The Completely Wrong Question Bartenders Keep Asking About Community.
Forming connection and authentic relationship in an industry suffering from transactionalism.
“What’s wrong with the NZ hospitality community?”
I’ve heard that single question three times in the last two weeks. And dozens of times in the last five years. I’ve even asked it myself but now I know, without a shadow of a doubt.
The only thing wrong is the question. Inevitably when you scratch beneath the surface, what most people are searching for is connection, a friend and a sense of belonging. Especially in the hospitality industry, where authentic welcoming spaces are our bread and butter.
Storytime: If you want to understand who your true friends are - get yourself in a position to need them for moral support, encouragement, to help you move house and celebrate, to move house and grieve.
Trust me, I know. I just moved house twice in 11 months, upended three businesses to take a job working in-house for a distillery and was made redundant before the year was up. Ya girl has been through it, mostly with a smile on my face. While that’s a story for another day, I am absolutely grateful for the ones who have shown up for me in the last three months. I know exactly who they are - bartenders, bar owners, brand reps, distillers and business owners - checking in, staying in touch and helping where they can.
Because those people turning up for me haven’t been the people I only see in my social media feed or the networking groups - it’s been the ones I know at the end of the phone. Brand owners, marketers yes - but friends first and foremost. And that’s the common theme of what makes a great community: it ripples out from people who are genuine friends.
While Instagram followers and networking groups are there for the likes, shares, the brand footprint and the party, that’s not the essential glue of true community. A genuine, lasting community is not built on a simple exchange of goods or favors, but on the principles of genuine friendship, mutual respect, and shared vulnerability.
And that’s my answer to the somewhat redundant question - there’s nothing wrong, we just need to remember what good friendship looks like in a world that confuses liking something on Insta for genuine connection.
When I turn up in friendship with you - at first all I have to give you is my curiosity and attention. But that’s everything that matters most.
But you didn’t turn up to my event and other sordid stories of transactionalism
Genuine friendship is the only antidote to transactionalism in an industry that has come to rely on networking and fawning to ego for brand building and equity. Not by choice, but because that’s become the lowest common denominator.
The philosopher Aristotle explained it best (you know him from Taylor Swift references): friendships are based on utility, pleasure or character. The guy understood what makes us tick. The TLDR: character trumps everything else, always.
Utility-based relationship looks like ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’. Think all the worst case scenarios of poor brand engagement and thankfully something we don’t see a lot of in the industry. But it does exist in the way we interact with each other.
And pleasure-based relationships are often based in the moment: ‘We share in pleasure but when the pleasure is done, there is nothing left.’ Essentially, if your experience of the bartending community in NZ is mostly transactional or only ever being there for the free drinks at a brand event, there’s work to do.
The trouble with these transactional relationships of utility or pleasure is how quickly it creates a culture of see-sawing imbalance and unfairness. If one person benefits more than the other, the relationship sours and most frequently it looks like blame. They can lack emotional investment, leading to a feeling of superficiality and emptiness when you pour your heart and soul into an event and the numbers aren’t there or the opposite– they set the stage for inherently short-term relationships. Once the desired benefit is achieved, the connection can dissolve, leaving a vacuum of support and integrity.
Here’s what it means to show up in community with a character-led lens on relationship:
Shared Values & Mutual Respect: Community members respect each other's inherent worth, not just what they can provide for your betterment. This respect fosters a safe environment for open communication and disagreement without fear of being diminished or exiled.
Reciprocity and Support: This is not a "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" dynamic. Instead, it's a spontaneous willingness to offer support without expecting an immediate return. It's about being present for each other in good times and bad and showing up for what you can with what you can.
Shared Emotional Connection: Community members feel they belong and matter to one another. This is built through shared experiences, traditions, and a collective history, whether long or short. It’s only built through consistency over time and genuine expression.
Collective Ownership: Community isn't a passive audience; it's an active body of ongoing mutual input and influence. Members feel they can influence the group and that their participation is valued.
Character-based relationships are based on your character, not anyone else’s.
“You know, not everyone in this town likes each other personally. But we respect the hell out of each other and when time comes to rep each other, we f***ing do.”
“Of course I’ll order a drink from you. And give you feedback. And if I don’t like it, I’ll tell you why. But you don’t have to listen to me. My bar does better when your bar does well. You do good Martinis and I do a good .. well, everything else.”
“We didn’t all like XXXXX but we liked the bar. And that’s about showing respect. And we didn’t all like XXXX but his bar was the only one open at that time of the morning, so it’s where we all went, regardless of where we were working.”
But I said what I said because I wanted us to be better!
I could tell you the number of people who have had plenty to say to me about what they think NZ bartenders should be doing differently and why. But that would only showcase how many people simultaneously care but are yet to figure out how to become a person of genuine influence and where to start.
For starters, if everyone did everything the way someone else thinks is right, it would be a bloody boring homogenous beige drinks industry. Make your drinks how you want, just make them taste good and that doesn’t have to mean clarified, boozy, fermented or whatever other style matters most to you.
The only thing we should all be doing the same is the outcome: the actual art of hospitality, creating welcome, warmth and making space for people to experience something beautiful. Do it with trombones and tambourines, do it with mood lighting and velvet, do it however you like–but don’t be mad if not everyone does it the same or understands why. Your job is expression, not to demand people like it. Your right is to expect respect and curiosity from your industry colleagues. Not getting it the first time is not your excuse to give up.
Your character becomes the platform by which you influence and also the invitation to others. Because influence alone is pointless, without others alongside you. If you want influence or have influence, what else could you possibly have to say other than what is good, commendable, useful for teaching and rooted in authentic and genuine connection and care for those to whom you speak?
You Can’t Clone Community But It Can Adopt and Expand
The thing about the community that ripples from genuine friendships and connection, is that it can’t be imported, copied or cloned. It’s genuine which makes it utterly unique. All you can do is be inspired by what you see and experience in other parts of the world. But when you’ve been in those other spaces, you may have experienced what community does naturally: Adoption and Expansion. You’ve been invited to the party, slowly the bartenders at your local learn your name. Then you invite someone else and surely enough, you’ve been adopted and the community has expanded. You have brought your own uniqueness to the mix.
Similarly, you can’t demand community from people you can only ever invite people to it. But what does that look like?
Curiosity, attention and intention.
Be a Better Friend.
Lead with your character as you build your relationships in this industry and you’ll have the most satisfying collegial relationships of your life.
Stay curious about what people are working on and get out in your city and neighbourhood seeking to understand your colleagues and neighbours, not judge them. Make a point of drinking and visiting the places your friends don’t work. Make new friends. Don’t expect a freebie - show respect by avoiding the transactional nature of hospo rounds.
Be approachable when someone from the industry enters your workplace and bold enough to ask their name if you don’t know it. Ask questions, listen as attentively as you do to a regular. Worry less about whether they order the right kind of drink and more about whether it made them smile.
If you’re the kind of bartender who looks down on the drink a guest orders, you’re not the kind of bartender or hospo personality who is ready to make friends in this business - but at the end of every brand activation, partybag event and rockstar shift, friendship will be the only thing left and the only thing that will get you through. Make friends, thrive.
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This post is completely non-transactional. But I hope to see you at a bar for a drink soon.