Much of the unspoken code of conduct for model bar guests sounds like common sense. Be kind. Have patience. Don’t get too drunk. And when bartenders — who have experience working in the bartending trenches — visit a fellow bar, hospitality, anticipation, and graciousness aren’t just second nature; they could well become Olympic sports.
Rumor has it, however, that trade etiquette is lately on a downswing in certain places. Bartenders whisper of peers rolling in expecting fully comped tabs, wielding unprompted critique, or ordering fraught, time-consuming cocktails without reading the room. It may simply mirror our self-centered, impolite cultural moment. But we can’t ignore certain interconnected factors that conspired to help get us here: the Covid-19 pandemic, rise of smartphone learning and parasocial relationships amid declining mentorship, and a return to flashy, highly visual mixology. When everyone is a little more isolated, should it surprise us that bravado and entitlement might nudge out the hospitality that should serve as bartending’s strongest foundation?
New York City-based mixologist and bar and beverage program consultant, Mcson Salicetti, doesn’t like to blame everything on the pandemic. But the conditions it created may help explain why some bartenders aren’t as kind to one another. He has noticed this trend among younger bartenders coming up in New York’s hyper-competitive scene who will come in requesting flashy cocktails when there’s a line three-people deep at the bar.
“Covid pushed that dependency of, ‘No I’m good, I got it on the internet’ — of being so used to technology rather than depending on getting others’ approval,” says Salicetti, who is also the board director for the New York chapter of the U.S. Bartenders Guild (USBG). “We have to remind people: Don’t forget, hospitality first.”
Bartenders weren’t quick to spill anecdotes about fellow industry pros acting rude at their bars, though several bemoaned a (Covid-holdover) loss of patience and an uptick in unsolicited critiques as the focus shifts more to technique than community-building among peers. It begs the questions of whether the gig is still drawing folks who love to serve someone a drink above all else and how to build back camaraderie in a more isolated time.
Don’t Be That Guy
Indeed, part of the code that governs behavior in a fellow bartender’s space is a healthy dose of self-consciousness about appearing burdensome, especially when someone is deep in the weeds. Better to let them know you’ll gladly wait while they get through the rush, or order a beer and a shot, a.k.a. barkeep code for “I’ve been there and I see you, buddy.” No one wants to be the guy who orders a Ramos Gin Fizz when the bar is slammed, or a Clover Club in the type of joint that doesn’t stock fresh eggs.
“I think there is an underlying nervousness about being, as a bartender going out, someone who doesn’t want to burden their fellow bartender,” says Nick Flower, owner of the cocktail bar Too Soon in Portland, Ore. “I know what that’s like.”
Flower came up in lauded New York cocktail bars like Little Branch and Dear Irving, and now operates in the smaller, chiller, tight-knit Pacific Northwest, where he hasn’t experienced a decline in trade etiquette — no doubt in part because it’s such a small community. If anything, he thinks Portland barkeeps accommodate one another to the point of not ordering what they want out of guilt.
“We have to remind people: Don’t forget, hospitality first.”
“I feel like bartenders are too reserved about it,” he says. “Like, come to my bar and have a good time. Order a Ramos Gin Fizz.” (It helps that he’s hacked the cocktail à la Tom Richter’s Dear Irving version — no dry shaking needed.) “I’ll make you one in two minutes!”
Longtime Chicago-based bartender Kristina Veltri checks this very hospitable gesture, if marginally.
“People who are paying should be able to have what they want, and I think we deserve the same when we’re on that end,” says Veltri, now behind the stick at Lone Wolf Tavern and Trivoli Tavern. “But I think there’s a difference when you can read the room and you can actually, actively, see what’s going on. There’s a time and place for it.”
Veltri doesn’t think etiquette is dying per se; she does suspect the industry is swinging away from the authenticity and lack of pretense, marking the cocktail world’s evolution back toward showier, ego-driven bartending. In turn, this can manifest in chest-beating when posted up at others’ joints.
“What I’d like to see for the industry as a guest and as a professional is as a whole moving toward empathy and authenticity and away from ego and chasing ‘cool trends,’” she says. It’s natural to be a little critical of what peers in the trade produce. But is there a kind, constructive way to order a classic cocktail and proclaim it’s your “litmus test” for a good bartender? Veltri chuckles that she has yet to see it.
Reclaiming Love for Service… and Bars
Damian Keehn, bar manager at the glitzy, cathedral-esque Chicago steakhouse Adalina Prime, understands the desire to create enviably inventive cocktails or amass awards in an industry that can feel thankless and act as little more than a temporary financial landing pad for many. It took him a long time to feel proud of identifying as a professional bartender. Eventually, he says, he embraced the notion of representing part of a collective of service workers who provide “shoulder drop” hospitality in a world where it seems to be disappearing.
“Everybody wants to be the best now or invent something new instead of putting in a lot of work for what the core of bartending really is,” says Keehn. “I don’t want to take anything away from what we do. At the end of the day, we’re still just giving people cocktails and taking the pressure off.”
Having worked in bars and restaurants in five cities over the past seven years, the now Chicago-based Keehn finds that bar etiquette and camaraderie vary by market size and even climate. The community was tighter knit and more social in perennially warm, sunny Phoenix than colder, grayer New York and Chicago. He thinks the latter boasts the most generous community of professionals — bitter winters be damned! Yet he, too, has noticed the inauspicious return of the so-called asshole bartender.
“People used to hide it, but now they’re wearing it like a badge of honor, because I see a lot more bartenders coming from professional kitchens and that brigade mentality,” he says.
It does raise the bigger question of who the industry is attracting in 2026. Are the dramatized depictions on shows like “The Bear” alongside the rise of competitions and glitzy, brand-backed “best bars” lists overshadowing the simple joy of sliding someone a quaffable potion to brighten their day or lighten their load? Self-seriousness might be getting in the way of human connection.
Veltri echoes this, noting that those rolling in and ordering classics just to see how well the bar makes them don’t exactly create an environment for bonding. “I don’t wanna really interact with you because I feel like everything you’re doing is a judgment,” she says.
Then again, a bartender who views everything as a competition or a chance for innovation, and every impressive cocktail as a photo opportunity first, probably isn’t as focused on being a good guest or on building community in the organic ways that so often result in fulfilling future work or, better yet, friends who can relate to what they’re going through. Bartending is a small world, after all.
Getting the Industry Back Together
Is bartending still fun? Do bartenders still want to go to bars? The industry’s shift toward promoting healthier pursuits besides late nights in environments that fuel substance abuse represented essential self-care. But has some of the love for these spaces been abandoned in the process?
For some of the younger generation of bartenders, the pandemic robbed them of a few crucial years of spontaneous nights out with their peers and learning how to act in the process. Salicetti fondly recalls being a young, sorta asshole bartender out with the slightly older bartenders he idolized. When his know-it-all energy or untamed enthusiasm got to be too much, one of them would inevitably lean over and say, “Hey, pendejo, bring it down.”
“Everybody wants to be the best now or invent something new instead of putting in a lot of work for what the core of bartending really is.”
On a recent night at the newly opened, late-night bar and seafood joint The Radicle in Chicago’s Logan Square, hope for a more community-centric future for industry pros was rekindled following an animated conversation with chef and owner Joe Frillman.
“Industry people don’t hang out together anymore!” he cries. He vowed that his joint’s arrival aimed to change that, with its raw bar, cheffy pizzas and beverage director Nicole Yarovinsky’s $10 cocktails ranging from 0 to 29 percent alcohol. This is at least the second Chicago newcomer in recent months to proudly tout its industry-friendliness, hot on the heels of industry darling (and 2025 VinePair Next Wave food and beverage program of the year winner) Gus’ Sip & Dip. “We are specifically targeting industry folks with this bar, serving the food we want to eat till late,” Frillman adds.
Case in point, after watching the Chicago Bears’ unlikely NFL Wildcard win over the Green Bay Packers in early January, Frillman hit up The Radicle with a crew of industry buddies to celebrate and wind down together, throw back some oysters and a couple of shots or, perhaps, NA Italian fizzes with fermented whey.
Just like the old days, almost.
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