How do I keep a tab straight when the same customer orders all night?

A bar tab is not one order. It’s a running total across a night — a round now, another an hour later, closed out only when the customer finally leaves. So it stays open under a name and keeps adding to itself until it’s settled, and nobody opens and closes a fresh bill every time the same group comes back to the bar.

A bartender pours and takes payment in the same motion, which is why the discount is bounded and not merely trusted: staff can knock a price down on the spot, but only as far as a ceiling a manager has already set. A suggested tip can sit on the bill itself, which counts for more here than at a table — a card payment at a crowded counter happens fast, with none of the leisurely settling up at the end of a meal. Pricing that moves with the clock is handled by the clock: happy-hour rates switch back to normal automatically when the window closes, with nobody having to catch the time and reprice the menu mid-shift. And a round split three ways at last orders follows the same splitting the rest of the system does — by percentage, by amount, or by what each person actually drank.

Underneath the pours, a cocktail’s ingredients come off stock the way a plated dish’s do, so a bar counting spirits by the bottle isn’t inferring its pour cost from a shift total.