"Gen Z Doesn't Know How to Act in Bars"
Feb. 8th, 2025 10:17 amI saw an interesting article in my newsfeed yesterday, "Gen Z Doesn't Know How to Act in Bars." I'm always curious to read the latest in how older generations are scorning the young. And this article was published by Vox, which has a strong reputation for insightful explanatory journalism. Perhaps this article would go beyond superficial scoffing, I thought, and show whether there's really a there there. Well, it did, and it didn't.
First, let me summarize the complaints, according to the article, about how Gen Z acts incorrectly in bars:
What's wrong with the complaints in the article, by the way? Here are Five Things. And remember, I'm two generations older than Gen Z.
1. Closing out the bill each round sounds like a store problem, not a customer problem. Seriously, easy and fast payment system exist. Stop being cheapskates and replace your early-2000s technology. Don't tell me you can't afford to upgrade when you sell $1.50 bottles of beer for $10+ each.
2. Yeah, not everybody orders a drink. Deal with it. It was like that 25-30 years ago when I was a regular bar patron, too.
3. Is it because your service sucks? One big reason not everybody among my friends 25-30 years ago ordered drinks was shit service. At a pub I met friends at every week, most stopped ordering food and drink because table service became so erratic. That was one particular establishment, but in general service levels are way weaker today than they were back in the late 1990s.
4. People order fewer drinks because they're expensive. Even as a Gen Xer I order way fewer drinks in bars and food-and-bar establishments now than in the past because they've just so darn expensive. At $10+ for a beer and $15+ for a cocktail I just can't enjoy them much anymore. Plus, if had the weaker finances of a 20-something I certainly wouldn't be downing a lot of $15+ mixed drinks!
5. People linger over drinks. That's how bars have always worked. The thing that's most ridiculous about this article is the bartenders' repeated preference that people just order drinks as long as they're there, then leave. And that's just so many kinds of wrong. To name just two: A, it was never like that. B, do you really expect people to buy a drink and leave— they could buy that $10 beer for $2 at the grocery store if that's all they wanted— or to get soused on multiple rounds of drinks if they stay for a few hours? These bartenders seem like the worst of the doesn't-know-how-to-socialize stereotype typically thrust on Gen Z.
First, let me summarize the complaints, according to the article, about how Gen Z acts incorrectly in bars:
- Gen Z closes out their bills each round, instead of leaving a tab open for the evening, making more work for the bartender. Yes, this really is the primary complaint; the article even states that explicitly. ...Which makes me wonder who wrote this, an overworked bartender?
- In a group of Gen Zs, not everybody will order a drink. ...Again, what sources were used for writing this article?
- Gen Z groups are more interested in socializing with the friends they came with than chatting up the bartender. ...Seriously?
- Gen Z groups stay a long time without drinking the whole time. ...Are you sensing a pattern here?
"Obviously, it’s incredibly satisfying to point out how a person — or, even better, a whole group of people — does something wrong. It’s even more fulfilling to be able to signal a divide, a marker that, for objective scientific reasons, you could never be implicated in this type of chaotic discordance. Look at this worse person — who is nothing like me — move through the universe, incorrectly!"You could plausibly argue that this foreward to the complaints— which, taken together, all sound like they come from impatient bartenders who wish customers would just pay and get out— invites us to scoff at them and dismiss them. Indeed, for some of us, like me, it does. I love her little passage about thinking ourselves better than others. But in a published work I believe you've got to evaluate the content by its mass. When an essay is 98% complaints and 2% one trenchant little paragraph about how, maybe, the complaints aren't valid, most people— maybe even, say, 98%— are going to take away the 98% as the message.
What's wrong with the complaints in the article, by the way? Here are Five Things. And remember, I'm two generations older than Gen Z.
1. Closing out the bill each round sounds like a store problem, not a customer problem. Seriously, easy and fast payment system exist. Stop being cheapskates and replace your early-2000s technology. Don't tell me you can't afford to upgrade when you sell $1.50 bottles of beer for $10+ each.
2. Yeah, not everybody orders a drink. Deal with it. It was like that 25-30 years ago when I was a regular bar patron, too.
3. Is it because your service sucks? One big reason not everybody among my friends 25-30 years ago ordered drinks was shit service. At a pub I met friends at every week, most stopped ordering food and drink because table service became so erratic. That was one particular establishment, but in general service levels are way weaker today than they were back in the late 1990s.
4. People order fewer drinks because they're expensive. Even as a Gen Xer I order way fewer drinks in bars and food-and-bar establishments now than in the past because they've just so darn expensive. At $10+ for a beer and $15+ for a cocktail I just can't enjoy them much anymore. Plus, if had the weaker finances of a 20-something I certainly wouldn't be downing a lot of $15+ mixed drinks!
5. People linger over drinks. That's how bars have always worked. The thing that's most ridiculous about this article is the bartenders' repeated preference that people just order drinks as long as they're there, then leave. And that's just so many kinds of wrong. To name just two: A, it was never like that. B, do you really expect people to buy a drink and leave— they could buy that $10 beer for $2 at the grocery store if that's all they wanted— or to get soused on multiple rounds of drinks if they stay for a few hours? These bartenders seem like the worst of the doesn't-know-how-to-socialize stereotype typically thrust on Gen Z.