What's new

[GUIDE] Roleplaying a Bar/Club

Gary

Donator
Joined
Nov 12, 2016
Messages
2,438
Roleplaying a Bar or Club

Roleplaying a bar or club in an appropriate and competent way can lead to some great roleplay for both your staff and your customers. This guide aims to assist business owners in managing their bar or club as realistically as possible.

Staff
A bar or club mainly consists of multiple staff teams to run things smoothly. The staff teams are described below.

Floor staff or glass collectors are typically at the bottom of the food chain. Their job is to collect glasses, keep tables clean, assist customers with questions, find lost property for customers, clean pretty much everything (floors via sweeping and mopping, spillages, glass breakages, sick, feces, urine, etc.), collect plates, empty ashtrays, and replace soap and toilet paper. Some bars have candles at night time, which are distributed by floor staff. Furthermore, some bars or clubs assign floor staff the role of retrieving ice for bars. Floor staff are crucial to keeping a bar neat and tidy. At the end of the night, they are tasked with wiping down all tables, sweeping the floor, mopping the toilets, collecting outside items such as ashtrays, emptying bottle bins, and replacing bin bags. All floor staff are part time.

Bar staff or bartenders/barmaids are typically on the same wage as floor staff, however bar staff are allowed to keep their tips. Bar staff are the people that serve your customers by accepting orders for their drinks. Some bar staff are trained in making cocktails or craft beers, but they're typically capable of serving beer, shots, spirits, and any bottled alcohol. If bars serve warm whiskey, bar staff will be taught how to make it. At the end of the night, bar staff count their bar's stock, mop the floor, wash draught nozzles, All bar staff are part time.

Door staff or bouncers are the security of a bar. They normally need to go through training for their position as there are many grey zones in securing a bar. Typically, door staff never have any kind of weaponry. Their job is to escort people outside, check ID and level of drunkness on entry, check toilet cubicles for usage of drugs, defend staff and other customers, provide first aid treatment, report fires and attempt a firefight with extinguishers, change beer kegs, advise health and safety and uphold bar protocols (dress code, etc.). Door staff are extremely important in the removal of drunk customers as they are more trained and stronger than other staff. Door staff are often paid a slightly higher wage due to their training. When confronted by a doorman, they will almost always be taller and more muscular than you, meaning that you should roleplay fear accordingly when confronting them. All door staff are part time.

Kitchen staff are the preparers of food. They handle all food requests, including requests for hot drinks. Kitchen staff develop through experience and will often start off making tea or washing dishes before moving onto minor food preparations for the chefs. Note that kitchen staff are specific to bars that serve food. Kitchen staff are on the same wage as floor staff and bar staff. All kitchen staff are part time.

Cleaners give the bar or club a rough cleanse to prepare for opening. They clean mop heads that were used the night before and dry them for the next night. Cleaners will also clean all bathrooms and toilets, as well as washing bottle bins. Cleaners are the only members inside of the building when they're on shift, and their shifts consist of early mornings.

Chefs are staff qualified in cooking and are the main preparers of food in any bar. They are on a higher wage than all other jobs and are often full time due to the rarity of qualified chefs that want to work at a bar rather than a restaurant.

Food staff or waiters/waitresses are bar staff that are assigned a different role for a shift. Due to food staff being the exact same as bar staff in terms of experience and training, they are paid the exact same and are only qualified to coordinate food orders with their respective tables and take orders for drinks and food. Due to them having bar training, they are able to make their drink order and bring it to their table. The reasoning behind food staff simply being bar staff with a different role is to save cost for the bar, as food staff need the exact same training and experience as bar staff and hiring separate staff is illogical for expense.

Stewards are bar staff that are assigned a different role for a shift, similarly to food staff. Their job is to protect certain areas of the bar or club where wristband entry may be applicable, including VIP entry.

Store staff typically receive crates of alcohol stock up a storage room appropriately. They're also responsible for transporting alcohol to the bar when necessary. Storage staff replace bar stock at the end of every night. Once again, store staff are bar staff with a different role.

Supervisors make sure staff are doing their jobs. They also count the money in tills at the end of the night. In larger bars and clubs, there are often junior and senior supervisors. There is at least one supervisor on every opening.

Managers make sure supervisors and other staff are doing their job. They've got the same purpose as a supervisor, however managers will often handle staff shifts. As an example, managers will take care of a rota so that staff know exactly when they're working and what kind of shift they're working. There will always be one manager on shift alongside one supervisor. In larger bars and clubs, there will be senior managers, but junior managers are relatively unheard of.

Some bars or clubs also have toilet attendants that offer cologne, perfume, and other items to freshen customers up while they're taking a break in the toilets. They're also responsible for cleaning the toilets and ensuring they're consistently spotless, which alleviates some of the duties of floor staff.

After a few months of experience, floor staff will often receive training to become bar staff or kitchen staff (the choice is given to them).

Beer Kegs
Beer kegs need changed to keep draught dispense pumps operational. A keg room will be refrigerated and kept away from customers. The process of changing a beer keg is relatively easy and can be followed here. Changing kegs is normally done by door staff so that bar staff aren't disturbed from their duties, however bar staff are also trained to change beer kegs in case door staff are pre-occupied.

Breaks
Typically, staff get one 15-30 minute break for every 6 hours that they're on shift. Bars and clubs do not have to pay their staff for the time they take during their break, especially if they're part time, however breaks are compulsory for staff. Supervisors and managers can authorise impromptu breaks or breaks for smoking.

Glasses
Clubs never, or very rarely, have glasses. Clubs often serve drinks in plastic cups to alleviate the possibility of broken glass, however glass bottles are still an issue. Bars normally serve spirits and mixers in half-pint glasses, beer in the specific brand of glass (e.g. Budweiser in a Budweiser glass) or higher class beer glasses, shots in small shot glasses, (most) cocktails in cocktail glasses, wine in a red, white, or sparking wine glass, and spirits without mixers in lowball glasses. You can learn a lot more about glasses by clicking here.

Cleaning Protocols
Cleaning a bar or club is important to keeping customers happy. Therefore, bars tend to have protocols for cleaning certain things to ensure they go smoothly.

Vomit, also known as spew, whitey, or barf, is cleaned by floor staff. Gloves are to be worn at all times, and a cleaning agent such as D10 is to be used to disinfect the vomit. It should then be cleaned using blue roll and put into a new bag to be disposed of immediately.

Feces are cleaned in the same way as vomit.

Broken glass is cleaned with a dustpan and brush.

Spillages are mopped with a dry mop to dry the area. A wet floor sign should be placed in the centre of the spillage.

Blocked drains are treated with a plunger.

Equipment
Common cleaning agents are D10 and R3. D10 is used for tables, while R3 is used for glass.
1204374_1.jpg
cmm256.jpg

Dustpans and brushes are used to sweep or clean up glass. Both items are long-handled so that staff don't have to kneel or crouch to reach the ground. Furthermore, the dustpan remains closed unless flat on the ground.
400x599.jpg

Bottle bins are containers with four wheels. The purpose of these bins are to be stationed behind the bar for bar staff and floor staff to put empty bottles into it. Floor staff then have to take them outside and empty them into one of the larger industrial bins for collection the next morning.
BIN-002-125.jpg

Ice buckets are often branded buckets that are filled with ice. They have an inner container with holes in the bottom to allow melted ice to drain into the bottom of the container.
ZmEzYTU4OWNlODE2ZGQwMjM1NDk2MDcxNGI3ZmQ1Mjn--1ElFApyPjeDxdc9TAJzaHR0cDovL21lZGlhLmFkc2ltZy5jb20vMTU4NjNjMTU3NjY1YThkODY5NDRhNzkxYTM0OGRhZmY4NzMyMDcwMjM0ZjhkMmQ2MDE2ZWFhNWMwMmI1NzgyMS5qcGd8fHx8fHwzOTZ4MjkyfGh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWR2ZXJ0cy5pZS9zdGF0aWMvaS93YXRlcm1hcmsucG5nfHx8.jpg

Radios are used by supervisors, managers, door staff, stewards, food staff, kitchen staff, and sometimes bar staff. One channel is used by door staff, stewards, supervisors, managers, and bar staff, while another channel is used by kitchen staff and food staff. The first channel is often used for door staff assistance, steward assistance, required keg changes, supervisory communications, and the location of other staff members. The second channel is often used by food staff to communicate with kitchen staff, and vice versa, for the communication of food orders and completion. Radios are often used with earpieces, however the earpieces are often one-way, meaning a PTT microphone will need to be worn on the shirt or collar.

Keys with keychains are vital to supervisors being able to organise their keys. They often come with carabiners to clip them onto a belt loop.

Barblades are long metal bottle openers that slide into pockets easily. On one end is a bottle opener, while on the other end there is a hole that can be used to pull bottles towards a bartender if they are too far away, or simply to spin it around on their fingers. Some bar staff learn tricks to impress customers with bar blades.
$_3.JPG

Advertisement
Most bars or clubs create advertisement videos promoting certain events at their venue. Due to a lack of many video editors in the community, a bar owner on RCRP should think about advertisement posters made in Photoshop or simply formatted with BBCode. Events being run at clubs or bars help spread the genre of your venue. For example, a nightclub may host rave, trance, house, psytrance, or general EDM events to differentiate between genres and satisfy all of their customers.

Bars that serve food often advertise through meal offers, however cocktail bars are likely to offer cocktail deals. Nightclubs can host giveaways for VIP treatment, or a certain amount of money worth of free drinks. By hosting giveaways, nightclubs often force participants to share the post, therefore spreading the name around and making it become more popular.

Since bars or nightclubs normally can't cater to all genres, they'll often focus their genre and style on local people and the area. In essence, it makes little to no sense to have a high-end nightclub in Blueberry, but it makes sense to have a bar there (e.g. Rat's Pack).

Security
As mentioned before, door staff are your security. Doormen typically do not have access to weaponry as they are expected to use their height and weight appropriately. Door staff do not frisk people on entry, however it'd likely be overlooked on SAMP due to the abundance of firearms and weaponry.

Security comes in many forms, however door staff are there to prioritise the safety of their customers and staff. Therefore, they are first aid trained, usually in both CPR and AED usage. If a fire calls, door staff should immediately prompt everyone in the building to leave at their nearest fire exit, and should stay behind the crowd to guide them appropriately. If applicable, door staff will use fire extinguishers to fight a small fire, but will alert local firefighting services for larger fires that warrant a full evacuation and firefight.

You should always roleplay fear when confronting door staff. They usually come in crowds for ensured protection, and if two door staff are grabbing you by your arms, it's extremely unlikely that you'll be able to break free from their grips. To ensure a proper club atmosphere is achieved, you can choose to roleplay attempting to fight door staff if you're ICly drunk, however keep in mind that they're likely much, much bigger than your character and your reactions and strength is lessened due to being drunk.

Conclusion
I'll work on this guide more as things come to mind, but if you want anything added then feel free to reply and I'll answer any questions while also adding the answer to the main guide for future coverage.
 

Beth

Donator
Joined
Aug 17, 2014
Messages
11,697
Location
Carlisle, England
Gary - Today at 11:01
dont do it skank
go roast my guide so u feel better

shit guide wouldn't read again

joke it's good
 
Top