Tons of Bar Specials

A theme you may notice in this blog is that B and I have been struck by how "normative" drinking is here in Minneapolis. This may be because we are coming from Rhode Island: In five years there, we found that the puritanical stereotype of New England is at least somewhat correct, and is reflected in there being rather few per capita bars and beer/liquor stores. Among our friends, B and I are known as somewhat frequent drinkers, so take our observation with a flake of pepper: We are both more inclined to notice the lack of drinking-friendly establishments in an area and more prone to be upset about it.

And the reverse is true. We have been impressed (even delighted :-) with the number of bars here and their quality. At the few bars we've been to so far, drink prices have been reasonable, service has been great, and (notably compared to RI) the bars have been *big* (we'd hypothesized that New England zoning laws prohibit excessive elbow room in bars).

But what I want to talk about here is Minneapolis bars' extensive, detailed drink specials, the likes of which we've not encountered in New York City, Philly, Boston, or San Diego.

I will start with a detailed example, because the detail is what make these Minneapolis bar specials so interesting. Here are the specials at great bar that is right around the corner from us, Tracey's Saloon in the Seward area of Minneapolis:

Every weeknight: $1 of all drinks between 4pm and 6:30 pm, and *also* after 8pm. So there's happy hour, then there's a very rough 90 minutes when everyone has to pay full price for drinks, then things return to happy street until 10 pm.

Then there's the daily specials:

Monday: $1 off all drinks all day and night long. Also 3 burgers for $1.50, and bingo (!) after 8pm.
Tuesday: $2 rail drinks and domestic beer. 30 cent wings.
Wednesday: Half-price taps. $6.95 8 oz. prime rib dinner (includes bakes potato and salad). Pub-style team trivia after 8pm.
Thursday: Wooden nickel happy hour.* Also, 3 tacos for $1.25.
Saturday and Sunday: 3-6pm is wooden nickel happy hour. Also, you can get a 16 oz sirloin, 12 oz strip steak, or 6 piece fried shrimp dinner (with baked potato and salad) for $7.95.

So that's the weekly specials for Tracey's Saloon, and most of the bars out here have a similar array of weekly specials. So we find ourselves walking into each new bar and spending a good 5 minutes reading about the specials! (They're usually posted at the bar's entrance.) Ladies' nights, 2-for-1s, etc., and the hours associated with them. If you're thinking it's all too much to remember, you're right, which is why the people at Thrifty Hipster created an entire website devoted to listing all the weekly specials at the most popular bars in Minneapolis! Um, do other cities have websites like this? Not that I know of, although I could just be behind the times.

Thrifty Hipster does seem geared at college students, but still, the fact that there might be demand for a website to keeping track of drink specials . . . kind of blows me away. I've been to plenty of cities more identified as college towns than Minneapolis.

I think the main thing is, they really like their beer here.

* You may be wondering what wooden nickel happy hour is. Good question, the answer to which is quite simple: Order a beer, and you get the beer plus a wooden nickel that is redeemable for another beer on a future date. It's actually far more responsible than the 2-for-1 happy hour special that is widespread in Minnesota and throughout the nation. If I may digress, B and I were at the Mall of America in early June 2005 (out here looking for an apartment before we moved) and it was freakin' hot one day, so we adjourned to the MOA. We ended up at some chain restaurant that had a 2-for-1 special going. I ordered a beer, and B said I'll have one of his, but they nevertheless they brought us four beers. I was faced with 1) complaining, or 2) drinking three beers to Berna's one. If you know me, you know I chose the latter, and if you don't know me, well, I chose the latter. What was I gonna do, let those delicious cold beers go to waste? So clearly, the wooden nickel special is less encouraging of excessive over-drinking than is the 2-for-1. Go Tracey's!