The sign on the door reads: NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC. Due to a lack of volume, Alleyways Bar is now closed. We would like to thank our loyal staff for their support over the last 2 years. It has been a pleasure serving you. All Alleyways gift certificates that were purchased will be accepted at any of our Restaurant Partners, Inc. locations. To view a list of participating restaurants, please visit WWW.4greatfood.com or contact our corporate office at 616-235-8640.
I've been thinking about the curse of the dollar beer. It's the bottom dollar price a bar can charge for a can a pint of beer. So a client can drink four or five of them for very little money at all. Then, the bar gathers a critical mass of dollar beer drinkers and the premium beer drinkers begin feeling silly sitting around them. The great act of generosity loses its meaning, the act of buying a beer for a mate. Staff might begin to feel resentful, setting up four cold pints instead of serving one pint to be savored. So each hour of a bartender's time contains two to four times the labor, extra acts of washing, pouring, serving and removing. The customer drinking the dollar beer is less likely to tip a dollar a glass because it means giving up an entire serving of beer. If one is lucky, bartender might get a dollar for serving an series of pints
A good bartender starts to wonder why he or she isn't offering bottle service at a far more upscale establishment. A bartender can't afford to treat a customer special if a night of drinking leading to taxi cab transportation costs less than the cab tab. I haven't broken down the real cost of the dollar beer but its probably a lot higher than most managers might think. I recall believing that a sign for free coffee is the first sign of a business about go under. Scary, but the dollar beer is sign of failure to come for local haunts.
No comments:
Post a Comment