Do Bartenders Hate It When You Tap to Pay?

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Sometimes I write about super-important topics, like the predatory nature of payday loans, how to handle a surprise medical bill and whether Social Security will still be around when millennials retire.

But honestly? Often, the money questions I'm most curious about are extremely unserious. I'm dying to know if it's OK to have dolphins on my checks, whether $2 bills are legit rare and why the government can't simply print more money.

Here's a prime example: Last year, when I was grabbing a drink at a bar near Union Square in Manhattan on Halloween, I noticed a lot of people using digital wallets on their phones to settle the bill. Given how tricky bar etiquette can be, I wanted to know...

Will bartenders get annoyed if I tap to pay?

I was worried that deviating from the standard practice of handing over my physical card would annoy a busy bartender who didn't have the time or equipment to deal with it. But T. Cole Newton, the owner of Twelve Mile Limit in New Orleans, tells me paying via tap on my phone or card is generally no big deal.

"It's disruptive to the extent that it is still relatively uncommon and requires a little adjusting to," he adds. "But the total amount of time that the transaction takes is not that different."

Jeffrey Morgenthaler, bartender and co-owner of Pacific Standard in Portland, Oregon, points out that contactless payments have exploded in popularity since the pandemic, which put a new focus on just how much touching is involved in swiping one's card or handing over cash at the register.

"The world has changed, and this is just the way things are now," he says. It's natural for customers to expect a bar to accept tap to pay: "Why would my paying behavior need to change depending on where I was?" Morgenthaler asks.

Among customers, it's clearly catching on.

Payments from digital wallets like Google Pay or Apple Pay are on track to make up nearly 30% of point-of-sale (POS) transaction value in North America by 2030, according to one report; 79% of consumers say they prefer to use contactless or mobile payments at restaurants in particular, according to another. Customers say these payment methods are safer, faster and more convenient than other options.

"I kind of like it," says Joey Fredrickson, board director and treasurer of the U.S. Bartenders' Guild. "My wallet is three cards on the back of my phone, [so] I'm in that pool, myself, of people who would be tapping."

Still, he adds, it all depends on the bar's POS setup.

At one of the bars Fredrickson worked at recently, the staff walked around with handheld devices that they could use to record orders and have people pay tableside. This cut down majorly on the paperwork — having bills handled virtually meant he didn't have to manually enter tips from a huge stack of receipts every night.

I can't expect every dive in the country to be quite so advanced. Dr. Shocker, the co-owner of Pele Utu, a tiki bar in Reno, Nevada, tells me it's more complicated when older systems force bartenders to use a stationary register behind the bar.

"If somebody wants to use their phone, they've got to enable their phone ... [we] run over to the system and try to tap it in time," he says. "When it works, it's fantastic. When it works."

The biggest issue comes with starting tabs.

When a person opens a tab with a physical card, Newton says he can swipe and hand it right back, knowing the system has captured their data. But some systems don't support preauthorization with digital wallets.

"In the perfect world, our computer systems and our phones and payment processing would have the ability to run a tab with a tap," says Morgenthaler, who is also the author of The Bar Book. "We're not there yet."

Tabs are ideal for bar staff because they make transactions faster. When I close out after every drink (and stay for multiple rounds), it takes time to close my bill out over and over, which means the bartender ends up wasting time rather than charging me once.

While bartenders may be agnostic about tap to pay, the mechanics of not opening a tab definitely irritate them.

"When we're behind the bar, every second counts," Morgenthaler adds. "If we can save three seconds here and five seconds there, we can serve more guests. We ourselves can make more money."

If I'm determined to use my phone or smart watch to pay and I intend to stay for several rounds, I might ask the bartender if I can start a tab using my last name. Fredrickson says this is relatively common and totally acceptable (at places he has worked, at least).

"For the most part, tap to pay isn't a big deal as much as closing the tab after every single drink," says Dr. Shocker.

The bottom line

Bartenders are still adjusting to contactless payments. Some think tap to pay is easier; others are dealing with outdated systems that make it a bit more complicated.

"The big thing for me is that, as a business owner, I want there to be as many different ways for people to give me money as possible," Newton says. "Whatever's convenient."

As long as I'm not a jerk, the bartender probably won't mind how I pay. It's my interactions (and my tip) that matter, not how the actual exchange of currency plays out.