Bartending School - Part 1

 When I decided to pursue bartending, the first thing I did was to buy a couple of books on the subject.  The second was to enroll in a bartending school, specifically Columbus Bartending School.  I don't think I considered doing anything else.  Partly this decision was a function of my being a professor and having a bias in favor of formal education.  But although I didn't think about this aspect of the question, partly it was the fact that I could readily afford the roughly $800 cost.

Most bartenders, it turns out, got into the business just by jumping in.  They trained on-the-job.  I asked several bartenders I know whether they attended a school.  None of them had.  I didn't ask them the reason, but I suspect they landed the job just by walking into a bar and filling out an application.  They probably didn't start tending bar right away.  It's common for bartenders to start off as "bar backs."  Bar backs have the essential but somewhat thankless job of making sure the bartenders don't run out of ice--bars use a staggering amount of ice; or garnishes, etc., and particularly that they make sure empty bottles of booze get replaced promptly.  Ditto for bottled/canned beer.  And when a a beer keg "kicks"--is empty--they're usually the ones who hook up a new one.

This allows the bar manager to assess whether they have the work ethic and the basic competence to be a good bartender.  Having good bartenders is, of course, vital to the bar's success.  Bartenders are the face of the bar.  They need to be able to take orders quickly, make and serve the drinks quickly, handle the money competently, and beyond that, display the kind of positive attitude and winning personality that keeps the patrons coming back--and ideally to become regulars.

This doesn't mean that bar backs serve no drinks at all.  During rushes they often leap into the breach, functioning as bartenders on the basis of what they've absorbed from watching the regular bartenders in action and pumping them for information about how to make this drink or that one.  Which at neighborhood bars usually involves not making drinks but pulling a draft beer or cracking open a bottle of beer, tasks that do not exactly require much knowledge.

Put simply, then, it's possible to avoid the expense of a bartending school and start making money right away.  Which is what most bartenders on YouTube recommend.  In their view, bartending schools are mostly sizzle, not steak.  Several bartenders excoriated bartending schools as a ripoff.  One was less heated in his assessment, but thought attending the schools might build confidence in persons too timid to jump right in.  The most judicious opinion I found is the one below.  It amounts to, "It depends,"  but effectively explains when bartending school is a worthwhile investment and when it isn't.

The assessment comes from David Allred, aka The Real Barman.  It turns out that his "it depends" is somewhat self-serving, because ultimately he recommends what amounts to his own bartending school, taught entirely online.  But his online bartending course costs only $69.  (Naturally, as a professor of cocktail studies, I have enrolled in it.)