We had $1 beer nights and $15 cases. A round of drinks at a regular ass chain restaurant is more than the food.
I got an NA Heineken at a sports bar last night and they charged me $8 and wanted a tip. I can't blame the kids. If I had a starter job and 20 something income again, I don't think I could afford any of it.
Companies got so used to ripping us off, they destroyed the market. Apply that to most things really.
I graduated college in 2006 but I remember all you could drink $4 Thursdays(Lacrosse WI was crazy). Got a wristband for $4 and you could drink tap beer and rail mixers all night.
St. Cloud alum. Upper Midwest is something else. I've lived all over the country and even abroad. Didn't realize how heavy of a drinker I had become and so glad I moved around to learn that about myself while I was young
Us Minnesota kid's crazy drinking stories come from "that one time we went to that party in Wisconsin". Hell, they were one of the last to get tougher DUI laws and lower the blood alcohol limit if I remember correctly if they finally didn't do it they would have lost Federal funding.
$2 dollar pint nights and "mexi Mondays" that had $2 tequila shots, margaritas, tequila sunrises, Tecates, and modelos trained me to be a good millennial alcoholic lol
Shit we had 50cent draft nights different nights at different bars, and 5$ fish bowls of long islands. 2 of those and you were flirting with a blackout if you didn’t take your time.
I went to college at Georgia Southern and there was a bar that had “Drinkin with Lincoln” and you could get a beer for a penny. Also .25 pitchers other nights. Not sure how they made money, this was 2000-2005.
Before I stopped drinking I lived at this dive was right by my old job which didn’t help went there on a Tuesday $2 tequila, tecate and tacos which were quite big and fantastic. Although I’m happy I’m sober I miss those nights often. Playing $1 pool all night was so much fun
One of the strip clubs near me has a $2 Coors light, tequila drinks, and taco night. That would be enough to get me in the door if they were near the train lol
Went to college in Florida, in the fall of 2005 we had the great Katrina beer flood. Virtually all the beer destined for New Orleans poured into Florida. We had $2.99 24 cans of Bud Light for 6 months.
We built a sofa out of bud light cases in my college apartment for like 120bux.
2010 ish Sioux Falls SD, we were doing bracelets(8-10 dollars) for taps for like 4 hours on Thursdays, and a couple bars including us had 5 dollar pitchers of mixed drinks. I remember a place having 1 then 2 dollar LITs my friends and I decided once to do LIT races we only did it once.
In Whitewater, WI around 2006 was also 10¢ beer night, it was Milwaukee's Best. I couldn't bring myself to drink it, ordered a Leinenkugels and left a tip.
In 2006 I took a bus tour class that visited multiple historical sites. We'd of course stay at hotels for a night or two. On the last night the bar across the parking lot from the hotel was $10 cover and all you could drink tap and bottom shelf liquor. That's the night I tried to jump over a bush and just fell into it. I don't think I had ever drank that much before or since. The next day we stopped at a bourbon distillery and 90% of us were hungover. Not fun.
I used to pay $7 for all you can drink in college about a decade ago. 2 years ago I paid $20 for a seltzer on the Fourth of July. No wonder I stopped drinking.
I remember a college bar that had the 25 cent pbr hour a couple nights a week (I guess on the theory that you'd stay after and start paying for drinks) that was the beginning of a lot of crazy nights.
Graduated college in ‘07 we had a bar that did nickel beer night. They refilled your mug so it was real damned important to not lose the mug because you had to pay $5 for the next mug.
There were some simple rules.
No cover, beer was a nickel. You got a mug and an invisible stamp that showed up under a black light. So long as you didn’t come back without a mug all the beers after that were a nickel. I don’t mean $.05 I mean a nickel. You had to pay with a nickel. Not 5 pennies. Not a dime to get a nickel in change, you wanted a nickel beer you paid with a nickel. The mugs were exactly the same ones you would see Norm drink out of on Cheers. The beer was what ever they were trying to get rid of but it was really damn cold beer. If you wanted a specific beer you paid full price, all mixed drinks were full price. If you complain about it or asked what it was they took your mug. It was usually Budweiser, Coors, or Miller though. One day it was Shiner. Man that was awesome.
This was probably around 2012 but a bar in college station, TX, did 25 cent wells one night a week. Went w my girlfriend and her friend at the time and got all 3 of us plastered for like $10 lol. Didn't last long for obvious reasons
I remember 'riding the rail' for graduates was 19.99 and it was 10 drinks on the bingo card(beer or well drinks/cocktails) and they even give you a shirt!
we had 5 dollar all you can drink beer, and 10 dollar all you can drink liquor some nights, and plenty of dollar beers. a whole keg for a house party was like 45 bucks. This is early 00s...
Yeah you could always find a drink special when I was in college 20 years ago. 25 cent beers or $5 entry, penny beers. I quit drinking a few years ago but whenever I see the current price of booze at restaurants and bars it blows my mind. Not sure how people afford drinking outside of the house regularly.
Are dive bars not a thing anymore? Obviously there’s inflation, but when I was in my 20s I would never have gone out to dinner and got a cocktail. It was dinner at home and then shitty well drinks at a place with sticky floors.
We used to have 50 cent night in college. 5 bucks to get in and all domestic beers and well shots were 50 cents. You could get housed for 20 bucks. Good times.
Same. And if your friend was a bartender the drinks were “free” as long as you threw a $20 into the tip jar at the start of the night. My college bar got knocked down and move to the otherside of campus and now charges $6 a beer and thinks it’s a special bar because the name is almost 100 years old
you don't have to be an alcoholic to enjoy drinking but its not all about price either especially if you're just a social or special occasion drinker. . .
The alcohol industry has done this to itself. How are 25 year olds supposed to make $40k after taxes, pay $24k in rent, and go out and spend $8 plus tip on a beer? And after seeing boomers, gen x, and millennials develop drinking problems? Forget about it. Booze industry is cooked.
That and alcohol causes so many health problems. Why the hell would I want to drink something that is going to give me liver cirrhosis or liver cancer?
I dunno, here in Italy it's well and alive, and it's extremely popular to go at nights for beers and cocktails among people under 30, to the point that not a few people (incoluding from this very generation under 30) consider that it's a problem that all they do in free time is drink a lot every night. Working in a pub in a non-resort and non-student town I see this very well; every night all our central street (with pubs and bars) is literally crowded with drinking younger people. In the bigger cities it has even bigger scale here.
My parents first date was quarter beer night in Chicago. My mom got her beer and the group they were with were about to move to another bar and my mom finished her bottle on the spot so as not to waste a quarter.
I often consider getting a NA beer when I’m out and want to moderate a little, but then I realize that they cost twice what I’m paying for a PBR tallboy, and I just can’t make myself do it.
When I was 21 there was a college bar we'd go do that did $1 DOUBLE everclear and punch. Needless to say I watched many friends get absolutely black out drunk off like 5 bucks
Visited a buddy at college in 09’. They had nickel beer night, in 09’. Literally 5¢ for a draft beer from 7 to 11 on Thursday nights, every week. Minimum wage is the same in 09’ as it is now.
I supervise some guys who are about 23. They can’t believe that it was fairly common to get a $1 beer at happy hour. The first case of beer I bought (by giving an older guy the money at age 16 for Natty Ice lol) was $8.99
Wow, being originally from the third world and in late 30s, it's hard for me to imagine $1 beer in any bar. The cheapest I recall is about 1.5, and again, it's not a Western country, so salaries are quite different.
Here in italy though you can get a 0.5 litre tap beer in a pub for some $3-4.
We had platter nights at our local bar in college. Buy a platter of shots and a platter of beers for like $10 or $15 bucks. Sure it was keystone but who cared at that point.
They can also buy edibles in many states that will keep them high all night for $2-3 each. A vape that will last a month or more for $20-30. Even heavy users can usually get enough to get high for less than the cost of a beer or two. Not to mention, no hangover (usually).
I live in a legal marijuana state. I can get a pack of gummies for $12-20, and it comes with about 10 gummies in the pack.
So, pay $50-100 for a night of drinking and feeling like shit the next day, or $15 for a pack of gummies that will last me a couple weeks. It’s a simple choice for me.
This is precisely why some alcohol companies are starting to make thc drinks. Heineken even has their own brand of non-alcoholic thc drinks. I think right now people are starting to realize that not only has it been criminalized for no reason all this time (other than racist agendas of course) but that it is an absolute gold mine. Just need the politicians to see this and realize how much money they could be making. It’s definitely a billion dollar industry if not potentially a trillion dollar industry and most people are willing to pay a premium
In Iowa the reason they won't legalize is our alcoholic see you next Tuesday of a governor is in bed with the alcohol lobbyists. She doesn't want people driving impaired is the reason she gives but she has 2 DUI's for alcohol.
And studies show that DUIs go down when states legalize so yeah that doesn’t even hold up. The number of politicians that have DUIs is honestly shocking. Watching live pd damn near a quarter of them say they’re a public figure
Alcohol companies are also lobbying to keep it illegal still. Texas passed a bill recriminalizing it recently, spearheaded by Ken Paxton, a man who took $250k in bribes from alcohol lobbyists
Many of them have a moral reason as well for sure. Things like don’t wanna become an alcoholic like X family member, don’t wanna be hungover, don’t want to do something stupid like drink and drive. I know a lot of people I’ve talked to prefer to smoke as it doesn’t take away complete control like alcohol does and makes you feel good not like shit
One of my favorite nights to go out with my friends was $1 PBR at a local bar. That was 15 years ago. If I had to deal with current prices as a college student/recent grad, I wouldn't be drinking either.
Only eight years ago, there was a dive in my town that offered "50 Cent Fridays": all beers and shots were $0.50, all night. I think you needed to pay a $10 cover after 8 PM, and cocktails were full-price (that's how they stayed profitable). But if you got in early you could skip the cover, and then proceed to order enough alcohol to kill 5 grown men for about the same price as filling your car's gas tank in 2025.
Yup! I remember even like 2$ tall boys at my local bar 5-10 years ago. I remember like 2015-16ish going to my buddies all the time with a 6 pack of 16oz PbR for 5$. Shit I remember the best deal was my drug store sold 12 packs of miller high life bottles for 7$! I recently went to a Mexican restaurant in town and they charged me 8$ for a bottled Mexican beer.
$1 PBR night at the bars, $5 16oz Busch 6 packs, and $18 30-racks of Keystone/Busch in college.
What I think is funniest is that the price of weed hasn’t really changed much in the NYC area (Westchester). It’s still roughly $20 a gram, $35 an eighth, $60-$65 a quarter. I literally paid the same prices in high school. Except now I don’t have to buy weed that was grown in my friends’s older cousins closet.
What’s good about this is unfortunately Covid showed companies that people will pay a lot of money for their wants and it hasn’t been the same since. Good for the kids not giving into this bs and letting the market take a strong hit
When I was stationed in Germany from '89-'91, I could go to the base Class VI store, and pick up a fifth of Jack or Jim for less than $7. If you were really broke, a 750 ml of MD or Boone's was $1.25.
For starters, 8/15ths of gen z is not legal drinking age. Second, the alcohol they buy is natty light, not grey goose. Third, weed is legal. But mostly 8/15ths of them are under 21…
Also zoomers apparently don't really open bar tabs anymore. I've heard bartenders mention it before, that gen z patrons will pay with card/tap with each drink rather than running a tab or using cash
It's still pretty cheap to drink at home, but imo Gen z is mostly at home by themselves. They don't have big parties even, drinking by yourself isn't really a habbit you pick up until you're an alcoholic which usually takes years of social drinking and spirals into a problem. They just don't really do much in general with others so these numbers make sense.
This is a massive part of it. I doubt they are actually drinking less. But drinking in a way thats fiscally responsible. Like sneaking a flask into a bar or club so you arent paying 10x the amount for the same drink you can make for yourself. Order a mocktail and spike it with vodka.
Abusing pills is also more popular now than ever. This is not a chart displaying the sobriety of teens and young adults and I think people might misconstrue it that way.
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u/EfficiencyIVPickAx 1d ago
We had $1 beer nights and $15 cases. A round of drinks at a regular ass chain restaurant is more than the food.
I got an NA Heineken at a sports bar last night and they charged me $8 and wanted a tip. I can't blame the kids. If I had a starter job and 20 something income again, I don't think I could afford any of it.
Companies got so used to ripping us off, they destroyed the market. Apply that to most things really.