I look romantically at my time as a doorman for a dive bar, especially now as a software developer, haha.

Seriously, I do pride myself in the fact I went to school full time while working at the bar as often as any other employee - 5 nights a week, for over a year.

Pair this with the fact we threw many dozens of people out on my watch without any serious interpersonal altercations. Yes people broke stuff, etc.

But mostly it was about communicating an out.

They were told to leave, first off, and that was in all senses, nonnegotiable.

But, 19 out of 20 times, they were just too drunk to be there. So I always let them know it was no big deal, come back tomorrow night or whatever. Just not now. Downplay it.

If it seemed they didn't want the fun to end, I would slyly make the suggestion to try other places, or to go eat.

I would work with their friends also if possible. Friends sometimes do the physical stuff for you if needed.

Kicking out whole groups is easy usually, as you can sort of stoke the group dynamic to dislike the bar for the perceived injustice. The ones who actually like the bar come back and apologize later in time.

Drunks will bait you, etc. which should be treated as comedy. There is really never a reason to initiate physicality. Certainly not without help either.

One guy, who very drunkenly threw a punch at a friend (and missed) for unknowingly taking his chair even told us that his mother had just died and he only went out to the bar to punch somebody.

But, yes, bar fights still happen regularly.

That said, my experience is:

  1. They are somewhat cultural.  More common in some regions/bars/demographics

  2. They happen more frequently as the night/drinking deepens

Where are you going to find regular bar fights? Is it more a US thing, a rural thing, a college town thing? Because despite having spent way too much time in bars in various parts of Europe, I've basically never seen anything escalate beyond shoving and shouting.

I last saw a bar fight on the north shore of Kauai. I love Kauai, but locals have told me, "there's not much else to do at night other than drink and fight."

In some places, drinking is just something that do you do when you go out, in others, it seems like drinking is the goal of going out and they try to get drunk the faster the better.

#4 is great, your ability to run a 400 meters in 70 s is awesome too.

Do not get into fights if there is any way to avoid them (including begging).

I you have to fight to full throttle and be the one to hit first.