Setting the Bar on a Bar

What counts as a bar on The Bar Examiner?

This seems like a question that should have a simple answer.

It does not.

Some places are obviously bars. Some places are obviously restaurants. Some places serve dinner, cocktails, trivia, live music, and enough bourbon to make the distinction largely academic.

So before TBE gets accused of putting a restaurant in a bar directory, we figured we should establish our official, carefully researched, completely unbiased definition of a bar.

Naturally, we started with Excel.

After reviewing the evidence, several conclusions became apparent.

Food does not automatically disqualify an establishment from being a bar.

Neither does having a kitchen, a dining room, a patio, a full menu, or a waiter who asks whether you would like fries with that.

If people reasonably go there to have a drink, hang out, meet friends, catch a game, hear live music, sing badly into a microphone, answer trivia questions, or otherwise avoid going home for another hour, TBE is probably interested.

The TBE Bar Exam

To remove any remaining ambiguity, our research department developed the following classification system.

As demonstrated above, whether an establishment serves food was entered into evidence and subsequently determined to be largely irrelevant.

The more important question is considerably simpler:

Can you buy an alcoholic drink there?

If the answer is no, we probably do not have a bar.

If the answer is yes, things begin looking considerably more promising.

We then conducted additional analysis to account for restaurants, entertainment venues, patios, nightlife destinations, and establishments possessing at least one chair.

The findings were compelling.

So, Is a Restaurant a Bar?

Sometimes.

TBE is not trying to force every business into a neat little box marked BAR or RESTAURANT.

A restaurant can also have a legitimate bar.

A sports grill can be a place people primarily visit to watch a game and have drinks.

A Mexican restaurant can have a substantial tequila selection, margaritas, a lively bar area, and an after-dinner crowd.

A place can serve excellent food and still be somewhere you would reasonably tell a friend:

“Let’s go grab a drink there.”

That last question is probably more useful to us than whatever category happens to appear on a business license or Google listing.

The Gray Area

There will always be gray areas.

A restaurant that technically sells beer but has no real drinking or social component may not make much sense for TBE.

A restaurant with a full bar, happy hour, patio, live entertainment, trivia, karaoke, or a substantial nightlife component probably does.

And that distinction may evolve as TBE evolves.

For now, our working definition is intentionally practical:

If an establishment is meaningfully part of the local drinking, social, or nightlife experience, it may belong on The Bar Examiner.

We reserve the right to examine the evidence.

Including the chair.

Case Closed?

Probably not.

Someone will eventually find an establishment that completely breaks this methodology.

When that happens, TBE will convene another committee, reopen the spreadsheet, and conduct a thorough investigation.

Until then:

Can you buy a drink there?

Welcome to the gray area.

---