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Finding happiness at the bottom of a glass
By Aubrey Buckingham |
January 8, 2009, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN the whistle blows, it's time to wet the whistle and whet the appetites for what the night holds in store. Aubrey Buckingham makes the rounds and concludes that happy hour is here to stay.
As the sun goes down, and the clock inches toward the end of the day before finally the time comes to grab coats and briefcases and evacuate the office, thoughts often gravitate toward the golden age of the work day ?? it's time, lads, to drink to the happy hour.
All round the world, pubs and bars typically offer a happy hour, often coinciding with the time the whistle blows, which, despite its grammatically incorrect marketing moniker, is a period of time where discounts are offered on drinks. While this Pyrrhic value seem may be irresistible to us, what benefit do the establishments derive from this?
It is not clear how the term originated, but Wikipedia, that great bastion of Orwellian misinformation, suggests that the phrase has its roots in the Prohibition era when reprobates would gather in speakeasies for a tipple before heading to dinner, where alcohol's absence was lamented.
Presumably this sorrow led to the urge for a stiff drink, making utter mockery of the Volstead Act.
It's hard not to love a bargain. Drinking in Shanghai can be an expensive affair, and unwinding with a couple of pints at the end of a stressful day can eat a hole into even the best-tailored of trouser pockets.
These discounts thus present customers with value, and serve as a powerful marketing tool for the smorgasbord of watering holes, each looking to one-up each other. Much like the shifty bloke in a dark anorak lurking outside the primary school offering sweeties to anyone who would follow him round the corner, bars often proclaim their time of cut-price booze to lure custom to their shady smoke-filled dens of lubricious glee.
Naturally we are powerless to resist. Thoughts of the long-suffering wife and wailing kids dissipate in boozy leeriness, while any thoughts of making a head start on the road home are often overridden by the directive proclaiming "One more? Why not?"
Pubs and bars seize upon this moment to promote their brands to new customers, especially those who work in the nearby offices. "The type of clientele we attract are foreigners who go for a beer after work, and here we're close to the financial district," said Jonathan Cope, group operations director for the Big Bamboo chain of bars.
"Quite a few people work and live around here so it's a good meeting place straight after work. On a week night you can attract a crowd and get the atmosphere going a little bit earlier. When people walk past and you already have people there, when compared to empty bars that people walk past and say 'I don't want to go in there,' it helps to attract people."
Other bars, such as The Spot, target this time at regulars. "Happy hour is one way to promote a newly opened place," said Michelle Rogio, manager of The Spot on Tongren Road.
"Now new faces don't come because of the happy hour because they come late night when we have more of a club feel instead of a typical sports bar and they don't care about spending. Happy hour is more of a service."
All good things must come to an end, and the end of happy hour often sees a scrum for cheap drinks. For the Big Bamboo on Nanyang Road, where the 32-year-old Cope is predominantly based, 8pm sees an exodus of about 40 percent of clientele.
Up the road, at Malone's Tongren outlet, the end of happy hour is more of a nebulous period where it is harder to gauge if the evening is going to be good or not.
"Here we have two stages," explained Malone's Group Marketing Manager Paul Granville.
"About 30 percent leave at about 8:30pm, then you get kind of a lull until the entertainment (DJs and live acts) starts (at about 9:30pm). In Pudong (where Malone's has a branch in Thumb Plaza), they have more people for happy hour as there are more families there and we're located near a residential area."
Not every bar, however, subscribes to the happy hour philosophy. The up market Glamour Bar, on the other one hand, serves a different market segment and plumps for an approach similar to the Italian aperitivo. "We like to think that our customers come to the Glamour Bar for lots of different reasons - the creative cocktails, the ambience, the style, the people - and not primarily because they can get two drinks for the price of one," declared Michelle Garnaut, the venue's proprietor.
"But while we don't offer traditional happy hours, we try to offer value in more creative, 'Glamour Bar' style ways. One example is our 'Glamorous Tidbits,' a generous array of delicious complimentary bites."
Other places, such as the Bulldog, offer two-for-one drinks all night with drink specials during certain hours, while Bon Bon runs an open bar every night for a flat fee.
Still, with the recession about to be unleashed upon these shores, most places know competition is stiff, and loyal patronage must be rewarded to be retained.
As the sun goes down, and the clock inches toward the end of the day before finally the time comes to grab coats and briefcases and evacuate the office, thoughts often gravitate toward the golden age of the work day ?? it's time, lads, to drink to the happy hour.
All round the world, pubs and bars typically offer a happy hour, often coinciding with the time the whistle blows, which, despite its grammatically incorrect marketing moniker, is a period of time where discounts are offered on drinks. While this Pyrrhic value seem may be irresistible to us, what benefit do the establishments derive from this?
It is not clear how the term originated, but Wikipedia, that great bastion of Orwellian misinformation, suggests that the phrase has its roots in the Prohibition era when reprobates would gather in speakeasies for a tipple before heading to dinner, where alcohol's absence was lamented.
Presumably this sorrow led to the urge for a stiff drink, making utter mockery of the Volstead Act.
It's hard not to love a bargain. Drinking in Shanghai can be an expensive affair, and unwinding with a couple of pints at the end of a stressful day can eat a hole into even the best-tailored of trouser pockets.
These discounts thus present customers with value, and serve as a powerful marketing tool for the smorgasbord of watering holes, each looking to one-up each other. Much like the shifty bloke in a dark anorak lurking outside the primary school offering sweeties to anyone who would follow him round the corner, bars often proclaim their time of cut-price booze to lure custom to their shady smoke-filled dens of lubricious glee.
Naturally we are powerless to resist. Thoughts of the long-suffering wife and wailing kids dissipate in boozy leeriness, while any thoughts of making a head start on the road home are often overridden by the directive proclaiming "One more? Why not?"
Pubs and bars seize upon this moment to promote their brands to new customers, especially those who work in the nearby offices. "The type of clientele we attract are foreigners who go for a beer after work, and here we're close to the financial district," said Jonathan Cope, group operations director for the Big Bamboo chain of bars.
"Quite a few people work and live around here so it's a good meeting place straight after work. On a week night you can attract a crowd and get the atmosphere going a little bit earlier. When people walk past and you already have people there, when compared to empty bars that people walk past and say 'I don't want to go in there,' it helps to attract people."
Other bars, such as The Spot, target this time at regulars. "Happy hour is one way to promote a newly opened place," said Michelle Rogio, manager of The Spot on Tongren Road.
"Now new faces don't come because of the happy hour because they come late night when we have more of a club feel instead of a typical sports bar and they don't care about spending. Happy hour is more of a service."
All good things must come to an end, and the end of happy hour often sees a scrum for cheap drinks. For the Big Bamboo on Nanyang Road, where the 32-year-old Cope is predominantly based, 8pm sees an exodus of about 40 percent of clientele.
Up the road, at Malone's Tongren outlet, the end of happy hour is more of a nebulous period where it is harder to gauge if the evening is going to be good or not.
"Here we have two stages," explained Malone's Group Marketing Manager Paul Granville.
"About 30 percent leave at about 8:30pm, then you get kind of a lull until the entertainment (DJs and live acts) starts (at about 9:30pm). In Pudong (where Malone's has a branch in Thumb Plaza), they have more people for happy hour as there are more families there and we're located near a residential area."
Not every bar, however, subscribes to the happy hour philosophy. The up market Glamour Bar, on the other one hand, serves a different market segment and plumps for an approach similar to the Italian aperitivo. "We like to think that our customers come to the Glamour Bar for lots of different reasons - the creative cocktails, the ambience, the style, the people - and not primarily because they can get two drinks for the price of one," declared Michelle Garnaut, the venue's proprietor.
"But while we don't offer traditional happy hours, we try to offer value in more creative, 'Glamour Bar' style ways. One example is our 'Glamorous Tidbits,' a generous array of delicious complimentary bites."
Other places, such as the Bulldog, offer two-for-one drinks all night with drink specials during certain hours, while Bon Bon runs an open bar every night for a flat fee.
Still, with the recession about to be unleashed upon these shores, most places know competition is stiff, and loyal patronage must be rewarded to be retained.
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