By Naren Young, Beverage Director at Sweet Liberty in Miami. Follow Naren on Instagram at @forkandshaker
The 50 Best Bars organization recently held their inaugural event in New York, celebrating the top bars in North America (which also included Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean) and it got me thinking; not about who is on the list and why but more so why bars move and up and down the list or are even shunned from the list completely. These lists, to me at least, are always full of surprises and have me sometimes scratching my head at who is or isn’t on the list.
As with any awards, the number that a bar occupies on any given list is very subjective. The fact that a bar can be considered the ‘best’ is complete nonsense to me and I’ve been very vocal about that in the past. And that comes from someone that has been in that very position before, which of course I was very happy to accept but it wasn’t and isn’t why I go about creating world class bar programs. It’s the icing on the cake, if you will. If you do great things consistently, people are going to notice eventually.
“I’m way past caring what number our bar ends up at. My role these days, and there’s a bigger lesson in this for many of you, is to first and foremost ensure that the business is in a healthy financial position and then from there we can concentrate on building the brand and its awareness both nationally and internationally. If awards come from that, and this is important to you, then great.”
The only reason that a higher position means something to me these days is for our staff that take pride in such things. Sweet Liberty in Miami, where I’m their Creative Director, came in at Number 14 last week, higher than I expected to be honest. That bar, well before I came on board, had been as high as Number 21 on the World’s 50 Best List. So, what changed? Nothing, I would argue, but such is the strange and unexplainable nature of these particular awards.
Have our service standards suddenly slipped? Do our drinks not taste as good as before? Neither. I believe our bar is in as strong as position as ever, but such is the cyclical nature of this process that things change. Bars come and go for no discernable reason. Most bars on the list, especially those that have been on there for a while, are trying to ‘stay relevant’; to continue to be and feel important amongst their industry peers where once again as Covid has lifted, competition is at an all time high. Nothing wrong with that.
I’m a big believer in this philosophy, but only from a business perspective. I’m way past caring what number our bar ends up at. My role these days, and there’s a bigger lesson in this for many of you, is to first and foremost ensure that the business is in a healthy financial position and then from there we can concentrate on building the brand and its awareness both nationally and internationally. If awards come from that, and this is important to you, then great.
Furthermore, I look at a place like the Dead Rabbit in New York, another bar that has climbed as high as one can on these awards and deservedly so. I’ve followed their progress very closely since the day they opened in 2012 and the current owner Jack McGarry is a dear friend with an incredible business acumen that I deeply respect. They were once, by Jack’s own candid admission on Instagram recently, obsessed by winning awards.
I look at a place like the Dead Rabbit in New York, another bar that has climbed as high as one can on these awards and deservedly so. I’ve followed their progress very closely since the day they opened in 2012 and the current owner Jack McGarry is a dear friend with an incredible business acumen that I deeply respect. They were once, by Jack’s own candid admission on Instagram recently, obsessed by winning awards.
He said “When I was 23 years old and won International Bartender of the Year, as soon as my feet left the podium, I knew I had been chasing a poisoned chalice, as an emptiness enveloped me due to the hollowness of being singularly focused on recognition and awards. When I started in this industry, it was my raison d’etre to become known as a globally recognized bartender. It was narcissistic and the manifestation of my self-centeredness was a totalitarian way of working. Obsession with awards, which I was certainly a proponent of, is unhealthy and detracts from the purity of our industry’s purpose, which is to create world class experiences customers and team members alike”.
As a case study, how does a bar like The Dead Rabbit, that was once the world’s best on that list, not even make the Top 100 list? I find the whole thing preposterous and frankly, I call bullshit. I don’t have a definitive answer on why that happened, and I know that Jack, at this stage of his career, probably couldn’t care less. But if anything, I would say, knowing that venue and its operations quite intimately, that they are performing at a level higher than I’ve ever seen. In fact, they’ve doubled down on their efforts, at least internally, to be better than they’ve ever been.
They have one of the most finely crafted bartender training programs I’ve ever seen anywhere on earth, their service is as knowledgeable and gracious as you’ll find, their food is dynamite, and they can boast one of the best spirit selections around. It’s a truly world class operation that for me adds up to more than the sum of its parts and this is what makes the world’s best bars. Not a plaque that you can hang on your wall for people to fawn over. Well, at least until next year’s ceremony when someone else is crowned ‘the best’.