When is a bar not a bar?
Tweet Follow @MyAchingHeadI’ve been thinking about this for some time, especially when I am faced with 20 minute or more waits for a drink at some of our most decorated establishments. What defines a bar?
- A place to have a drink
- A place to socialise, whether that is with new friends or old
A good bar does much more than that, there’s good music and cool people. The bar staff are fun, the life of the party even, but they know your name. The drinks might be cheap, or they might be really expensive, but either way it is what you want when you are there.
But without those 2 basic tenets, is it a bar? Imagine an establishment where there were 1 person booths and drinks were served by a vending machine. Or perhaps a perfectly outfitted space complete with funky tunes and great people but you couldn’t get a beer, maybe you could buy a coffee, but not a beer. Neither of those things would be called a bar, the first (and admittedly conceited) example wouldn’t last too long and in the interim people would probably refer to it as simply “shit”. The second we would call a cafe, or if it was outdoors, a park, perhaps if there was food served it would be called a restaurant (though what is a restaurant without wine).
Which brings me to my point. It happens all too often, the place got slammed and the staff are overworked or someone called in sick and the bar is understaffed but there is a 20 minute wait around a crowded bar all of whom are trying to pay $10 for a spanish beer they’ve heard about. All of them are thirsty and sobering up.
Does a bar stop being a bar when you can’t buy a drink?
The guy who is at the bar trying to order the Cosmopolitan with an absinthe twist for his date who has to wait indefinitely for his drink doesn’t care about the excuses. He isn’t socialising. He isn’t getting closer to taking that girl home, and whats more he doesn’t even have a beer to think about it over. He’s there, waiting 3 deep at the bar thinking to himself, why aren’t I at my local where everyone knows my name? He isn’t even worried about how much money he is going to have to spend. He just wants a drink.
Where do we draw the line of superior drinks, professionally created and service. Many cocktail bars have this problem, yet there is no solution. Why can’t there be at the end of the bar a place where someone is just pouring beers, you have to talk to someone else for a mixed drink? Does that degrade what the cocktail bar tries to achieve? What are cocktail bars trying to achieve and should that goal be held above all else, even good service?
I’d love to hear your opinion.
Related Postss
No related posts.
You should follow me on Twitter.
July 21st, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Oh great post!! Good, fast service is definitly something that is high on my lists of importances!! So frustrating. Great idea about the place at the end of the bar for people wanting beer…. How’d you think that’d go down?? :)
July 28th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
This was my exact sentiment the other night while waiting 2 deep at Minq cocktail bar at the Burswood Casino in Perth. With the gentlemen in front ordering 6 different cocktails and me just wanting to Beams and Coke and a Boags, I certainly wished there was a wine/mixer/beer section in that establishment. Even with the inflated cocktail prices, if you can’t get beer/wine/mixer throughput, your bottom line is affected.
Btw, as a minor point – I think you mean ‘tenet’ and not ‘tenant’…
July 28th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
hehe… suffer the pedant. Make that ‘two Beams’