We were sitting at a table at the Iron Horse today and I overheard a friend two tables down telling a group of friends about a bad experience he had at another bar. "If he's going to be that kind of bar owner..." he said, but I couldn't catch the rest.
   Before long he meandered down to our table and I asked him what he had been going on about. He had no problem relating his story for us, in fact he had something of a vendetta to eagerly share.
   "Last Sunday we went to the Sullivan Scoreboard for the Super Bowl and afterwards my friend and I went went to ****. Well we partied there a long time and then called a friend who doesn't drink and asked him to give us a ride, which he did.
   " The next day at 10:30 my friend goes to pick up his car and it was gone! He parked right in front and I guess there was a 'No Parking' sign and the owner likes to park there or something. It cost $200 and he wants to get the guy but I said I know how to get back at him the right way and so now I'm telling everyone about it and not to go to ****."  I just shook my head and thought how much the owner's moment of anger cost him.
   Owners cannot afford to have bad days or bad moments. They cannot wake up in a grumpy mood on Monday and have a car they don't recognize towed from their favorite parking spot. Despite the fact that people can get stupid in a bar, the bar business is just that : it is a business. And owner must always treat everyone with diplomacy and professionalism.
   Diplomacy means not taking sides. Once at the Rock Inn a divorced couple came in separately and soon got into a fight. Elaine was called into it and asked the ex-hubby to leave. She reasoned that the wife was a regular and she and her new boyfriend, who was even more of a regular, spent a lot of money at our place and the ex knew that this was her turf and knew better than to come in and cause trouble. The trouble was the ex-hubby had friends too and within minutes a good customer that we thought was our friend got into Elaine's face and then left, never to return. The next day another friend of the ex-hubby came in the minute we opened to tell Elaine off. The lesson we learned is that people will take sides but owners cannot afford to.
   Professionalism means understanding that everyone in a bar at any given moment is there because they chose to be but the owner is there because he has a business to run and it is dependent upon those people who opted to be there.
   One time a regular slapped Elaine hard on her behind and said, "Craig won't mind." But when she told me about it, I sure did mind and I marched out and chewed him a new behind right out there in front of the whole bar. We did not lose him as a customer because he was an old friend but I always felt bad that I humiliated him and lost my cool in front of the other customers. I knew I had been unprofessional and hurt my business.
   Jerks will always be jerks and maybe they need to be 86'ed, but good people can often be jerks when they've had too much of what you are serving them and all jerks need to be handled with professionalism. It is just a part of the business.
It's like taking care of overflowing toilets and cleaning up puke. There is no need to make a scene. In fact it is incumbent upon the owner to keep the drama to a minimum. Drama is what people love to talk about and they never report it unbiasedly.
   While everyone knows that word of mouth is the best form of advertising, it is important for the owner to remember that people talk out of both sides of their mouth. And I would argue that they talk louder out of the negative side than the positive.
   As we went on talking with our friend he told us about what a great time he had a the Sullivan Scoreboard Super Bowl party, but that is not what he was passionate about. He wanted everyone to to know about the ahole that towed his buddy's car.