How to become Bartender in 2024

Bartender Mix and serve drinks to patrons, directly or through waitstaff.

Bartender is Also Know as

In different settings, Bartender is titled as

  • Banquet Bartender
  • Bar Captain
  • Bartender
  • Mixologist

Education and Training of Bartender

Bartender is categorized in Job Zone Two: Some Preparation Needed

Experience Required for Bartender

Some previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is usually needed. For example, a teller would benefit from experience working directly with the public.

Education Required for Bartender

These occupations usually require a high school diploma.

Degrees Related to Bartender

Training Required for Bartender

Employees in these occupations need anywhere from a few months to one year of working with experienced employees. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.

Related Ocuupations

Some Ocuupations related to Bartender in different industries are

What Do Bartender do?

  • Collect money for drinks served.
  • Check identification of customers to verify age requirements for purchase of alcohol.
  • Balance cash receipts.
  • Attempt to limit problems and liability related to customers' excessive drinking by taking steps such as persuading customers to stop drinking, or ordering taxis or other transportation for intoxicated patrons.
  • Clean glasses, utensils, and bar equipment.
  • Take beverage orders from serving staff or directly from patrons.
  • Serve wine, and bottled or draft beer.
  • Clean bars, work areas, and tables.
  • Mix ingredients, such as liquor, soda, water, sugar, and bitters, to prepare cocktails and other drinks.
  • Serve snacks or food items to customers seated at the bar.
  • Order or requisition liquors and supplies.
  • Ask customers who become loud and obnoxious to leave, or physically remove them.
  • Slice and pit fruit for garnishing drinks.
  • Arrange bottles and glasses to make attractive displays.
  • Plan, organize, and control the operations of a cocktail lounge or bar.
  • Supervise the work of bar staff and other bartenders.
  • Plan bar menus.
  • Prepare appetizers such as pickles, cheese, and cold meats.
  • Create drink recipes.
  • Stock bar with beer, wine, liquor, and related supplies such as ice, glassware, napkins, or straws.

Qualities of Good Bartender

  • Oral Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Oral Comprehension: The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Speech Recognition: The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Near Vision: The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Information Ordering: The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Clarity: The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Manual Dexterity: The ability to quickly move your hand, your hand together with your arm, or your two hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble objects.
  • Arm-Hand Steadiness: The ability to keep your hand and arm steady while moving your arm or while holding your arm and hand in one position.
  • Written Comprehension: The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Auditory Attention: The ability to focus on a single source of sound in the presence of other distracting sounds.
  • Trunk Strength: The ability to use your abdominal and lower back muscles to support part of the body repeatedly or continuously over time without "giving out" or fatiguing.
  • Finger Dexterity: The ability to make precisely coordinated movements of the fingers of one or both hands to grasp, manipulate, or assemble very small objects.
  • Selective Attention: The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
  • Memorization: The ability to remember information such as words, numbers, pictures, and procedures.
  • Deductive Reasoning: The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Problem Sensitivity: The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Written Expression: The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Inductive Reasoning: The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Far Vision: The ability to see details at a distance.
  • Originality: The ability to come up with unusual or clever ideas about a given topic or situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.
  • Time Sharing: The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
  • Category Flexibility: The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Gross Body Coordination: The ability to coordinate the movement of your arms, legs, and torso together when the whole body is in motion.
  • Fluency of Ideas: The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Multilimb Coordination: The ability to coordinate two or more limbs (for example, two arms, two legs, or one leg and one arm) while sitting, standing, or lying down. It does not involve performing the activities while the whole body is in motion.
  • Perceptual Speed: The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Flexibility of Closure: The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Visual Color Discrimination: The ability to match or detect differences between colors, including shades of color and brightness.
  • Extent Flexibility: The ability to bend, stretch, twist, or reach with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Control Precision: The ability to quickly and repeatedly adjust the controls of a machine or a vehicle to exact positions.
  • Number Facility: The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Visualization: The ability to imagine how something will look after it is moved around or when its parts are moved or rearranged.
  • Stamina: The ability to exert yourself physically over long periods of time without getting winded or out of breath.
  • Mathematical Reasoning: The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Static Strength: The ability to exert maximum muscle force to lift, push, pull, or carry objects.
  • Depth Perception: The ability to judge which of several objects is closer or farther away from you, or to judge the distance between you and an object.
  • Gross Body Equilibrium: The ability to keep or regain your body balance or stay upright when in an unstable position.
  • Speed of Closure: The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.
  • Dynamic Strength: The ability to exert muscle force repeatedly or continuously over time. This involves muscular endurance and resistance to muscle fatigue.
  • Wrist-Finger Speed: The ability to make fast, simple, repeated movements of the fingers, hands, and wrists.
  • Hearing Sensitivity: The ability to detect or tell the differences between sounds that vary in pitch and loudness.
  • Speed of Limb Movement: The ability to quickly move the arms and legs.
  • Reaction Time: The ability to quickly respond (with the hand, finger, or foot) to a signal (sound, light, picture) when it appears.
  • Rate Control: The ability to time your movements or the movement of a piece of equipment in anticipation of changes in the speed and/or direction of a moving object or scene.
  • Response Orientation: The ability to choose quickly between two or more movements in response to two or more different signals (lights, sounds, pictures). It includes the speed with which the correct response is started with the hand, foot, or other body part.
  • Explosive Strength: The ability to use short bursts of muscle force to propel oneself (as in jumping or sprinting), or to throw an object.
  • Spatial Orientation: The ability to know your location in relation to the environment or to know where other objects are in relation to you.
  • Peripheral Vision: The ability to see objects or movement of objects to one's side when the eyes are looking ahead.
  • Sound Localization: The ability to tell the direction from which a sound originated.
  • Dynamic Flexibility: The ability to quickly and repeatedly bend, stretch, twist, or reach out with your body, arms, and/or legs.
  • Night Vision: The ability to see under low-light conditions.
  • Glare Sensitivity: The ability to see objects in the presence of a glare or bright lighting.

Tools Used by Bartender

  • 2-prong strainers
  • 3-piece cocktail shakers
  • 4-piece cocktail shakers
  • 4-prong strainers
  • Bar spoons
  • Barcode scanners
  • Beverage machines
  • Blenders
  • Breathalyzers
  • Cash registers
  • Cocktail shakers
  • Cocktail strainers
  • Credit card processing machines
  • Desktop computers
  • Draught foam control devices
  • Drink mixers
  • Electronic beer line maintenance equipment
  • Frozen drink machines
  • Fruit knives
  • Glass rimmers
  • Glass washers
  • Hawthorn strainers
  • Ice chippers
  • Ice crushers
  • Ice flakers
  • Jiggers
  • Julep strainers
  • Keg-tapping equipment
  • Lime slicers
  • Lime squeezers
  • Linear imaging scanners
  • Long range charged coupled device CCD barcode scanners
  • Martini misters
  • Mixing glasses
  • Mojito machines
  • Muddlers/mixing sticks
  • Notebook computers
  • Olive stuffers
  • Point of sale POS printers
  • Point of sale POS terminals
  • Point of service scanners
  • Point of service workstations
  • Pour spouts
  • Professional juicers
  • Refrigerated liquid recirculation systems
  • Soda dispensers
  • Spirit measures
  • Touch screen monitors
  • Upright glass washers
  • Zesters

Technology Skills required for Bartender

  • AZZ CardFile
  • Compris software
  • Facebook
  • Focus point of sale POS software
  • Intuit QuickBooks Point of Sale
  • MICROS Systems HSI Profits Series
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • NCR Advanced Checkout Solution
  • NCR NeighborhoodPOS
  • Point of sale POS software
  • The General Store
  • Web browser software