Things Bars & Restaurants Need To Know About Happy Hours
The Happy Hour, so named because it’s supposed to make you happy.
You go to a bar or restaurant and get deep discounts on food and drinks, a feature even offered at premium restaurants where you can get high-quality food and speciality drinks for sometimes half the price.
Yet there’s more to a Happy Hour than just eating and drinking.
There’s atmosphere. There’s whether or not the place draws in a crowd. And many other factors that make a place a good Happy Hour. In PubClub.com’s world – and this should apply everywhere, in fact – there are three main criteria than make up a “destination” Happy Hour:
HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA #1: ARE THERE GOOD FOOD & DRINK SPECIALS?
Some places knock a buck off the price of a drink or some appetizers and call it a Happy Hour. That’s not good enough to be a good Happy Hour. To have a good Happy Hour, a place needs to have deeply discounted specials You’re not necessarily looking for screaming deals, but something to bring you in on a regular basis.
HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA #2: IS THE STAFF ATTENTIVE?
A place can have the best food and drinks at incredible prices but if you can’t get any of either because the staff is inattentive it does you no good. If you’re only able to get, say, one drink or are not able to order any food, then it’s not a good Happy Hour place. On the other hand, if you’re able to fulfill your greatest Happy Hour consumption fantasies, then you’ve got a winner.
HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA #3: IS THERE A CROWD AND IF SO, A GOOD & LIVELY CROWD?
To be really happy during Happy Hour, a place has to have a good and lively crowd. A happy crowd! A mingling, networking and parting crowd who at least mentally speaking, kicks off the shoes in favor of sandals. The best Happy Hours are the ones that are full of fun people who are out to have fun and meet other fun people.
HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA #4: GOOD HAPPY HOUR HORUS
Good Happy Hours should last until at least 6:30 and ideally until 7. Running it from 3-5 p.m., as some places do, it pretty much useless to customers.
Weekend Happy Hours are even better!
HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA #5: SIGNATURE HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS
There’s a place in PubClub.com’s hometown, Hermosa Beach in California, that has a “Drink of the Week” for Happy Hour. It’s a speciality cocktail, mixed and made by perfection by fun and friendly bartenders. Its’ 5 bucks. This is it’s signature Happy Hour item, the thing people go in there for and the item that’s made the place popular for locals. The spot is, in case you are wondering, the Mermaid.
BONUS HAPPY HOUR CRITERIA: CONSISTENCY
And finally, a place needs to have consistency. That’s consistency in what it offers and its hours. If the menu and the hours are constantly changing it’s hard if not impossible for customers to keep up with it and eventually those customers will disappear.
Leave a Reply