There are thousands of ways to get kicked out of a bar: start a fight, do some inappropriate touching, inappropriately touch someone during a fight. But there are even more ways to just get under the skin of your favorite bartender, transforming you from your favorite watering hole's Cliff Clavin to its Chuck Bukowski. Here are 15 ways to immediately get under your bartender's skin... things you should never do to the person who controls the trajectory of your life, err, night.
Leave chewed-up straws and torn coasters everywhere
You are either nervous or part-hamster, and because of you, bars are littered with remnants that make it look like they were attacked by booze-crazed rats. Somebody has to pick them up, which sucks because nobody wants to touch spit-covered anything.
Snap or whistle
You snap and whistle at your dog. Your dog thinks you are an a-hole. Imagine how the bartender feels.
Turn the bar into a sex hotel
Making out in a bar is one thing. Making out at the bar is quite another... especially when the bartender has to discern an order you're making with somebody else's tongue in your mouth.
Ordering bartender's choice
When it's not too busy, it's never a bad thing to go omakase at a bar. But when the place is slammed and you don't know what you want, just hang back and make a choice. Forcing a busy bartender to make it for you is gonna get you a shot or, even worse, a watered-down gin and tonic.
Step behind the bar
Some people get so comfortable with the bartender, they'll actually cross over to the other side to place an order. Don't be this person. Ever. You are crossing into a special place from which you are expressly forbidden.
Order a tall drink, then complain that it isn't strong enough
Tall means more mixer, not more booze. Don't surprised when your drink tastes more like Coke than rum... and next time, order a double. Or just not a rum & Coke. Or both!
Be shocked that this bar doesn't have what the last bar you were at has
What? They don't have that delicious 30-year-old Scotch you had at the upscale bar earlier? Of course they don't. You're at a brewery.
Order one drink at a time
If you're ordering a shot of tequila, a mojito, two beers and a chocotini at a busy bar, order them all at once. Don't wait for one to come, then order the next. And the next. Most bartenders have two hands. Bartenders who don't have learned to adapt.