Gen Z infuriates bartenders with this bizarre behavior: ‘Someone has to bully these people'

New York Post

10-06-2025

If you're ever at a bar wondering if someone is Gen Z or a millennial, just keep tabs on how they pay for their drinks.
Zoomers are purportedly averse to opening up bar tabs, preferring to close out and swipe their cards after every drink — no matter how many they end up having.
According to The New York Times, there are a few reasons why this could be the case.
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For starters, Gen Z is drinking alcohol far less than previous generations, so opening a tab at the bar may seem unnecessary.
'Closing on the tab does a lot mentally to stop you from indulging, because you don't have easy access to it,' Jewel Chavez, 23, told the Times.
Gen Z's have also become used to one-and-done transactions, mainly using Apple Pay and simply tapping their phones for a purchase rather than using a physical card.
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Therefore, they feel as though buying a drink at the bar is similar to buying a coffee at a café.
And with growing fears of economic uncertainty, Zoomers appear to worry that they'll lose track of their spending if they leave their card with a bartender.
3 Gen Z appears to have an aversion to opening up bar tabs, preferring to close out and swipe their cards after every drink.
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Dr. Michael McMillan, a former portfolio manager and securities analyst who currently teaches personal finance at the University of Maryland, told the Times that his undergraduate students will decide not to keep a tab open in an attempt to be hyper-vigilant about their money.
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'By opening up a tab and saying, 'Yep, I'm buying a round of drinks and closing it after that,' you know how much you're spending,' McMillan said. 'It's not going to be some great surprise at the end of the evening.'
'It doesn't save me anything if I keep a tab open,' Nareg Haladjian, 27, who lives in California's San Fernando Valley, added. 'I'll swipe my card again. It's an extra 10 seconds.'
3 The constant opening and closing of a tab can slow down the process and the service for everyone in the bar.
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Meanwhile, millennials are taken aback by this action — with one person having called it 'psycho behavior.'
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'At the bar last night, the Zoomers were all paying with credit cards and closing out on every round… Someone needs to teach these children how to go to the bar,' they noticed.
Bartenders aren't thrilled with these antics from Gen Z, either.
'These kids never learned the proper way to be a barfly,' Al Barber, who manages the bar at the Prince in Los Angeles's Koreatown, said, adding that it often comes down to proper bar etiquette.
Tiarra Horn, who works at Seattle's Central Saloon, told the Times that she'll call out groups of friends from behind the bar when they all close out separate tabs multiple times.
3 The zoomer generation has also become used to one-and-done transactions.
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'They haven't even thought about it,' Horn said. 'Someone has to bully these people. Respectfully.'
'For each moment that one of my guys is standing there fumbling with your cellphone trying to unlock the code, that's time that is missed out on serving the next person when you're three deep on a Friday night,' Barber explained. 'So there's an opportunity cost.'
When bars are slammed with people and bartenders are working hard to take everyone's orders and efficiently make drinks that require multiple steps, the constant opening and closing of a tab can slow down the process and the service for everyone in the establishment, according to bartenders.
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Plus, every time a customer's credit card is swiped at a bar, the bar has to pay a fixed fee plus a percentage for the transaction, economically hindering the bar's bottom line. Repeated single transactions can end up costing the bar more than a total bill that's paid all at once.