Pittsburgh (2)

Pittsburgh Bartending Job Leads

June 3rd, 2008

The bartending schools we have owned and managed have always focused on one element that is surprisingly different from many other bartending schools around the nation.  We generate actual hard bartending job leads exclusively for our graduates.  We are doing this in Pittsburgh.

We develop and contact thousands of bars throughout the market.  Its typically every kind of employer.  It could be neighborhood bars, the hottest clubs, or the fanciest establishments in the region.  We contact these employers regularly over the course of the year to generate hard and specific job leads specifically for our grads.

The employers know its a free service for them.  They don’t need to advertise, spend money on web or newspaper ad placement, and specifically know that our graduates come trained with basic bartending skills.  These graduates have a fall back source at our school to come back and practice, ask questions and get on-going help even as they start their initial jobs.

Our leads come directly from responses from the employers.  We don’t copy leads or scrape data from the web.  Sometimes those job leads reflect employers who might want people with experience and specifically don’t hire new bartending school grads.  Our leads could be the same as job opportunities published elsewhere, but you will know that if it came from the school it was specifically given to our staff.  Those employers will specifically hire grads from the school.

…..and then we do more.

Along with these leads we present possibly the most complete manual on how to land a bartending job.  We have developed this over many years.  It reflects our own experience in the industry as former barowners, managers and bartenders.  We have done the hiring and firing and we have been hired and fired.  Still it is more than that.  It reflects all we have learned from interacting with employers over decades of effort.  We’ve reviewed this manual against the best advice we’ve seen on the web….and our system is more thorough.

Having said all that, we can’t guarantee jobs.  At any place, at any time, a bar owner might not find a grad as the perfect candidate or might have other candidates he or she prefers.  That is why we subscribe to the idea of the largest possible bartender job search using our hard leads and our advice.

In any case, if you want to find specific hard job leads give us a call or arrange to visit to see all we can do to help you develop bartending job skills and find a job. 

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Hey Bartenders What do Pittsburgh Penguin Fans Like to Drink?

May 21st, 2008

Of course like everyone else in the region we’ll do whatever it takes to help the Penguins take the Stanley Cup this year.  Sports writers and some hockey followers believe that the outcome of the game is decided solely by what happens on the ice.  We know differently.  We KNOW that if we the fans take all the right actions, think all the right thoughts, and cross our fingers our Penguins will kick @ss over that Detroit team. 

So we were trying to figure out how we could help.  We know mostly about bars, and bartenders and drinks  so we thought if we could just figure out or learn what most Penguin fans drink in most bars….and if all the bars in the region knew it….and all the Penguin fans got served faster and better…..then our Pittsburgh karma would be sooooo much better.  Then all those drunk happy fans would take the Penguins over the top.

So we started looking through the web with all sorts of searches for all sorts of phrases for combinations of Penguins and Penguin fans, and drinking and getting drunk, and favorite drinks…etc.   Couldn’t find anything. 

We looked up the same thing for hockey fans and found this blog from a Canucks fan who plays hockey, likes to drink….and wrote about his 10 favorite drinks here.

But come on….this guy does not sound like a Penguins fan. He likes Mojitos and Margaritas, Pina Colladas and…..come on now…..Bellini’s. Okay….the guy drinks beer too…..but Bellini’s.

We know Penguin fans don’t drink like this guy. What do they drink, bartenders? And how can we serve the fans better, keep em happier, create better karma that the Penquins take their first Stanley Cup since what seems like forever!!!!

So….if you can tell us what Penguin fans drink….you’ll be helping the Penguins kick butt!!!!!!!!

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Part time jobs after school -in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and everywhere

April 25th, 2008

Our staff in Pittsburgh, in other bartending schools around the country, in a bar we have owned, and from the experience of so many grads, confirms that one of the best part time jobs after school is as a bartender.

The opportunities are even better in Pennsylvania where the legal age to bartend is 18. Its especially great in and around Pittsburgh, as one of the great college cities in the United States. Pittsburgh has a large and active bar/club/restaurant environment that hires all the time and has many establishments close to the large popular area colleges and universities.

Bartending jobs offer flexibility. You can work one to five shifts a week. They are predominately at night after classes. If you have a free afternoon though, there are a tremendous number of hotels, and all sorts of restaurants and pubs that look for day shift bartenders.

The job is easy. You never take it home with you. Its one of the few jobs where most of the time your smiling. Think of that the next time you face a mindless office job.

Far and away most of your income is tip income. In finer restaurants, hotels, and chains, the base salary is higher and the tip income is still significant.

At Barsmart’s forum we estimated there might be as many as 10,000 opportunities for full time and part time bartenders in the region. That doesn’t even include the huge volume of catering opportunities or banquet bartenders that hotels require. These catering and banquet bartending jobs are absolutely ideal as a part time job.

The nice thing about bartending jobs is that you can take the skill where ever you go. Over 25 years in running bartending schools we have yet to see a time where there hasn’t been a demand for good bartenders.

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Pittsburgh Bartending –Promote Promote Promote

February 22nd, 2008

We were looking at some information on Pittsburgh bars and noticed a tiny little fact that provides a tremendous opportunity.

There are very few bars in the region that provide Sentanta Sports.  It is a premier soccer/rugby/European sports network with either live or delayed top quality soccer matches and Rugby matches from Europe and Australia.  Its one of the great soccer channels available.  In fact we were amazed at how relatively few such bars there are relative to the population and compared to some other cities where we have operated bartending schools.

Now maybe Pittsburgh isn’t the center of fandom for British top notch soccer….but you know something there are a ton of soccer teams in the region, lots of soccer fans, overall sports fans, and people who can get intrigued by the special European style of cheering and rooting that is so different from American sports phenomena.  Its exciting.

With so few bars offering this entertainment we looked at a portion of the population to try and see where we could get customers.

Did you know there are over 40 or 50 adult soccer leagues in the Pittsburgh area.  They recruit players.  People advertise to join them.  They range in age from probably teenagers to over 40’s.  There are men’s and women’s leagues.  And that is just from a quick view.

On top of that there are 10 colleges in Allegheny County and over 30 colleges in the region.  Many of them have male and female teams and they probably have intramural teams on top of that.

These players have friends, fans, and families that probably also like the game.  That is several thousand potential customers, a chance to get them to network to other potential customers…and a tremendous opportunity to attract them to the very few bars in the region that show Setanta sports.  (by the way…we have no association with Setanta sports)

If I were showing those games I’d be marketing into these crowds and groups regularly.  They aren’t that hard to reach.  We found some of this information in about 1/2 an hour.

You know what else is great about these games, from the bar owners perspective?  The games are often early in the day.  That means that if you either operate a bar or are a bartender you can bring in a crowd at a time when the bar is often quiet.

Now if I’m a bartender at one of these establishments, or more realistically an owner, I’d be specifically marketing into these and other groups in the city and region on a regular basis.   

You can’t stop the marketing effort.  With ten local colleges and universities in the region and over 30 universities–with about 50,000 students in the County and over 130,000 in the greater Southeast PA region, there is a lot of turnover.

But with so little competition for this premium specialty sports network its an amazing opportunity.

We know there are endless promotion opportunities.  Bar operators explore them all the time.  Great bartenders learn how to promote their shifts and build business.  Frankly one of the great experiences in the business is to turn a slow shift or a slow day into a busy profitable day where the crowd is having a lot of fun.

Having operated bartending schools, bars, been bartenders, managed and owned we have seen a lot of opportunities and experiences over the years.  We just found this one to be a potential gem.  Contact us if you want to explore other ideas.   

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Bartending Jobs in Pittsburgh and every city in the Country

February 14th, 2008

We always get asked about National bartender job placement assistance.  In fact we were asked today about helping someone get a job who might move to Lancaster.

Here is what we have developed after years and years of working on this.

As an independantly owned school not aligned with any chains and also not stuck with rivalries and disagreements we have always made the effort to be the MOST cooperative school in the business when it comes to national job placement assistance.  It has worked we have established relationships with bartending schools in many many markets across the country, in Canada, and across the world.

We do several things for you if you are moving to another area:

1.  When you go through our program you will get an A-Z….how to get a bartending job anywhere, anytime, in any market for any type of place.   We have worked with owners/managers of clubs, formal places and everything in between.  In fact we owned a bar, hired, fired, built it from nothing, cleaned the bar, slung drinks, scrubbed the floor, developed promos….and built it into the premier college bar in its city  ( alot like Pittsburgh). 

Its funny, we have had people from other parts of the country come to one of our schools and mention exactly how or why the managers would hire them….and its in our review. 

We strongly urge our grads to use this system.  It has worked for decades.  One day a grad stopped by one of our schools and told us he used one of our tricks/suggestions on a Saturday….and by the end of the afternoon he had a job.  He described it in a very funny way.  Just cracked us up.  Really great to hear from grads.

2.  We will hook you into relevant bartending schools in that market that will provide cooperative job placement assistance.  We have spent years contacting other owners, emphasizing our cooperation in our markets, reported back to them, and created the environment so that our grads get the same level of service in other markets.  We never stop doing this.  It ensures a high level of service and reciprocity.

These efforts work.  By example we recently reinforced and cooperated with schools in a couple of regions including a chain of schools in Los Angelos National Bartenders Bartending School, a chain with a school in Sacramento and elsewhere Bartending College Schools, and an operator with a NYC bartending school  

In fact we first started cooperating with one of them in 1984!!!

We have worked out agreements with partial training in one school and finished training in a differently owned school in a different market. We found that if we go the little extra mile we can help our grads way beyond what they see elsewhere.

So if you want to find out about bartending anywhere in the nation….even internationally….check us out.

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What do Harbor Lights, Klondike, a Peach Smoothie, Black Jack WV, and Butt Fucks have in Common?

January 16th, 2008

Okay Pittsburgh….what do ya know?  Anyone have this figured out? 

They are all drink recipes with Yukon Jack!!  Familiar with it?

There isn’t a lot of it around.  Its a Canadian Whiskey flavored with honey.  A real unique taste.  A little little bit like Drambuie.  And its strong….usually 100 proof when sold in the States.

Anyways, all those drinks have Yukon Jack in them.  A lot of those little devils are strong and sweet, the ideal shooter for so many different bars.

Want to learn some recipes and add them to your favorite mixes?  Visit  barfinder.com  . Its a fun website with bar info, drink recipes, dj activity all around the country.  We need more mention in Pittsburgh.

And by the way…..if you really like Yukon Jack….(and I do) better hang out with a designated driver.  Those drinks and others will do you in!!!! 

 

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