I tried to come up with a reason to moderate my 5 stars, but I can't. This was so worth my time and money.
I have a service (more back of house) background and have been more and more interested in bartending, but didn't have the confidence to go after jobs that involved cocktails (that means virtually all jobs). It's generally understood that you must know how to make a basic range of cocktails and understand some basic concepts, but there's not a lot of on-the-job training available at that level. If you give any indication that you're less than confident about that aspect of things, you will almost always be passed over immediately.
I finally decided to do this and was very happy with my experience. I literally feel it would not be possible for them to provide a better value for my money/time. For a reasonable amount of money, (which they broke into a few payments over three weeks, very handy for me), they prepared me extraordinarily well and gave me a solid overview and lots of new skills. The range of available schedules made this possible even with my crazy work/school obligations.
Our instructor, Erika, was incredible, both covering the key material and offering us a lot of useful information in fun anecdotes about her impressive career as a bartender. There are just no words for what a wonderful instructor and great person she is. It's critical to learn from someone who takes their work seriously and takes pride in their skills.
I waited for WAY too long to do this, mostly because I've heard that this type of program is useless. I absolutely disagree. For those of you who are concerned with what your outcome might be, in my humble opinion, here are the things the school can't fix:
1. Some people are not cut out for service jobs! Quite seriously, this genre of work is not for everyone.
2. If you don't drink / know the spirits, obviously it will be an uphill battle - hard work to get up to speed. I'm sure it's totally possible, but you need to actively study. I actually find it quite odd that people who don't really drink aspire to be bartenders, but to each his own. I know vegetarian butchers, too.
3. This training eliminated a weakness for me, and without even going to their career services department, I now get WAY more interest from *awesome* employers. However, if you're not going about the search effectively, or if you're not cut out for this, the school doesn't have a magic wand to make you clean, fast, and charming.
4. "POS training" in more depth than is provided here is next to impossible. They do show you some basic concepts, but the way you learn is just putting orders into a live system. Bars and restaurants use a bunch of POS systems, often configured in different ways. The reality is you need to work a little bit with one or two, and they'll all start to come more naturally.
Hope this helps. As I said, I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner. read more