Years ago, when I first started going to bars in college, I recall some didn’t have a cover charge but had a two-drink minimum. Though I certainly went out a lot in the years after that (early to mid 1980s) I don’t remember being told about a drink minimum any place I went. There could possibly have been such a rule, but I’m sure I ordered a couple drinks and no one was forced to tell me.
Now I haven’t been out drinking in a number of years — probably 15 to 20 — so if such a thing were still in existence, I’d have no idea about it. The rare time I’m in a bar now it’s attached to a restaurant, so it’s not the same thing at all.
Talking about it with my husband was no help; he remembers drink minimums but hasn’t been out in the last few years either. Thinking about it now, it seems old-fashioned … but as I say, my bar-hopping days are long behind me.
My question — do any places have drink minimums any more? If not, when did they end? When an era of more enlightened alcohol consumption (designated drivers, MADD, etc.) came in?
The only place I remember ‘two drink minimums’ were at strip clubs. I remember a dumpy one in Vegas I went to back in the 80s where they didn’t serve alcohol. Their two drink minimums were a couple cans of coke at $10/each.
Yeah, comedy clubs and strip clubs seem to be the ones that still have it. Recently I read a thread on another forum where people talked about their jobs, and one guy worked in a comedy club. He said they operated like a movie theater, almost no money is made off of the ticket to get in, so they make you buy drinks so they can make a profit.
Question: how exactly (and strictly) is (or was) the minimum enforced? Do they just immediately make you order 2 drinks? What happens if you only get one? Or do they just present everyone with a check for at least 2 drinks when they cash out?
At Night Shift, a strip club in Baltimore, it’s a cover charge plus a 1 drink minimum that they enforce by having a bar right inside the entrance----so you have to buy a drink just to get into the club. Smart thinking.
At most of the strip clubs on Baltimore’s infamous Block, you have to keep drinking in order to stay in the club. A good rule of thumb is one drink every 45 minutes: just enough to keep them from hassling you, but not so much as to get prematurely shitfaced.
I seem to recall going to a strip club in Indiana once that had a rule like that - you had to order one or two drinks an hour (don’t remember exactly how many). The trick to not getting shitfaced is occasionally ordering a Coke or a club soda.
In some places it’s a number amount. Like ten dollars worth of food/drink, so technically you don’t even have to be drinking. Though I guess it helps if it’s a really bad comedian.
Comedy clubs where I’ve experienced this usually charge you for two drinks up front and issue you two tickets to be used in exchange for the drinks as they’re served.