When bartending at a place such as applebees are you in back making drinks or where are you?

How exactly is the whole process? do yuo come in contact with customers? do palces like this hire bartenders ? do they have everyone who walks in start as a toilet cleaner and work their way up or what?When bartending at a place such as applebees are you in back making drinks or where are you?
If you have some experience they will put in the bar which is usually a circular or half a circle in the middle of the restaurant and you do have contact with people.When bartending at a place such as applebees are you in back making drinks or where are you?
Having worked in an Applebees for over 2 years as a bartender, let me tell you everything you need to get ahead in a corporate restaurant.



#1) Apply for the job when you start at the place. Even if you just want to be a waiter, let it be known you'd like to be a Bartender at some point. Even if a position comes open and your no longer interested, you can say 'Hey, no thanks'. If your past that point, talk to two managers: There will probably be a manger who is in charge of Bar Staffing and Liquor Orders, you let them know your interested and learning more about the bar. The second manager is the General Manager. Let your intentions known, and if you can get a little face time, ask them what they think the best way to go about it would be.



2) Start selling liquor. Look for every opportunity to sell liquor to your tables, to upsell liquors at your tables, and make a goal for yourself to have X amount of a liquor mix. It shows that you have good knowledge of the products, which is important to the managers when deciding who to consider.



3) Act As If. While you think the bartender is just making your drinks, they are actually making drinks, taking customer orders at the bar, and sometimes dealing with to go orders. The best way to be operating at a high level in the restaurant is to be busy enough to not bring attention to yourself, but productive enough that it makes a difference when you aren't there. That's what a bartender really does. Examples include running food, ice refills, plate restocks, and cleaning without being told.



4) Get a bartender book, preferably The Harvard Student Agencies Bartending Book. You don't want to know hot to make all the crazy concoctions that no one orders. You want to know how a functional bar works. That is the best book for the task.



5) Make Friends with Bartenders. Not just the bartenders at the restaurant you work at either. Have lunch and dinner at the bar of your favorite restaurants, and pay attention to how the bartender interacts with you as a customer, and the other employees in the restaurant. Go to night club style bars and see the difference in how those bartenders act, and see how customer's interact with them. And make friends with the bartenders at your restaurant. They will be able to rely on you if they need things, and when questions are asked about who they feel would be a good addition to the team, you may be high on the list.



Hope that helps you a bit. I pretty much followed that path when I started at a Applebees and was bar tending by my 20th Birthday. I was able to bartender at a variety of places for the next 4 years before going into computers.