NPP Bar Blog

Manager Communication:  Pulp Fiction was the hot ticket this morning, with most of the first round being pretty mellow, and the second round definitely picking up a bit more.  Definitely got a bit of a pop right after Pulp Fiction let out, but most of the crowd was eventually beckoned away by the warm temps and unstoppable sunshine. JH Snagged a mom trying to dump 7 minors in Scream 7 at 6:10pm, told her she had to stay, she left them there but apparently another mom came by. At the same time another 4 minors came to the theater unattended and I told them that as an R rated movie they had to have a guardian present.  I took them to lobby bar and gave them credits for their tickets, they are trying to get a mom to return for the later showing. I told them if they came back I would get them a popcorn for being great and following the rules. * They did come back just to use the bathrooms in the lobby, since they couldn't get a guardian, but they may try tomorrow. -LB I lea...

Manager Communication: Gil and I opened. Great day. -GS Customer Comments: This lady from the neighborhood who guessed I was from Wisconsin came back and was hanging at Trees. She guessed I was from Wisconsin again, but my take away was that she's coming back to hang out and that made me happy. -GS I was walkied to go to the Lobby from Dwight. Dwight, Erika, and a guest were standing there. Dwight handed me a flag from the seat in front of the guy who was standing next to me. The flag stated that this guy was being disruptive and calling things gay. I barely read to be honest. Homie said "fucking white people! I'll leave!" I said "Yeah today is not the day for the movie. You have a tab? I can close it out." He had no idea where he was sitting. Erika said "301" I opened up 301 and homie said "THATS NOT EVEN FUCKING ME! I WAS SITTING SOMEWHERE ELSE!!" After looking at where he stated he was sitting, he said that that was not him either and...

Manager Communication:  "Wuthering Heights" is slowly dropping in sales, but it looks like Scream 7 may bring in similar numbers tomorrow.  Other than that, fairly mellow evening throughout the building. JH Customer Comments:  Had a couple of lovely folks come through Trees Lounge before their screenings today, so Trees had a pretty steady pace of customers.  Just had the one disgruntled guest from the last round of Scream 7 , but FOH Blog will go into more detail. JH BAR Staff Observations:  Matthew got a little bold with suggesting cuts this evening, so I got Greg out of here about ten minutes before Trees got a decent crowd looking to order at the bar while the second round screenings in Th1+Th4 were dominating the service pass.  I took care of the guests at the bar and supported Matthew in service when I was available.  All in all, it was just a very busy ten or fifteen minutes, and then Matthew smooth solo sailing for the rest of the night. JH F...

Manager Communication:  Keep an eye out for the webstaurant delivery tomorrow with  our flanges for the bubblers.-LB I am trying to get a gasket replacement for the frozen coke machine in the lobby, as it has a hole, but it is $28 shipping. Egregious. I reached out to their customer service so hopefully I can get us a replacement ASAP without the expensive shipping. -LB Sleepy day here at the Hawk. Got all the kegs rearranged. Walk-in looks Fresh™(copyright Benavides Inc.). - IP Give the Trees Frozen Coke chamber closest to the pass a look in the morning - it was leaking towards the end of the shift. When Gab was closing I emptied it and checked the Gasket - it seemed to be secure, but rather than refilling and risking Coke leaking, I just refilled with water. If it has leaked out overnight, there is some issue I can't suss out. If it hasn't leaked - it's good to be refilled. - IP BAR Staff Observations: Matt, Gab and Jeshua rocked it out, as expected. Got Matt out of here ...

Manager Communication:  Did a bev tasting at Trees today!  Lots of fun things on the horizon. Ian's drink for the Bride is AMAZING, if we want to do one. -LB Haha, that's nice thank you! Props to Chef Jared for the call of the Corpse Reviver no. 2 as inspiration (duh lol). Tonight was smooth. Trees got nice and busy before the dinner round WH and Lydia and Patrick kicked ass. Got Lydia out of here around 9 and then Tevon around 10 - I stayed in the lobby to finish out the round before the gate came down and then it was nice and easy. - IP BAR Staff Observations:    Lydia opened Trees and Tevon held down the lobby like a pro.-LB Patrick was a one man wrecking crew tonight. Held down a busy trees lounge solo after Lydia got out of here and I was occupied in the lobby. Great job. - IP FOH Staff Observations: Erika took over the first floor EOD and handled some ordering curveballs like the total pro she is. - IP 86ed / counts on items:  We are done with Hot Bananas...

Manager Communication:   Tight team. Jess, Gil and me opened the building. Rebecca came in and helped on the floor. Some call outs, but the team pulled through today. -GS Stayed populated at trees most of the night. Perfect Blue had a good turnout despite the weather, and most sales grew to okay numbers by end of night. Aside from the one medical emergency at the end of the night (which was promptly and efficiently taken care of by Dion and myself - mostly Dion) it was a smooth evening. - IP Customer Comments:  Two people from the greater Chicagoland area in Trees today. Great to see it -GS At around 10:45 I was alerted that someone was unconscious in the Trees bathroom. When I arrived two good samaritans were with the young man who had fainted. They said he appeared to seize slightly, and EMS was called. They arrived about 15 minutes later and saw to the guest. We found his partner in the theater and brought them out to get any further info. The paramedics took the guest out ...

Manager Communication: Opening was a breeze - snow hadn't started yet, so everyone was in promptly. Jeshua is still feeling ill, and we needed to cut at least one bartender anyway, so I cut his shift, and then pushed Charlie back to 2p as the mid, Patrick to 4p as the lobby closer, and Tevon to 5:30 as Trees closer. - IP We seem to be out of batteries in the office. I borrowed some from the label maker for the candle.-LB Chill vibes all around. Got the bars settled and tried to get our team out the door by 9pm. -LB Customer Comments: BAR Staff Observations: Solid opens from Nat and Greg, as per usual. Charlie jumped right in to help with a GOAT rush and then grabbed a stock for Trees. - IP FOH Staff Observations: Kyah is consistently a standout. She and Monica are a really good team. - IP Hiring/Training: Sick Leave/ Call outs: Cut Jeshua's shift for business level and because he's still feeling unwell. - IP Special Events? The wishful wick candle is not working as I h...

Manager Communication:  Jared tried tapping the black Manhattan keg when it was empty. It ended up spraying him with Manhattan. I tried to tap it, but it was leaking gas, so I had to reaffix the gasket, but it sprayed me as it had sprayed him. I am unsure what is wrong, but I did not have time to troubleshoot the broken keg and I poured the keg into the other working keg. But we should try to figure out if something is wrong or it just needs to be tightened or cleaned.-LB Patrick reached out ahead of the snow, so let's just keep the bartenders that are on the schedule tomorrow in the loop regarding snow. -LB Customer Comments: A woman hit her head on a nail sticking out of the wall by the James Dean painting. I put masking tape on it, it should be pulled out or hammered against the wall. I bought her a drink.  She filled out an incident report that I tacked to the cork board, since I do not know what is up with the scanner.-LB BAR Staff Observations: Greg stuck around til ju...

Manager Communication:   Smooth opening. Got a ton of stuff done. -GS Gus and Jenn nailed opening - everything was super set up for the evening and likely through the weekend. Was a busy night and the team crushed from top to bottom. - IP Customer Comments:  We sure had them. -GS Yep - busy busy busy. - IP BAR Staff Observations:   Charlie and Tevon crushed. -GS Same goes for Matt and Gab. Charlie stuck around until about 9:30 and then Matt cruised to the finish line. Was an early night in the lobby and Gab held it down all night. - IP FOH Staff Observations:   Erika and Thursdae rocked it out tonight. - IP 86ed / counts on items: Apple - 39 Chains of Love - 91 Hot Bananas - 14 Prep List: An OF keg kicked tonight and the Hot Bananas is running low - otherwise you are set for Saturday Morning. - IP Ordering/Receiving/Shipping:  We might get a Manhattan order tomorrow. I'm never sure when they are going to arrive -GS Maintenance: Something must have spilled on the...

Manager Communication:  Well, Jared is like having two MODs at once. Lots of need for his help with the dudes in theater 2 that just couldn't accept their behavior got them bounced from the theater. I did not serve them at Trees.  I calmly explained that we try to protect the theater space from disturbance and provide an environment for our employees to work easily. They did not want to accept that they are not cool dudes.-LB Matthew noted that if Theater 1 and 2 have three racks of glasses ready to go, they can just bring them rather than waiting until there are 6. This facilitates glassware restocking.  I broke out our two back up cases of rocks glasses, so we should order more but I defer to Gus. -LB BAR Staff Observations: Our bar team is some of the most interesting, intellectual and compassionate humans around. Just want to point out how lucky we are to have the depth of character we do on our team.  It is a pleasure to be around them and work with them.-LB F...

Manager Communication:  Easygoing Wednesday night.  Trees had a pretty good crowd thanks to the Singani event, but the crowd was gone by the time we hit 10pm. JH BAR Staff Observations:  Great crew tonight, all rocking their brand new Singani swag.  Tevon got out of here once the Singani screening was underway, and Matthew stuck around for the last "WH" screening and to help Gabrielle with the Singani crowd that came back to Trees once the screening had finished.  Once third round kicked off, both Gabrielle and Jeshua made quick work of closing each bar. JH Special Events? The Singani events (Trees happy hour + Th3 screening) went great.  We had Gabrielle, Matthew, + Tevon upstairs for the first part, and they hit the ground running.  Then Tevon swung down to Lobby to help Jeshua with the Th3 service push, and that was it.  Lovely crowd.  Overall a very fun and positive event.  Looking forward to the ones coming up. JH    Pay O...

Manager Communication: A woman stopped by from the VFW down the block and inquired about a group discount. I gave her my email and will forward to John? I mentioned our standing discount as well.-LB Really excited about the Singani series and cocktails.-LB  Gus, Lauren and I touched base about the Singani party tomorrow night - gonna be awesome. Lauren did a good bit of batching while I got Charlie set up for Trivia. Becca was a huge help at the service pass during Trivia - and also helping to buss the floor. James was everywhere all night - felt like there was barely a walkie call he didn't respond to first. Great teamwork all around. - IP Customer Comments: Had some guests who decided to have their dinner at Trees during Trivia but were not interested in playing trivia and were a handful with Charlie. Very rude to him and making things overly complicated by starting checks at the bar without telling Charlie about them, etc. - he handled the whole situation very gracefully and t...

Manager Communication: Carly and I opened the building. Pretty uneventful Lydia misunderstood some direction and unpacked all the straws I ordered today on the shelf outside MOD. So we have straws out for a long while, sorry.-LB Customer Comments: We had a bunch of them. Podcast guys did their podcast thing BAR Staff Observations: Lydia struggled this morning. They didn't realize that while we fixed the coffee machine upstairs, that they still needed to make coffee for downstairs. I explained this to them. Additionally they didn't really set themselves up for success. I will address this in an email to the whole group. -GS Charlie crushed it today. I cut Greg (shouldn't have done that) thinking it wouldn't be busy for another 90 (it was busy probably 10 minutes after he left) and he dealt with a rush and directed me.  Tevon and Charlie knocked out some really busy rounds. The party was light work and Charlie got out of here around 10. Patrick held down a busy downstai...

Manager Communication: Very busy opening. Wyatt and I opened up with Nat and Greg. Got the big ass Baldor order socked away and re-upped the walk-in on some essentials after the openers did their stock for the morning. Sales keep growing - going to be another very busy day! - IP Ian did a mad restock of the Valentine's day massacre of stock. Thank you sir.  People be imbibing.-LB Note when bringing back the new stackable cambros to let them dry, they will get gross if they are stacked wet, obviously this level of business cannot accommodate everything. -LB Busy night, nice to be back. -LB BAR Staff Observations: Patrick and Greg handled some very busy rushes today for WH - one note for both of them is to be a little more proactive about the ancillary tasks that make resetting smoother and follow-up rushes less hectic (i.e. glassware restocking, bussing, etc.). Otherwise they kept the pace up and service was smooth. - IP Darius is killing it in the lobby holding down some intense g...

Manager Communication:  Decently busy first round, with both Corpse Bride and the Th3 "WH" selling really well.  Once we hit the second round, most theaters were pretty full, which seemed to be the trend for the rest of the day.  All of the new releases seem to be selling really well, which kept all floors bustling. JH I realize I wasn't here for the start of the day, but man- I was very impressed with everyone tonight. Just people busting to get things done. Shouts to all the PM folks who were just out here not complaining and giving the staff energy. Customer Comments: Lots of 'em tonight. They all seemed to be having a good time. BAR Staff Observations:  Greg and Natasha set both bars up for success, and sailed through service in the first round.  Matthew got in just as our first large theater "WH" was seating in Th2 and Trees had a bit of a busy pop, so got right into it and then covered Greg for a restock and a break.  Jeshua and Gabrielle got in ju...

Manager Communication: Solid open. Jared, Rebecca, me, Jenn doing the numbers. Was great Solid night with not much to report. It was busy and smooth. Wuthering Heights is doing as expected and people are loving the Chains of Love. - AB2 Customer Comments: An impromptu bday party for a 9 year old in Trees BAR Staff Observations: Tevon really killed it. Charlie did a nice open. Gabrielle was cruisin in the Lobby today. Doing everything solo and with ease. Matthew has been absolutely crushing it lately. He really stepped up and was in complete control behind the bar. He ran service well with no problem and was great in being a leader to Charlie by directing him and having hands for everything when needed. - AB2 FOH Staff Observations:  Bre was bringing down glass racks constantly and always movin'. Kat was helpful with support and being a team player on the ground floor after her theater settled. - AB2 Special Events? Kids party that moved up to Tree's was coolin'. They paid...

Manager Communication: Solid night. Some busy rushes. Rebecca & Jared kept everyone in line.  Customer Comments: We had 4 young women at Trees before the dinner round in Theater 6, whom 1 of them was unable to verify just how young she was. Matthew refused to serve her and she protested- she had a picture of an ID. Her friends got pretty mad. They immediately said they were going to just buy her drinks to Matthew. Rebecca handled  it. They weren't kind to either Matthew or Jeshua. They were line steppers, but it was ultimately harmless and we stood our ground as a team. BAR Staff Observations: Greg and Matthew were busting tonight. Really good work. FOH Staff Observations: Torrie really asks good questions Hiring/Training: Sick Leave/ Call outs: None Special Events  Ms. Malice- Around 7pm I took $100 and got change for Trees. I think we should make that routine. People always want singles for this event. Staff Meeting Agenda notes: 86ed / counts on items: Prep List:...

Manager Communication: After all that, it turns out my fitting is going to be tomorrow, so I was in a little early to get the machines cleaned in case I had to leave - which is great, because Lauren is still sick. She went to the doctor and after finishing up with the machine maintenance I got the building open with James.  Very sleepy opening round with absolute rockstars Jeshua and Matthew opening - gave me a chance to get to some batching for the weekend.  Got a bunch of liquor and kegs from Southern and Union - once I had batching stuff pretty much squared away, I reorganized Liquor Island and did some solo keg Tetris. - IP BAR Staff Observations:  Easygoing night.  Jeshua held down Lobby without issue, and Matthew stuck around for the runners club and then the post-La La Land crowd.  Last round was relatively mellow, and Gabrielle sailed through her close at Trees. JH Sick Leave/ Call outs: Lauren out sick. - IP Special Events?  Runners club came throu...

Manager Communication: Talking menu stuff, looking exciting.-LB Chill little bar meeting talking over some upcoming stuff and expectations for the team.-LB There are no charging blocks in the office that accommodate USB to C for computers, which is the type that has been assigned to me. I don't know where they all go, but not everyone has a Mac. If we can order or locate some that accommodate alt computers. Thank you so much. -LB I am not sure if there is a policy for such a situation but I wanted to highlight my grievance with it and something that we could try.  This party of 4 had two separate checks: J29 for 93.64 with zero gratuity and check J48 for 70.77 with 4.23 gratuity. I spoke with Charlie and Patrick, heard the guest is friendly and chatty always but does not tip. I went upstairs to touch their table and make sure everything was swell.  My fear here is people don't know they are doing something awful and I think we need to protect our staff from this behavior in th...

Manager Communication: I am pretty sick of sharing illnesses within the lovely NPP family. I made alcohol spray bottles for Trees and Lobby POS, I also put one in the office for computers and walkies as there are endless things that customers touch and we touch. -LB No Budge was a breeze thanks to Carly, Dion and Desmond. Service ran super smooth, and we had Olympics coverage on at Trees. When the screening let out there was a really good pop at Trees that remained until around 11:30.    As the Trees elevator is OOO, I asked all servers to bring all of their glassware from the upstairs theaters to Trees at the end of the night so tomorrow's openers wouldn't have to worry about carting a massive stack up to Trees sans elevator. - IP Customer Comments:  One of the guests here from out of town to see No Budge was quite enamored with our theater. Said he'd never seen anything like it and the way we do things is amazing. Great job, everyone! - IP BAR Staff Observations: Three-...

Manager Communication: Wyatt and I opened up. Raekwon got everything ready to go for the special events in 4/6. Jenn texted me some odds and ends notes that were very helpful to get us ready for doors. Lauren is still out sick - I will stick around for a while and make sure that the floor MOD's and bar team are set and ready to go before I leave - numbers are super chill from dinner round on, should hopefully be a breeze. - IP  We had some technical issues in Trees and in the theater for the showing of the Big Game. The projector in Trees must not be well-connected to the digital link / cable line, because whenver we play anything from the cable box on the projector, it flickers in and out and goes to a black screen periodically before it rights itself and the picture and sound come back. It began to happen every few minutes and really became frustrating. If projection or someone could check out that connection and see if they can tighten it, or make it more secure that would be aw...

Manager Communication:  Pretty bustling for the first two rounds, even with the arctic chill outside.  A fair amount of just-before-doors ticket sales for the opening round Zootopia 2 in Th2, so just something to keep an eye on.   I spoke with all bartenders today about the plan for evening service, and left them an outline of what the rest of the evening would look like.  I highlighted when to anticipate service rushes, glasswashing during flips, potentially good times for big restocks, and suggested times for cuts, routing, and last call in-theater and at Trees Lounge.  I deputized Tevon + Gabrielle to use their best discretion, with the help of management, in determining what calls to make with regards to cuts and last call. Based on the weather (and the greatly-appreciated early last round credits), it will most likely be an 11:30pm last call at Trees Lounge, unless the icy winds blow in some late night crowds. BAR Staff Observations:  Matthew not...

Manager Communication:   Smooth opening. Jared and I got things rolling - nothing to report. -GS Gus batched like a madman. The utter professionalism and hustle from the Friday Lead Team makes being able to shore up odds and ends much less of a lift, so we were able to reorganize the kegs and get the walk-in ready for the weekend. - IP Tapped our last keg of KCBC in the walk-in, just FYI. BAR Staff Observations:   Matthew and Patrick opened up. First round was chill. -GS Nat and Matt are automatic. Patrick stuck around til about 9:15 and Matt left shortly thereafter. Gab had a pretty busy night in the lobby. She is always great down there and tonight was no exception. - IP FOH Staff Observations:  Caleb is a wonderful asset to the team. - IP Sick Leave/ Call outs:  Charlie Leo - out sick. Probably out tomorrow - got coverage situated. -GS 86ed / counts on items: Apple - 65 Hot Bananas - 49   Prep List:  Batched a ton of stuff. Firewalks, OF keg, Lemona...

Manager Communication: Great night. Plenty of coverage Customer Comments: BAR Staff Observations: Whole team tonight was just crushing it. Great team work. Matthew helped me gameplan for tomorrow with the Charlie's illness, totally willing to do the long lobby shift on a Friday. FOH Staff Observations: Anthony was working really hard and not worried about his parlays tonight. Sick Leave/ Call outs: None today, but Charlie Leo is sick tomorrow. Might have COVID, not sure, but showing symptoms. Natasha is going to work for him. I marked him as sick and put her shift in the system. Very clutch. Going to take a look at the weekend and see what needs to be maneuvered. Special Events: Cinema event, Spoons Staff Meeting Agenda notes: 86ed / counts on items: Shae Prep List: Mightly long prep list 6 FWWM 6 Fro Coke 2 Holy Mountain Ice Tea To be batched Old Fashioned Mr. & Mrs. Collins Marg 6 Lemonades Over/Short on Banks: Pay Outs:  $50.00 (moderator) JH Ordering/Receiving/Shipping:...

Manager Communication:  Pretty mellow Wednesday, but Trees did get a welcome pop of business once the Q+A in Th3 finished and the majority of guests made their way upstairs.  Other than that, an easygoing evening overall. JH BAR Staff Observations:  Charlie and Matthew made light work of opening both bars, and Charlie stuck around to get Gabrielle through the second round Th1 initial service push.  Made sure to check in on Matthew and Gabrielle throughout the rest of the night, but both were pretty set and grooving.  JH Staff Meeting Agenda notes:  Based on sales, and both of our busy third round screenings finishing credits before 11:00pm, we did last call at Trees and in-theater at 11:00pm.  No guests were disrupted (all guests at Trees had closed out before 11) and each bar was closed without issue. JH Pay Outs:   $4.26 Bar grocery  Ordering/Receiving/Shipping:   Baldor brought limes. I have a small order coming Friday from Baldor and...

Manager Communication: Before trivia Trees Lounge is so busy with food. It would be really helpful if the runners could take the number when they drop food-this helps them find numbers easier.  If they can also grab empty plates to a bus tub. I was clearing Trees for the team and Elias came and dropped entrees two separate times and didn't grab any bussable plates. Empty glassware is also a huge help.  It is also helpful if they check with the bar when they have dropped a lot of food and ask if our bus tub is full. If they can bring it to DW2 and get it to the kitchen for us that frees up the bar staff to concentrate on front facing service and theater service.  It is critical in this transition of labor to consider that our team will in fact need more support from the runner team.  The same can be said for servers waiting for their own drinks at the pass, grab a bucket of ice for the bar team, run a rack of dishes.  I know we have belabored the point that the b...

Manager Communication: I added a couple magnets to DW2 station for a cue sheet to be placed. This is going to now be a location for MOD's to place cue sheets going forward. - AB2 Dion cut their finger pretty good using the peeler. They had to step off the floor and go to City MD, so I had to have more of a presence on the floor and was not able to get as much batching done. - AB2 During the intermission of the double feature the operational urinals in the Trees men's room overflowed again. Markenson and I cleaned up the water on the floor, and once the bathroom rush ended, and the urinals had a chance to catch up, there was no leakage. I think the drains to the urinals themselves might be clogged - or they are not draining fast enough to empty the bowl before overflowing when they are in constant usage. It's either too much water coming out too fast or not enough is able to go down fast enough. - IP BAR Staff Observations: Jeshua was unaware that he was scheduled to work t...

Manager Communication: Smooth Opening. Wyatt and I got things going right away. -GS Well it was full moon fever here today.  A very upset woman came to Lobby trying to find her friend's tickets to No Other Choice at 5:30, it was about 6pm. I found her ticket and located her friend. The woman began sobbing uncontrollably again on the third floor, so I got her friend outside.  Didn't want her to disturb the film or be a nonwelcome friend.  Her friend sat with her, I had to hustle back to the bar to help the rush and asked Dion to bring them passes.  The upset guest was also pretty drunk as she vomited all over the third floor bathroom. At the same time Josef was trying to find out what we were playing soon and it was not a great time.  Sundays are like Saturdays until about 8pm. -LB I think that we should have a quick meeting with the bar managers after the all-manager meeting on Wednesday. I think we can go over the system for the new cambros and the new coffee ...