What Makes a Good Happy Hour?

Who doesn't love a good happy hour? Whether you're drinking beer with friends, singing karaoke with a cocktail in your hand, or simply sitting alone in the corner and taking advantage of the nacho buffet, happy hour gives you a chance to cut loose and enjoy yourself while saving money in the process. How cool is that?

The term "happy hour" actually originated in the 1920s, during the Prohibition era. Since alcohol couldn't be served at restaurants, diners would frequently gather beforehand at the local speakeasy for a couple of drinks before dinner. These gatherings became known as "happy hours," but the term didn't really come into wide use until the 1960s, after a 1959 Saturday Evening Post article popularized it.

So now the happy hour is an indelible part of the bar experience. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a beer joint, ale house, gin mill, pub, saloon, or tavern in North America that doesn't offer some kind of special during the late afternoon/early evening hours of Monday through Thursday.

But just what makes a good happy hour? Personal tastes may vary, but here are some popular traits that most successful happy hours share:

• Happy hour should never be just for an hour. People get off work at different times, and a good happy hour should accommodate as many as possible. Most bars run their happy hour from 4 - 7, but a few might extend theirs by an hour or two in either direction.
• A happy hour should focus its specials on single serve drinks, rather than bottles of wine, pitchers of beer, or other items customers will have to share. Most folks pay for their own happy hour drinks, and splitting a shared item just makes things complicated.
• Happy hour drink specials should be a good value to the customers. If the prices don't seem much lower than usual, there's just not much point in going.
• A good happy hour should also offer decent food specials to go along with the drinks. The selection doesn't have to be all that extensive. Just tasty. And cheap.
• If a happy hour includes karaoke, trivia, or any other kind of audience participation event, it should be kept somewhat isolated from the rest of the bar. Not everybody wants to participate, and it can be quite annoying when you're trying to socialize over the painful warbling of some white collar Sinatra wannabe.
• Happy hour should be well-staffed. Customers are going to flock to the bar in droves, and they're going to be drinking a lot, and drinking it quickly. There need to be enough servers on hand to keep the glasses full and the plates coming out for the happy hour crowd.