Pixel Perfect Prognostications
Las Vegas, The Lakes – 2:18 AM
I’m staring at a blank page made from tiny white lights that some computer geek dubbed “pixels.” Without a salient thought in my head, I drift off into speculating just how anybody came up with the word “pixel.” This month’s Cut Off is due, and I’m tracing the etymology of the word pixel. Great. So I guess it’s time for my coffee maker to earn its keep once again as I fire up a pot and stare off at a wall, hoping for inspiration. No such luck, and so my brain wanders off again. Pixel, Pixie, Pixie Stix, Pick Up Stix – Mmm, Chinese food. I wonder if they’re still open. No, they’re closed.
I was taking turns staring at the wall and the blank screen in front of me, and all that fills my head is trying to remember if it was the House Chicken or the Garlic Chicken that I liked at a take-out restaurant that was now closed. And the clock is ticking. When your starting pitcher runs out of heat, you go to the bullpen. I have a bullpen of sorts with all kinds of half-finished articles and random notes I’ve written, collected, and kept handy over the years. I had to dig pretty deep, but Hallelujah, there it was – a file containing notes that was labeled “trends.” What could be more entertaining than looking back on some notes I took on coming trends in nightlife? Lots of things, I’m sure. But I was out of time, and these notes fit the bill.
The Morphing Marvels and Blockbuster Behemoths
Here’s how they came to be: A little over four years ago, I was contracted by an independent marketing agency to produce a written market analysis of Las Vegas Nightlife. That project provided the paid excuse to observe the trends in nightlife, primarily here in Vegas. At the time, the tiny little underground world of flair was mushrooming all around me. Shadow, Carnaval Court, and Kahunaville were all generating a lot of buzz. The flair bars of Las Vegas had become something more – something unexpected. And that got me thinking about how flair had evolved recently.
Just a few years prior, flair was a talent, a passion, a calling. But when the largest, most powerful resorts in the world injected their FB operations with flair, everything changed. Flair had transformed from art into economy. Flair had become a business model, a driving force. The seeds of an industry that a small group of bartenders had sown began to sprout into quite a beanstalk.
So while I began to study the nightlife trends in this market, I also watched with a renewed interest the developing world of flair and, soon after, bartending in general all over the world. I completed the bulk of those notes nearly four years ago. What kinds of notes, I really don’t know. What I mean to say to you is that I had no idea then, and not much more now, what to call them or how to interpret them. They were just my thoughts and observations on where our industry was and where it appeared to be going – or maybe where I hoped it would go and feared it might fall.
Reading through these thoughts four years later is a bit surreal. As you will also soon see, a lot of these trends are now part of our history rather than of our future. And I’m the first to admit that a) I’m not necessarily the first and definitely not the only person who saw these trends forming, and b) some are pretty damn obvious, sort of like somebody predicting a Delpech brother will probably win a flair comp in 2007.
In any case, whether I wrote this ten years ago or ten minutes ago, there are some ideas I think you’ll find interesting. Some of it should scare you. Some of it should thrill you. Take it all for what it’s worth – observations that breed conjecture.
The Morph and the Blockbuster
The Morph is the restaurant that becomes the nightclub, the coffee shop that becomes the cocktail lounge, or the deli that becomes the brewpub. While the idea is not new, the way in which these concepts will soon evolve is. Originally, such a format was a happy accident – a popular cafe in a market with just a few late-night choices for the locals, where somebody convinces a manager to let a guitarist play or a DJ spin, and suddenly the mood and the clientele transforms, and the register rings through the wee hours of the morning.
That’s how they usually start. Maybe a promoter convinces a restaurateur to let him bring his vibe in one night a week. Candles are lit, pretty girls in skimpy outfits bring bottles to tables, and suddenly what was once a dark room is the most profitable night of the week. So the idea spreads. Many operators are finding, however, that there is so much more to morphing your space than simply bringing in a DJ at ten o’clock and turning the lights down. Because morphing a space from one format to another can be such a tricky, fickle proposition, the evolution we will see is that instead of adding a late-night component into an existing concept, it will be designed to be both from the beginning. And so now, the Morph becomes a format that architects, designers, consultants, and contractors will speak of, instead of just promoters, managers, visionaries, and starving artists who bring them to life.
Another new format that should catch on is the million-dollar pool halls and bowling alleys for jet-setters. CarPool on the outskirts of Washington, DC, proved years ago that billiards not only wasn’t just for ex-cons and teenagers, but that pool pairs nicely with slow-roast BBQ and pints of microbrewed ale. Both are examples of what I like to call the Blockbuster. The Blockbuster is the campy, old, low-budget TV show that is brought back with a half-a-billion-dollar budget and becomes the blockbuster franchise of epic motion pictures – “Charlie’s Angels,” “Star Trek,” “Mission Impossible.” It’s a simple formula, really: 1) take a good, proven idea that decision-makers have a sentimental attachment to, 2) throw tons of money and a little imagination at it, 3) dress it up all purdy-like, and 4) charge guests an arm and a leg to enjoy it.
ESPNZone is the Blockbuster version of the neighborhood sports bar. Dave & Buster’s is the Blockbuster of the hangout with the pinball machine and Golden Tee in the corner. It’s more than just a bigger, more expensive concept. The Blockbuster is instead a fancier, bigger-budget version of a simple pleasure – it’s your favorite little joint on steroids. Watch for upscale versions of just about every blue-collar bar concept the world knows, from multi-level sports bars to strip clubs that offer every possible amenity. Expect major markets to take your favorite neighborhood pool hall, feed it steroids, and launch a Blockbuster that once could have only appeared in Hollywood movies.
The Rise of the VIP Rockstar
The days of the bartender being the best-paid and most influential employee in a nightclub or lounge is becoming a thing of the past. Waitresses and VIP Hosts are the new rockstars of nightlife, and in fact, both will continue to replace bartenders at the top of the pecking order. Why? VIP bottle service. Our business is about moving cases of product, and it always has been. It’s called the “drinks business” for a reason – it’s about selling drinks, and it is far less expensive and far more profitable to sell drinks by the bottle than the glass.
In the major markets of New York, Miami, Chicago, LA, San Francisco, and Las Vegas, a Vodka and Cranberry sells for an average of about $8. A bottle of vodka sells for about $300. As an owner, which sale would you prefer to make? Top clubs in all these cities sell cases, even palates, of Vodka and Champagne every single night. Translation: their declining need for bartenders and the increasing premium on cocktail waitresses. It’s not about taste or creativity; it’s about bling. And nothing says “player” more than a VIP booth in a trendy club or lounge, staffed by your own private waitress.
We are living in an age where popping corks and buying bottles is the new status, the new celebrity. Anybody can lease a Beamer or a Hum-V, but to drop $1,000 on one night of drinking – that puts out a message. To some, that message is about status or power. To others, it is about pretense and foolishness. Regardless, the model works, and millions are being made in nightlife like never before.
While the popularity of bottle service has exploded in recent years, the concept is age-old. The earliest record of bottle service of spirits in the United States dates back to the gold rush, when settlers, claim-jumpers, and forty-niners could ride up to the local saloon, order whiskey from the barkeep, and be handed the bottle and some glasses. They paid for the bottle. Or shot up the place. About a hundred years later, bars in New Orleans would give you the bottle and some juice for the table. The bottle was marked when you got it and marked again when you turned it back in, and you paid for what you drank. That was more than 20 years ago.
Champagne sales by the bottle and wine by the bottle have been part of the nightlife scene for decades, most notably in Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager’s famed Studio54 in 1978-1980, where the champagne flowed freely for VIP guests in a private room in the basement and right out on the main dance floor, sold in bottles right over the bar. There are plenty of hot rooms in Vegas where the waitresses and VIP hosts make two, three, and five times what the bartenders make. Bottle service is the reason why.
The Rise of the RTD: Bartender’s Demise?
Ready-to-Drink (RTD) is the category of packaged cocktails that includes malt beverages, and they are one of the fastest-growing categories in off-trade. The more the general public develops a taste for these mutations of the Wine Cooler, the more we will see demand for them in the on-trade. Remember, the popularity of bottle service is already reaching astronomical sales levels. And now, another product that only requires the skill of taking a cap off is getting hotter and hotter. Who needs a skilled bartender when a monkey with a bottle blade can do the same job?
Laugh it up – machines have been taking jobs from people for centuries. There is a machine on the market that all but pours the juices and drops the garnish in the glass already. Like a Mr. Coffee, the Mr. Bartender is a reality – a sad reality. Note that since first writing this, I have watched a video of a version of this robot bartender that has a flat-screen with a human’s face on it that talks to guests and actually takes orders and makes jokes. Wow, how sad. When the role of the bartender is reduced to bottle opener, we’re all in trouble. And the more that the VIP table phenomenon grows, the quicker this is happening.
There are several very trendy venues in the US where the only bartenders are working in a kitchen, nowhere inside the actual club – a glorified service bartender busting ass for minimum wage and a pathetic tip-out, while waitresses are on the floor, handing guests drinks, making $1,000 a night. I did some celebrity events last year (2002) at a very high-profile venue where the VIP cocktail waitresses averaged $500-$700 on weeknights and $1,000-$2,000 on weekends, while the bartenders who made all their drinks, mind you, were thrilled to walk home with $200 or, on an amazing night, $350. The waitresses made that money mainly from bottle sales. But the best part? The bartenders prepped the bottle set-ups, and the male VIP hosts corked all bottles of wine and champagne. The girls basically rang the order and kept peanuts on the tables. And no, they weren’t selling the bottles – a bottle purchase was a requirement of getting a table.
The Cheeky Charms of the Trophy Bartender
Not a new concept, but one that is reaching new heights – the popularity of the model-bartender is growing at an alarming rate. The “trophy bartender” has been around since I can remember. But it used to be that owners would hire one or two bombshells who couldn’t open a bottle of wine by themselves and flesh out the rest of their staffs with seasoned pros. Not anymore.
Realizing that nightlife is a fashion and image-driven business, many owners and operators have turned to staffing their venues with the hottest women they can find. I don’t mean your local Hooters or sports bar, either. I’m talking about the biggest, hottest, multi-million-dollar lounges, clubs, restaurants, and casinos in the world. Skill and speed? While most claim they look for it in those pretty magazine interviews, one hour in a lot of clubs around the country will tell you this is just lip-service.
The management theory – once only poisoning seedier establishments and the trend-obsessed image markets – staffing for looks is entrenching itself in almost every segment of the industry and most markets. “Hire for looks and maybe personality, make them as naked as possible. Eventually, they will learn how to make drinks quickly on their own.” That’s the recruitment and training mantra I am seeing more and more.
What is truly alarming about this trend is not just that jobs are being taken from skilled, talented bartenders and given to unskilled, hard bodies, but that these same trophy bartenders are by no means stupid. Unskilled and inexperienced, perhaps, but far from stupid. They fully understand the opportunity exists for them to make high five and low six-figure salaries behind the bar and are quickly learning the fine points of the trade. As a result, there is a huge influx of inexperienced talent who are quickly bumping the veterans to the back of the bus.
There are cases, of course, when very skilled, experienced bartenders also happen to fit the “model” look, but in more cases than not, it’s looks first, skills second. Women, don’t sound the battle horn against me just yet – I’m not referring to experienced, talented female bartenders of which I personally know and have have the privilege of working with scores of all over the country. I’m talking about highly attractive women who have zero experience in the industry, let alone behind the bar, who are being hired for the highest-volume and highest-profile jobs on the market over dozens and dozens of highly-qualified, experienced, and talented male and female bartenders based solely on looks.
The Rise of the Six-Figure Bartender
While the smaller corner bars, sports bars, and cocktail lounges will always be a haven for the talented, charismatic barkeeps of the world, current trends suggest that the upper-end jobs are going to the unskilled, attractive, and just plain lucky. What’s new? Salaries. The days of topping out at $50,000 a year are a thing of the past, at least in the major markets of America. With take-home salaries between $75,000 and $200,000 a year, this should be both alarming and exciting to anybody wishing to have a long and lucrative career in bartending.
The Hybrid Bartender’s Ascent
Luckily, there is one more emerging trend, or perhaps I am imagining it, that may save the day for now. With the creation of the ultra-lounges like the original Las Vegas ultra-lounge, the VooDoo Lounge, a need has been created for multi-talented, high-volume bartenders. From this, I have noticed two new styles of bartending slowly taking root: high-volume mixology and high-volume “stealth flair.”
Stealth flair? Yes, back to its roots in speed and efficiency – light, almost unnoticeable moves that truly are as fast as standard bartending but convey style and skill. Check out Venus and V-Bar in the Venetian Casino to see the closest thing to stealth flair in action.
The Dawn of the Celebrity Bartender
The logical follow-up to the celebrity chef, the celebrity bartender was a laughable concept ten years ago and is now a foreseeable reality in our industry and in the major media. With the growing amount of television advertising in the spirits category, sponsorship, endorsement, and other lucrative opportunities for the best of the best may not be so far-fetched.
From the Labatt’s commercial to the commercials of an over-hyped, mediocre vodka that bashes on bottle-flippers, flair has been a focal point of the advertising media recently. Sooner or later, somebody is going to get the formula right, and a hit TV show – probably a reality show – is going to fuel this trend.
While top mixologists are in the best positions for such fame, look for two or three flair bartenders to make the leap as well. Chances are, it will be for personality or blind luck just as likely as flair accomplishment or raw flair skill. Basically, if this trend does emerge, it will be a crapshoot as to who ends up in the limelight.
And a reality show, which is something we
