Why tabs get their own lesson
A tab is an unsecured loan you are personally responsible for, issued to a stranger, in a room where people leave without warning. In many houses a walked tab comes out of the bartender's night in one way or another, and even where it doesn't, it is the thing you will be asked about.
Most tab losses are not theft. They are a card in an apron, a name nobody wrote down, and a guest who genuinely forgot.
Opening a tab
- Take the card. Not a promise, not a phone showing a card, not "I'll settle at the end." If your house allows tabs without a card, that is their risk decision, not yours to extend further.
- Ring the first drink onto the tab immediately. An open tab with nothing on it is how tabs get orphaned.
- Name it something you will recognise — house convention usually applies. Last name off the card is standard. "Blue shirt" works until three people are wearing blue.
- Put the card where cards live. A tab holder, a numbered slot, a designated drawer. Never your apron, never the register lip, never under the mat.
- Say the terms out loud. "I'll hold onto this and close you out whenever — just come find me before you head off." That sentence prevents a large share of walked tabs on its own.