Cheers to servers & bar staff

By Kelly Gries

I been around the dart community for only a short time, but I have worked behind the bar during dart season too, and more often than not, your servers and bartenders are not given genuine thanks at the end of the night.

Either we lost and are in a bad mood or we won but our partner carried us all night and they are worn out and we feel bad. So we pay our tab and tip what we feel is fair and go on our way.

When we arrive for darts, it is often after a long day of work, running home, feeding the kids and running out again to play darts. We get to the bar and sometimes the bartender knows us and says, �Hey! How are you doing?� They get our drink without us having to ask. Sometimes they don't know us and we have to order our own drink (oh no!) but they get it with a welcome smile that we probably don't notice in our rush to practice before we get to go outside and smoke, then play our match.

Sometimes, when we get to the bar, it's really busy. As in some of the bigger dart bars, there are several teams getting there all at once and we may have to wait a minute for our drinks, (again...oh no!). But those bartenders and servers are running as fast as they can to try to make sure everyone is taken care of.

Please remember while you are taking that cool drink of your refreshing adult beverage, that you may not be the only person who is having a bad day, the difference is that we get to show it, your servers can't. We get to go outside and smoke if we want to, they can't. We can even go to the bathroom whenever we want and they can't.

Tip your servers well and when you say thanks, smile back at them. They have to put up with our bad darts, our bad moods, and unfortunately sometimes, our bad attitudes. They still get our drinks and our food and occasionally ask how our game is going and actually do care!