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Cheap bar food was salty. Popcorn and peanuts were big, along with pickled polish sausage, beer sausage, and maybe french fries. Salty food sells beer.
My favorite tav put up sack lunches for the factory next door. For $1.50 you could get a 2" thick ham and cheese with chips, a big dill pickle and fruit. It was a great deal, even in the early '70s.
Potato skins and Foot long cold cut sandwiches sliced up. All for free. But, no sneeze guard and plenty of drunk double dippers. But dam our immune systems were strong back then.
Potato skins and Foot long cold cut sandwiches sliced up. All for free. But, no sneeze guard and plenty of drunk double dippers. But dam our immune systems were strong back then.
How exactly was the cost of this free food made up? Were the drinks more expensive there than at other bars not providing such treats?
You can still get free food in some bars now - mostly cheese and crackers or heated up frozen items such as meatballs, chicken nuggets and the like. Food to fill your belly a bit but not designed to tantalize your tongue.
How exactly was the cost of this free food made up? Were the drinks more expensive there than at other bars not providing such treats?
Drinks were also discounted during Happy Hour. The cost was to get the bar buzzing early. This was usually also a restaurant. Young people were attracted for the food and cheaper drinks. Business people were attracted to the young people. When Happy Hour ended you hoped to have a full bar paying full price. People having dinner were more apt to take the party to the bar if it seemed lively. Some Happy Hour people decide to stay for late dinner.
Only drunks walk into an empty bar and say "yeah, this is the place". LOL
How sad is it that places now pay someone like Paris Hilton to fill a bar.
Wow! You guys did well. Only thing I remember in "bars" in the 60s were Slim Jims, or those big white pickled onions, and they weren't free. But hey, that was Baltimore.
Back in my bar going days (80s), bars in Tennessee were required to have kitchens and food for sale (in order to have a liquor license). So they pretty much had a variety of food available for purchase. Most of the time I was swinging off a bar stool in a Chinese restaurant, so the "PuPu Platter" or egg rolls were my usual bar food.
How exactly was the cost of this free food made up? Were the drinks more expensive there than at other bars not providing such treats?
Not everyone thinks about that; they see Free Food or happy hour with appetizers and they rush in or they choose to drink with their friends, it is their favorite watering hole, the drinks may be watered down but no one seems to care. Like being something on sale, you lose money on an item but you bring in more traffic. I guess it takes a business head to understand the principle behind the theory
low end: pretzels, bowls of overly salted popcorn on the bar, bags of beer nuts, maybe hot dogs or pizza
medium end: steam tables of nibble foods for happy hour, eat free while buying booze: meatballs - mussels marinara, especially mussels since they are so cheap (why has no one mentioned the free mussels on this thread, lol)....pizza, egg rolls, cheese cubes, crudite
high end: large and I mean large, slab of aged cheese on a large platter on a table cloth covered table, surrounded by rows of crackers, small knives for cutting your own cheese, grapes, strawberries - very classy.
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