Weekends Are For Amatuers: Why Cooler People Drink on Tuesdays *Repost*
Club going up on a Tuesday
Friday nights at that trendy new craft brewery, on the edge of that rapidly gentrifying working class neighborhood, are always packed.
The parking lot is overflowing. A fashionably unkempt Millennial just elbowed you in the ribs. He’s angling to get close enough to yell out an IPA order to the woman behind the bar. The bartender is visibly frazzled, dozens of other fashionably unkempt 30-somethings, also yelling at her about the jalapeno pale ale. She rolls her eyes dramatically when you shout a question about pairing that with the fried avocado tacos. She wants you to know that you’re annoying.
Packed like a sardines with the throngs of other cubicle refugees, you are clawing for your chance to relax away the work week. It’s challenging. The bar is so loud you can’t talk to the friends who met you there. The staff is overwhelmed, so the service is rude. It’s too chaotic and stressful to be fun.
When I worked in the restaurant industry, serving at one of the original brewpubs in Salt Lake City, we had a saying: “Weekends are for amateurs”. Friday and Saturday nights, and the kinds of folks who venture out on them, bring an over hyped, desperate energy to a bar. They have been longing all week for a break in the monotony of Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. This is their One Chance to let loose. Two nights, max, to get drunk as possible, do as many drugs as possible, hook up, act wild, before it’s back to the cubicle on Monday morning.
It’s impossible to even move in the bar on weekend nights. Crappy service, crappy Top 40 music, but it’s the weekend, dammit. They have to make it count.
People who know better do their dining out and drinking during the week. The crowds are a quarter of the throngs of Saturday night, so everyone from the server, to the chef, to the sommelier, is more relaxed. You can expect more personal service, and a better overall experience. On a Tuesday night, the bartender is well rested and not being yelled at by a crazed mob. She’s happy to recommend a beer choice that pairs better with the fried avocado tacos. She tells the chef you are a regular, so he sends out a new turmeric and lime aioli that he’s been working on. You’re one of the first people to try it.
Savvy city dwellers know that Tuesday nights equal better service, better tables, better food, a more relaxed setting to have more intriguing conversations with people who aren’t trying so hard to have fun.
By making a point to go out and have fun during the week, you’re enjoying more of your life. You’re spreading your social time through all seven days of the week, not just slogging through the five day prison sentence, then trying to cram all your fun into the 60 hours between Friday evening and Monday morning.
Avoiding the unwashed masses of the weekend bar scene works both ways. You relax while the majority of people are suffering through a long week, then spend the weekends really chilling: cooking, traveling, creating, having friends over. Browsing the grocery aisles on a Saturday afternoon is an entirely different experience than fighting off starving hordes on a Wednesday night. Once you experience the difference for yourself, it’s a life hack that becomes a way of life. I cringe when acquaintances suggest waiting over an hour for waffles at Sunday brunch, but rejoice when they agree to meet me for a beer after work on Tuesday.
I frequent my favorite local watering hole often enough, on slower nights, that I’m greeted like family when I stroll in. Now, armed with this knowledge from a Tuesday night veteran, you can be family too.