Going to the bar is meant to be relaxing, but when creeps abound a drink to let off steam can quickly turn into an escape room situation. Most people who've worked the bar circuit have spotted their fair share of creepy dudes who ignore a woman's body language and harass her until happy hour is trauma hour.
Luckily, some bars have adopted the "safe word drink" policy, where patrons can order something from the bar that acts as a code word. For many bars, the safe word drink is an "angel shot" which lets a bartender know the customer needs intervention, a ride home, or feels unsafe near whoever is haranguing them. Other bars have their own safe word drinks, one bar in London came up with its own code word which was to "ask for Angela."
In most cases, a bar's safe word drink is posted in the women's bathroom, with "angel shot" being the most commonly known by bartenders across the board. In a perfect world, we wouldn't need any of these safe words, but sadly that is not the reality so it's essential that more bars take these precautions. While a majority of creepy bar run-ins happen to women, there are also times when men are in harm's way and need an escape route, as evidenced by this post.
In a recent Reddit thread, bar staff shared the times they've witnessed a customer order a safeword drink to deescalate a creepy situation and it's yet another reason to tip big.
1. Jeff-Van-Gundy helped a man smoothly get away.
"I used to bartend and do front desk at a hotel. One of my regulars was in for the week, real nice guy, very friendly and happily married. We also had a cuckoo bird lady staying with us that week. She was decent looking but def had crazy eyes. They were both at the bar and they were talking for a while. Him being a nice guy, he didn’t want to outright blow her off I guess. He stops at the front desk to say what’s up and we talk for a bit while the girl is just standing behind him."
"He shoots me a look that says get me out of this situation as he starts walking towards the elevator. Once she gets in the elevator I called him back to ask a question about Detroit because “I was going there next week.” He got off the elevator but so did she. Then I told the lady there was a problem with the card she had on file (there wasn’t) and he slipped away. He called me thanking me a few minutes later."
2. Gewitwel helped protect a man from getting drugged.
"Here one from Eindhoven, Netherlands: I was working for a smaller bar with a mixed crowd, for both men and women we had safedrinks (women: virgin tequila, men: virgin vodka) in total I saw these ordered 2 times."
"The one that sticks with me the most was for Christmas eve, this night we had mostly Gay guys hanging around in the bar and some students. After a while of the students (S) got a lot of attention of one of the gay guys (GG) (hand on leg, a lot of too personal questions, touching ass) and told he was straight and not interested. This got the bartender that overheard this on alert end he put a napkin on the bar near where he was sitting with a red exclamation mark, so all staff new something was up."
"S goes to toilet and GG orders a round of vodka shots, bartender didnt see S so poured the order and placed it on the bar. S comes back and GG tells him to "help him empty the glasses" S starts drinking and suddenly looks very paly and sweaty, as soon as the vodka is dome GG smiles and walks to toilet. S looks worse by the second and asks for virgin vodka, at this moment two of the bartenders get him to one of the other bars owned by my boss and call an ambulance."
"The rest of the crew created a diversion for GG as soon as he came from the toilet, telling him S left for a phone call. Ambulance noticed S seemed to be drugged, GG was drinking something else by then (watered down cocktails without him even noticing) and we alerted the police, who found 4 tubes of GHB on him. In the end GG was arrested and S rushed to hospital."
"Edit: Whoa, didnt expect this many reactions. Here some answers: -This was indeed on stratumseind, the bars in question unfortunately do not exist anymore. -We called it Virginxxx because at this time (around 2008-2010) we never expected it to be used so much, later we even changed the name every 3 months. -GHB is officially a medical aid, later rape drug which is too easy to produce at home, this makes control over it even harder and the drug only more dangerous."
3. jmh4006 knows the look.
"I used to work in a high quality seafood restaurant as a chucker. There were never any safewords but there were a lot of telling looks. People behind the bar hear a lot of your conversations, they usually know whats going on before you do. I've had to escort more people than my job required off of the premises. Look at the bar staff in the eyes and slightly shake your head and we know."
4. Nitrosol has the "ask for angela" campaign at their bar, but believes it needs better training.
"I work in small cocktail bars in Sydney, Australia, prime date night joints. We have something called 'ask for angela', where the idea is you just ask the bar staff if Angela is working tonight and that'll be the hint to keep an eye on things or even call a cab. I've only had one customer, man or woman, ever use it, a nice younger guy on a date with an older gentleman. The issue was threefold."
"A venue at the time had quite a few backpackers on working holidays that were completely unaware of this protocol, we had a lovely Chinese girl who went by Angela working that night, and that the date was going poorly in such a fashion that to the untrained eye, it looked like two work acquaintances having a drink. There was that little chemistry between them."
"Apparently the order gentleman followed the younger in the bathroom and copped a feel, prompting the ask for angela. It was a huge runaround to be honest. It took quite a while for a native English speaker to tune into the argument behind the bar where Angela was explaining that she had no idea who this guy was. So eventually he got some help."
"He ordered two cocktails at the bar, as de if Angela was working tonight, saying she made them the best. We ended up ordering an uber for him while he feigned an emergency, and brought their drinks out in time that the older bloke sorta felt obligated to stay and finish them, just as his uber arrived."
"Unfortunately a lot of bars have joined the ask for angela campaign (it's government sponsored), posted the signs in their ladies rooms, and called it a day. No staff training. This is because it puts you on a government list of 'safe bars' and, well, nobody can give up free publicity. Very disappointing. I also believe it needs to better extend to men on poor dates as well, I rarely see the posters in men's rooms, just unisex and ladies."
"Not quite the same but I worked in a coffee shop on a busy high street this year and had a similar sort of thing happen. We noticed one customer had come in, ordered, and sat opposite the counter, which meant that he was staring at me and my other female colleagues for about 30 mins straight. We wondered if he was high as he didn't seem aware of himself, but his gaze was following me as I walked up and down the counter, which was about 8m long."
"We then closed and the customers sitting inside left, including a very nice, young couple who walked up the street away from the shop, as did the weird guy. About 10 minutes later, the couple came back to the door, which we had locked, and knocked, saying they'd left a phone behind. They came in and told us that the man had followed them for 10 minutes towards their home. So they came back to hide."
6. Gibbo151 helped get a few rapists charged.
"Worked in a pub in Ireland as a bouncer. Not a common thing here to have the 'get me outta here' shot. So no signs or that but there was some Facebook post calling them angel shots that did its rounds. Girls would say they've to go to us and we'd know. No code words or shit."
"Anyway one night I'm doing my thing in this nice bar, and a guy approaches me in front of a group of friend being a bit boisterous from a fancy restaurant across the road and he says he needs an angel shot. So we let them in but I hold him there 'questioning his ID' as his friend make fun of me and him as I'm 22, this guy was maybe 35ish and I was a "kid telling a man no". So they hang about for him (so I can't ask him what's up) I tell him no he's had too much tonight, I hail a taxi down and he pretends to resist getting in so I basically pick him up and carry him into the taxi. He throws me €50 into my jacket pocket discreetly and the taxi goes off then. Nothing big."
"2 days later I'm working again same bunch of guys from the restaurant come over. The angel shot guy isn't there."
"3 days later angel shot guy comes but very early and explains it all to me. Turns out his friends where doing coke (all professional people) and a girl was raped in the bathroom. He said at first she wanted to have sex with one of them but then two guys came in, then she wanted out and couldn't, this guy tried to interject but couldn't and then felt uncomfortable and didn't want a part of this so wanted to leave but was told if he did they'd hurt him and the reason they all returned 2 days later was his going away drinks that he didn't attend (obviously). The guys where then charged like a month later? Can't find public info on it anymore."
Only time I ever had to use the 'get me outta here' shot."
7. cspence14 had to separate a flirting session gone south.
"I worked in a nightclub that was popular with the gay community for a couple of years, we didn't have a safe word but one night there were two guys clearly hitting it off they were flirting and having a great time. After a couple of drinks one of the guys was clearly being very forward and touchy, the other was not enjoying this and had withdrawn. He attempted to walk back to his friends but the first guy wasn't having this and pulled him back. In an attempt to get out the guy started vigorously shaking his head anytime one of the bar staff walked by."
"After this happened a few times we realized something needed to be done and spoke to the guy that was being all forward and explained that we didn't think the other guy wanted to stay at the bar with him. He got aggressive then and started screaming at us because how the fuck would we know what the guy wanted; although it was blatantly obvious. Eventually we got security down to escort the guy out of the place so that the guy who had been trying to get away could go back to his friends, have a good night and not have to leave"
8. little_bookwolf96 smuggled a 19-year-old to safety.
"Only had one incident of a man using Ask For Angela (UK safeword scheme). Gay kid on a bad date. His date had been extremely overbearing and even having to witness it from the bar was extremely uncomfortable. We smuggled him into the kitchen and out the side door while his date went to the bathroom and called him a taxi. Date came back from the bathroom, asked where the kid was, I just went "dunno". Date started getting aggro with me, so supervisor ended up throwing this guy out by the collar."
"It honestly doesn't get used enough, by either men or women, especially here in the UK. It absolutely sucks, especially when you as a bartender can't really legally do much or you risk not only your job, but the bar's reputation."
"Edit: Just for clarification, the victim was 19. Legal age of drinking alcohol in UK is 18. So yes, he is still technically a kid."
9. Wrest216 found out the true colors of one of the regulars.
"So I'm a line cook, not bar staff, but at my last job, we had cameras in the bar area (cash register) and i was talking to our night bar gal. She said a guy had asked for a taxi because he felt dizzy and disoriented, and didn't feel safe, his GF was chiding him , BUT it turns out it wasn't HER that spiked the drink! The cameras caught the guy NEXT to this couple, putting something in his drink, for HIS GF, and he screwed up which one, because they both had the same drink!"
"So, two couples, one guy accidentally doses a guys drink by mistake!!. The girl for the dosing guy left without him (apparently he was impatient when it wasnt working). THE WORST PART? We thought he a was cool guy, he was a regular. They caught him next time and called the cops and showed the tapes and last i heard he was being charged with attempted sexual assault....
Edited for a bit more clarity"
10. MrOddbodd had to throw out a group of women.
"Yep, I work in a nightclub in a small city in England in Lincolnshire and I once had a guy who seemed to only recently turn 18 ask if Angela was working (Ask for Angela is a UK scheme that helps prevent violence, sexual assaults and date rape). I knew about the Ask for Angela scheme and immediately I brought him into the glass wash room. Turns out there were a bunch of lasses encouraging this one lass into seducing him, grinding up on him, trying to kiss him and groping him. This apparently continued even after the man had walked away into other parts of the nightclub after showing and saying he wasn't interested."
"I had reported this to my supervisor who was a little hesitant at first but eventually called the bouncers into the back room too. We explained the situation to them. Now these guys are basically 200-300 pound tanks who you would expect to joke about this and tell this guy to man up and enjoy it but to my surprise, they took it seriously as well."
"They managed to track down this group (5 women including the one who was doing the grinding) and they escorted all of them out of the building. Meanwhile, a taxi had already been prepared by my supervisor and the taxi firm was literally down the road, so it didn't take long for it to arrive. I escorted the man through the back stairs that continues down to the stock cellar but leads off to the side exit of the building near the bins. A taxi was parked just outside."
"It would be a rare occasion when someone uses "AskAngela" where I work, let alone a man so I'm really glad that all of the staff took it seriously and helped as much as they could."
11. Defoler's neighborhood bar serves the "Neph."
"My old regular bar had a drink called "Neph" (Need escape please help, not really the name as it is another language, but that is the idea) which was not on the menu.
If you order it, they call you a cab, and one of the waiters will wait next to the toilet, allowing you to pay your half there and let you in to the back so you can leave unnoticed.
It was available for men and women alike to get out of bad dates (though they will not really let you use it to skip on your date)."
"They didn't advertise it really, but regulars knew it existed.
They would also actively offer someone that drink if they feel their date is going to the wrong place."
"I saw a man being offered it once when his date was verbally abusive to him.
And a woman whose date was so arrogant and creepy and talked down on her.
Never actually use it myself. I actually thought it was relatively common in most neighbourhood bars to have this type of "drink"."
12. ForlornKaiser's friend helped a man escape an awful drunk.
"I haven't done it personally, but a friend had it happen to him who is a bartender. He was finishing up his shift when a man walks up to him, asking for a safeword drink (I forget what he said it was called, might have been the Angela drink?) and said he wanted it on the rocks."
"Friend just said "Yeah, sure," and helped him to the taxi. Just as the man got in the taxi, the woman he had been there with came running out towards the taxi and yelled profanities, calling the man she had been with "fucking white trash" and "he'll never amount to anything" and some shit like that."
"Last I heard, she was banned from that bar (and several others) while the man who got help became a bit of a regular."
13. warehouseclosing has listened to a lot of stories.
"I have been manager of a night club in Holland for 1.5 years. We got good night out trainings. This is a training that helps you recognize when someone is getting sexual harassment and/or assaulted and how to react to the situation. We would put up the good night out posters all over the venue. So if we miss it, people know they can trust the staff and tell us."
"Because it is hard to really recognize this in a night club we had more people that would go to the bar and ask for help. They would just tell us, we had no safeword. If this happened I was called and I stopped with everything I did and started helping this person."
A LOT can feel as harassment. So we would always take it seriously. First I would try to take them off the dance floor and backstage so I could sit down and hear their story. After that I would always ask them if they want to press charges. If not they could point the person that was harassing them to me and I would kick them out. If they want to press charges I had to call the police and also try to find the harasser and hold them until the cops arrived.
"This would not happen a lot, maybe once every 1/2 months. Still to much but for a night club it could be a lot worse. If someone tells you they are getting harassed always take it serious. He/she already feels ashamed and had the balls to tell you about it."
14. I_CAPE_RUNTS was helped by a Chilis employee.
"Not an angel shot...but last week I had to meet my abusive ex wife to talk about some things regarding our kids(I’m a male). I insisted that we needed to meet in public so she begrudgingly agreed to meet at Chili's. Throughout the entire meal, she was being mean and hateful and cruel to me...but she was also quiet about it. I wasn't crying or anything(on the outside anyway). She was just being overly threatening and quiet to me. At a point during the lunch, our waiter thankfully positioned himself behind her and mouthed the following words to me: "Are you okay?" I kind of shook my head no because I was afraid of leaving when the time came."
"We paid the check and were about to leave when the manager appeared with the waiter. The manager stood between my ex and myself and told her, politely, that she needed to leave on her own. Before she could become belligerent, the manager explained to her that he had called the police and that she needed to leave immediately. He then asked me, quietly, to have a seat and wait. They brought me another drink. The cops showed up quickly and made sure my ex had left. They walked me to my car and then followed me home to make sure I was okay. Not an angel shot, but these workers were angels to me. They paid attention to a terrifying situation and helped me more than they will ever know."
15. normanbeets had to calm down a regular with an inappropriate crush.
"I'm a lady bartender in the first decade of my career. I've yet to see this happen with a guest; we did have to ban a single mom who was obsessive about one of our male staff."
"She would come in and try to cute her way into getting his schedule/phone number/car description from other staff. She'd wander around the building looking for him, meanwhile her young sons run around the restaurant going fucking nuts. If she found him, she would stand there until he agreed to go out with her again. She's verbally abused some of our youngest staff and routinely stiffed on her tabs."
"Becky, stop drinking and driving with your kids in the car, you fucking loon."