It is time to cover customer service again with regards to NYC nightlife – this time up, bar customer service at Pacha. I chose Pacha because I know of more than a few people that berate the bar customer service they have received at Pacha, and I thought it good to point out that there is great service to be found there if you look in the right spots. Knowing my pickiness in this regard, that should say something.
But, before I get into Pacha, I want to mention some feedback I have gotten on places mentioned in this post. It seems a few people read that post and checked out some of the places mentioned, in particular Drop Off Service and Emerald. The feedback was positive, praising the excellent service at Emerald with a nod to the time-consuming, handcrafted Guinness pints (one person recommended ordering the next Guinness when about 2/3 of the way through the current one, if avoiding a pause between pints is a goal), and complementing both the service and cheapness of drinks (especially before 8PM) at Drop Off Service.
Now, back to Pacha…
I thought I should start out with proper expectation setting, as it seems some people have no experience with superclubs.
First, superclubs are huge. Expecting personalized, small venue-type customer service in a club of that size is, well, silly. Even if the bartenders could remember 10% of the people that run through a superclub on a decent weekend, that has still got to be over 100 people per weekend. That is too much to ask.
Second, worthwhile superclubs generally focus on the dance floor, so the sound system tends to be solid and they often bring in good DJ talent. Expecting a focus on bar customer service in a club not focused on bar customer service is kind of, well, silly. The bars seem to aim to serve as many people as quickly as possible, so the club can make its money and you can get back out on the dance floor without delay.
With that, expectations have been set properly for a superclub; however, if my intention was to lower your bar customer service expectations for Pacha, then I would not be writing this post. In other words, there is reliably good bar customer service to be found in Pacha.
So, where should you look for good service? Well, that is easy, the little nook bars – you know, the tiny bar in the basement, and the makeshift bar off to the side of the main dance floor on bigger nights.
From my experience, these little nook bars in Pacha consistently provide at least a good experience. Now, admittedly, I have a bias here – my preference for smaller bars/lounges/clubs, and, as I often say, these little bars in Pacha provide a small bar/lounge/club feel in the middle of a massive club. But, that bias comes from my experience that smaller venues tend to provide a better customer service experience, which is exactly what these little bars in Pacha provide. And, these little bars receive less traffic than the main bars, which gives their bartenders both an incentive and an opportunity to provide good service, and means less crowds to fight through. (I do note there is a downside to these smaller bars in terms of selection, as they don’t have the full stock of the main bars. So, if you can’t find something in their menu to suit your group, you may have to brave the main bars, or, better yet, send someone else to do so. 
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Ok, with you pointed in the right direction for good service, there are two bartenders in particular, both of whom work at these little bars, that, when encountered, virtually guarantee great service. In fact, these two bartenders might make it into my top ten list of NYC bartenders, if I ever make such a list. (No plans on a top 10, but my old top 5 is still out there. That post also outlines some of my criteria for rating bartenders.)
(I have found Pacha bartenders not to be the most static, and any descriptions I could give of these two would be too generic to identify them from the various other bartenders; however, I think my directional pointers provide a very good chance of running into these bartenders in the near term.)
So, the first of these two bartenders works in the little basement bar on almost all Saturday nights. This bartender is always quite pleasant and quick to provide service. They has managed to remember what I get to drink, which is unexpected in this type of environment and makes life much easier as the volume makes it hard enough to order. Better still, the drink always ends up in my hand before I ask for it, even in a crowd. Perfect service.
The second bartender works in that makeshift bar setup for big parties off on to the side of the main dance floor on some Saturday nights. Now, this makeshift bar is only there sometimes, and this bartender tends to be there most of the times the makeshift is there. This bartender is very friendly and fast with the service. When there are multiple flavors of drinks (i.e., Gatorade), they ask which one, rather than just grabbing any, something I appreciate, because some flavors go down easier than others. Also, this bartender seems to enjoy the music, so they are not sitting their sulking when not running around.
For both bartenders, I give extra credit for maintaining consistently great service throughout the whole night (8+ hours for the little bars). The environment is very fast paced and stressful, especially during peak, and I have also seen some of patrons act quite rude and demeaning towards the bartenders.
Finally, I must say that, if it was not for these little bars within Pacha and the good service they provide, I would be a less frequent visitor to Pacha. These little bars fill in the service gap you generally encounter in superclubs (outside of VIP or table service), a gap that can be quite irritating over the course of a long night and many trips to the bar for staples like water and Gatorade.
So, rather than complain about things that superclubs generally don’t provide anyway, why not hit one of these little bars in Pacha and encounter bartenders that know good customer service? (Be sure to tip well.)
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As I was writing up this post, I noticed the deluge of Ptacek posts over at Matasano. The technical content is valuable (especially the background info for the hypervisor rootkit detection discussion), but the humor is priceless.
Just search for the following in this post.
Wow. That is a cool story. Let me see if I can outdo you. I’m cheating, though: compared to yours, my story is plausible.
Or look for the memory hierarchy visual in this post.