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Gen Z are used to headlines about the things they’ve “killed”: writing in cursive, getting their driver’s licenses, knowing how printers work, wearing skinny jeans. Their latest offense, according to a recent New York Times article: opening bar tabs.
Bartenders and drinkers alike spoke to the Times about young people’s hesitancy to leave their credit cards behind the bar, instead preferring to close out and pay after every single drink – no matter how many rounds they order.
The piece sparked conversations on TikTok and Reddit about gen Z bar etiquette, which some call nearly irredeemable. “Working a bar that is almost exclusively Gen Z, we stopped opening tabs altogether because they’re so bad at even remembering they have a card,” one person wrote on r/bartenders.
But does gen Z have the worst bar etiquette? The Guardian spoke to bartenders across the US about which generation behaves best and discovered that younger folks aren’t the horrible customers so many trend pieces set them up to be. Older drinkers often have worse manners – and they don’t have the excuse of inexperience to let them off the hook.
Michaela Giunchigliani works in Sonoma, California, at a boutique winery where she serves people of all ages. “By far the most challenging, stressful, taxing – and I say this with love – are the boomers,” Giunchigliani said. “I find that boomers [roughly those aged between 60 and 80] keep this keen eye on any little thing that they can glob onto and say: ‘Well, you didn’t bend over backwards for me.’ Gen Z doesn’t have that same entitlement.”
Rachel Phelps, a bartender in Pittsburgh, agreed that the “50-plus” crowd wins the distinction of most demanding. “They’re going to want to pick where they sit, and they’re going to tell you every minor inconvenience. I used to work at a bar that didn’t have air conditioning, and it was always my fault, according to them.”
Gen Z, meanwhile, isn’t nearly as fussy. “If I just perform like the bare minimum of what I’m expected to do, we’re good,” Giunchigliani said.
Since the legal drinkers of gen Z haven’t experienced bar culture for that long (the oldest in the cohort are 28) many of them don’t know or care about certain bar rituals. Chloe Richards, who tends bar at dives in Brooklyn and Queens, New York, said gen Z is blissfully ignorant of “buybacks”, the old saloon tradition of getting a free drink or shot after a few rounds. (In 2019, the New York Post eulogized the ritual, saying gentrification and higher rents killed it off.)
But “old heads”, as Richards calls her gen X-and-up patrons, come in expecting the quid pro quo. “They think that after every three drinks, I’m supposed to give them a free one,” Richards said. “That’s not a real thing or a hard rule: it’s a privilege. If you’re a good customer or a patron, of course, but I don’t owe anybody free anything.”
Bartenders also said gone are the days when the youngest drinkers wind up the most wasted by the end of the night. Gen Z came of age during a seismic shift in drinking culture: they’re imbibing much less than previous generations. This means the getting-sloshed baton falls to an older crowd.
“People in their late 30s to early 40s usually have higher tabs, but it comes at a cost,” said Dimitri Gellis, who manages the Chicago sports bar Fatpour Tap Works. “They think they can still drink like they’re in their 20s, but they can’t hang. They’ll order whiskey on the rocks like pros, but after a few they’re holding onto the wall and they don’t take it well when you cut them off.”
Gen Z may be drinking less, but that doesn’t mean their bar hangs can’t last for hours – even if they don’t keep ordering. “Something that drives me fucking nuts is when they get like one drink and use that as an excuse to sit at the bar for five hours,” said a Brooklyn bartender who goes by Priz. “Why go to a bar? One drink is not access to unlimited space at a place. You have to do a little more.”
Gen Z’s anxiety manifests at the bar counter, too: some of them haven’t yet nailed the quickest way to order a round. “What’s most annoying to me is when people order their drinks one by one when they’re in a group, especially when they all have to think about it,” Richards said. “For me it’s like, let’s get it going, because you’re slowing down the process. Get it together first before you get my attention.”
Most bartenders say they understand why gen Z has a hard time in bars. Many spent formative going-out years in the wake of Covid restrictions. “They’re learning how to do this a bit later than the rest of us did,” Richards said. She gets it, but also that inexperience can mess with her tips. “I think young people are just guessing numbers,” Richards said.
Ultimately, bartenders say that there’s no magic age for an ideal patron – their work headaches come from people of all generations. Phelps, the Pittsburgh bartender, added that overall, gen Z’s looking for “experiences” on nights out – it’s not really about drinking anymore. In some ways, that makes them easier to serve.
“They want to look cute and take pictures,” she said. “The sloppy behavior is just not there the way it was for us when we were younger. It’s definitely better for the people behind the bar. But also, I’m always like, ‘Have some fun! Do something stupid.’”
