a kicker to get you to pay the tuition. It also helped to get rid of people so that the job placement rate looked higher than what it would be in real life. I guess it also helped to weed out the people who were not serious.

Bummer, man. Thanks again!

[Attrill]

Originally Posted by Ihaveaquestion1

Thanks! In your experience, what was the pay like for these more generic/corporate positions the certificate helped you out with, if you don't mind me asking?

It varied pretty widely - the bad part was that some of them didn't allow tipping (although many people did slip me tips). Usually it was $10-15/hr. (this was in the early 90's, so I'm not sure what the current rates are). If I was getting tips it was fine, but otherwise it wasn't worth my time. It also varied by convention - I worked a restaurant industry conference that was awesome. Great tips and very friendly people. I also worked a condo time share sales conference that was hell on earth. No tips and the pay was less than promised.