Coffee shop or bar jobs in SF?

August 31, 2010 12:19 PM

How hard is it to get a job in San Francisco in a coffee shop or bar (bartender or otherwise), without any experience?

Just graduated college, and will be working in the bay for a tech company. I'm very curious, though, how hard it'd be to get a job in a coffee shop or bar. I've always had academic/research jobs, never service jobs, but at this point it seems almost more difficult to get them than a tech job. Anyone have a sense of this, for San Francisco at least?

posted by devilsbrigade to Work & Money (4 answers total)

It's hard because just about every young person in SF is looking to work at a bar or a coffee shop. And when a position opens up it's usually filled up by a friend or someone known to the bar or coffee shop. The service community in SF is pretty tight-knit and closed off. You kind of have to penetrate that circle to get a good job because there are very few openings. That said, I'm not in that industry but I have a lot of friends who are, and they had to work their way in. One friend started as a bartender at Chevy's and made some friends there that eventually led to a bar shift at a crapy bar in the city. There he made friends with some other bartenders who eventually got him a shift at a better bar. Now he works primarily at two pretty decent SF bars, but he's constantly picking up shifts at other bars. That's kind of how it works....
posted by phelixshu at 12:53 PM on August 31, 2010

I've lived in SF (though years ago, it's probably still the same). The service industry in SF really IS tight-knit and closed off. You absolutely, positively have to know someone to get a job that's not at Starbuck's or Chevy's or someplace waaaay out in the avenues or West Portal or someplace. (That's because there are so many young boho types and students looking for day jobs.)

If necessary, you can get your foot in the door by getting a job at a Financial District chain establishment or somewhere more out in the boonies and leverage your way in. It kind of stinks that getting a survival job in SF is as fraught as getting a career job anywhere else, but SF is different in many ways.
posted by Rosie M. Banks at 1:20 PM on August 31, 2010

Very hard. In part because people who get laid off or fired from their chosen profession often think that they can just pick up a service job while they're looking for another job in their field. They can't, but all their resumes gum up the works for those of us who have chosen the service industry as our profession. I've applied at several bars in the last year and been up against a thousand other applicants. It's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Phelixshu is right, you need to know the right people.
posted by Jawn at 1:23 PM on August 31, 2010

Generally the ease in getting a coffee shop / bar gig without experience is directly proportionate to how attractive you are.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:48 PM on August 31, 2010