When I decided to find work in as a waitress, I realized I need Smart Serve certification in order to be able to serve alcohol by law. If you plan to work as a Bartender, Server, Manager, Door or Security Staff, employers will ask you for verification of your completion of a Smart Serve program.

Many of my friends studied Smart Serve online. They registered, learned from online books by themselves for a couple of days and then took the online test. However, I found out that there is more enjoyable and quicker way how to gain this certification. You can attend one evening course of Smart Serve at Toronto Institute of Bartending and complete the program in a couple of hours.

I opened the webpage of the Institute and booked into an evening class online and next week I was able to attend the course. The location appeared to be a nice downtown bar and, in fact, is an operating bar as of this past spring. When I came in, the staff gave me my workbook and sent me to the bar area. There were approximately 20 people in my age group, in their twenties, but also some older individuals. They were all waiting at the bar or sitting on the sofas and reading their new workbooks quietly.

After the TIB instructor came in the atmosphere changed. Alex was a nice guy, very friendly, helpful and outgoing.  He obviously had some acting skills and was experienced in the hospitality industry.  When I asked him about his history I found out that for 11 years he has been bartending, supervising and managing pubs, restaurants and bars throughout Canada and Scotland. He was joking all the time, telling us funny and shocking stories from his bartending career, while reading through the workbook and explaining the terminology. He says it is fun to teach students about bartending.  He says he likes it as a change from just managing and adds: “hopefully my classes will cut down on bad bartending habits.”

Training consisted of four modules where we discussed topics, such as effects of alcohol in the body, signs of intoxication, law, age identification, responsibilities and obligations, etc. We could ask the teacher anything and discuss the topics in detail. He showed us videos with different stories connected to alcohol behavior.

He spent three hours speaking and teaching, filling my head full of new information about alcohol and law. Right after this marathon, we started to write the test, but I felt very comfortable completing it because Alex had presented the information in a way that made it easy to remember what we were told. When he checked our tests, he let us know if we had been successful in getting our Smart Serve Certification.  I think everybody did it!  However, if you did not pass, there is the opportunity to re-write it.

It was such a great feeling to know that I passed the test already, although I have to wait 2-6 weeks to get my certification by e-mail. (Anyway, I am allowed to work in Ontario for 60 days while working toward getting my Smart Serve card.) I spent a nice evening there.  I met people who want to be a bartender as I do.  Plus, I enjoyed Alex´s interesting method of teaching and I learnt about drinks and rules.

One of my schoolmates, Qing 23, is a recent Economics graduate and he told me: “Working as a bartender as a second job would be perfect for me, since you are pretty much socializing with people. The most interesting part of the class was when the instructor applied his own personal experience to the materials we were learning, since it gives you an example of real life.  Overall, I definitely enjoyed this class, since it was short and everything that needed to be done was accomplished in one night.”

I totally agree with him. Instead of boring long days studying before computer screen alone at home, just go out, meet new people, enjoy a nice evening and get Smart Serve.