Are We Entering a New Era of Drinks Specials and Happy Hours?
VinePair Podcast
The hosts discuss the emergence of recession-era dining trends, such as all-you-can-eat buffets and creative happy hour specials. They explo
Key takeaways
- Newer restaurants, particularly those run by Gen Z/Millennials, are utilizing all-you-can-eat models like Good Time Country Buffet to attract customers.
- The concept of 'value' is evolving; it's not just about the lowest price but about perceived benefits like larger pours or BOGO deals.
Main topics
- Recession dining trends
- Economic impact on hospitality
Notable quotes
Value is not only just the cheapest thing available.
Conclusion
The episode highlights a significant shift toward value-oriented consu
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:18) From VinePair's New York City headquarters, I'm Adam Teeter. Speaker 1 (0:20) And I'm Joanna Sherino. Speaker 3 (0:22) And Speaker 2 (0:22) in Seattle, Washington, I'm Zach Trabalt. And this is the VinePair Speaker 3 (0:25) podcast. All right. What you been drinking, Joanna? Let's just get right into it. Let's just, you know, let's go. Let's go. It was after hours. We know what the answers are going to be. Kick it off. Speaker 1 (0:35) Well, yes, we had our after hours with Noche Traviesa and Michael Aredes and Stephanie. And that was awesome. I think he had a very cool like strawberry vodka drink, a really neat like take on a tequila sunrise. And then his. like margarita, which is a mezcal-based margarita with pandan and coconut salt. And do you remember what else? Speaker 3 (1:05) I don't. Speaker 1 (1:06) That was really neat, too. And then I had, since then, since Monday, I had a Cho Wines Pinot Noir. Oh. Their Dreamers Reserve. Oh, cool. Which Speaker 2 (1:16) is the Speaker 1 (1:16) Willamette one. And yeah, I love their wines. I think they're great. It is not the wine that Keith gave like a 97 to. It's a different Pinot Noir. Yeah, that Speaker 3 (1:25) Pinot Noir probably somehow wound up like in his cellar. Speaker 1 (1:28) I Speaker 3 (1:29) mean, he's like, I don't know. No one else wanted the American wine, but I have a cellar really deep with American wine now, guys. Of course, of Speaker 2 (1:33) course. It's Speaker 1 (1:34) number one advocate. Yeah, so that was good. What about you, Adam? Speaker 3 (1:37) So I had a bunch of people over last Friday night for Rosh Hashanah. Speaker 1 (1:43) Nice. Speaker 3 (1:44) So we had like a bunch of different wines we opened. First, I made like... Different cocktails depending on what people wanted. I made dirty martinis, Negronis, whatever. And then, gosh, we had a bottle of Las Haras, Pinot Noir, which was really delicious. Also a bottle of like Sancerre, but I forget who the producer was, but it was really good. Those are the only two bottles of wine that I had. But people, I like, I just let people go into my fridge and like wine fridge and like whatever they wanted. So I think like seven or eight bottles I consumed. I mean, we did have 18 people. And then, yeah, then just after hours. Otherwise. Speaker 1 (2:20) Pretty chill. We had some good scotch as well. Speaker 3 (2:22) Yeah, we did. That one, the Glendronic. Yeah. It was a special Glendronic bottling, though, but I forget which one it was. Speaker 1 (2:26) Yeah. It's, yep. I can't remember. It was Speaker 3 (2:29) needed as a, you know, post-party, you know, let's discuss important things drink. Speaker 1 (2:36) Business scotch. Speaker 3 (2:37) Yeah. Yeah. You, Jenny, and I. Speaker 1 (2:40) Yeah. Speaker 3 (2:41) And Speaker 2 (2:41) Allie. Speaker 3 (2:42) Okay. What's up? What about you, Zach? Speaker 2 (2:44) So I had a pretty tasty Czech-style dark lager from Project 9 Brewing, which I drive by multiple times a day to take my daughter to and from school and usually don't stop. But the other day I was kind of on my way to pick her up a little early because I had finished up another project, doesn't matter what. And I was like, you know what, I'm going to stop and have a beer. And I had a delicious pint of... a you know like i love a dark lager uh zach was like i gotta get a beer in me before Speaker 3 (3:14) i get this Speaker 2 (3:15) kid yeah Speaker 1 (3:15) was it a side pour uh Speaker 2 (3:18) it was not a side pour unfortunately no no um but it was but there's something to me about that like that you know in the same way that there's kind of a magic in a guinness of like this is dark beer that's like rich and has that kind of multi-character but is also quite light this isn't this one wasn't quite that light i think it's like five 0.2%. But I do love the kind of dark malt flavors without necessarily getting into like a full-on porter or stout. And so, yeah, it was delicious. Nice and crisp too, along with those rich notes. So tasty beer for me. And then the rest of the evening with the kids. Speaker 3 (3:50) I love it. So what I want to talk about is this trend that I've been seeing crop up recently. And I think it speaks a lot to the current moment that we're in. And I see it happening both in food. and drink in very unique ways. But basically what it is is like happy hour or recession special eating and drinking. So in food, like a big trend that we're seeing, especially in New York now, is restauranteurs, especially younger restauranteurs. So part of this also, I think, speaks to the fact that there is something going on with Gen Z and economics and affordability because a lot of this is being opened by Gen Z or very Gen Z millennial adjacent people. for this audience, which is these kind of like all-you-can-eat dining concepts. So one of them that just is about to open in the East Village of Manhattan is called Good Time Country Buffet, which is literally like a Golden Corral, which I had in Auburn, Alabama, and I never went to and had no desire to. And I'm not a big country buffet fan. It's just not my thing. I Speaker 2 (4:51) loved a buffet as a kid. Are you kidding me? I hated them. Speaker 3 (4:54) I have Shoney's. Anyone else have a Shoney's? We had a Shoney's. There's a really, really famous one in Lancaster that Naomi's brother loves called Shady Maple. Okay. Really famous. But anyway, so that like this all you can eat, I think it's $21. I've seen people literally even posting about it saying like for the price of one and a quarter martini, you can have dinner with your friends, which I think is like really interesting that that's also what people are saying. It's Speaker 1 (5:19) fucked up. Speaker 3 (5:20) Yeah. And then it's fucked up. And then there's also a big trend in New York of like these sushi places where like for the last 30 minutes, the last 45 minutes, like all the pieces of this one nigiri you can eat or whatever. And like you can just keep getting it, getting it, getting it. And people are like really obsessed with it and also pretty affordable. And then I've also seen some bars that are starting to do this. So bars that are posting things on socials like, hey, like and cool cocktail bars like from five to eight, like you pick one, we pick one. You pick, which is literally a BOGO. But again, they're trying to play with this idea of like, no, Speaker 2 (5:54) no, no, no, no. It's not a recession special. This isn't a BOGO. This is like Speaker 3 (5:57) a, you pick a drink and then we'll pick a cool drink for you off our menu. But very much is like, please come in. Please come spend money. Like we're going to need to figure out a way to get more butts in seats because people aren't here and everyone's talking about affordability. And I think with the, you know, what's currently happening in gas prices this week alone. You know, we're going to see more of this. And yes, I wanted to sort of chat about it because I feel like this is just the beginning of a trend that I think is going to hit very, very hard as we push into 2027. It's Speaker 1 (6:29) so funny that you're bringing this up as like a trend of this moment right now, which I agree. We are definitely seeing more of it. You mentioned before we started airing the like very cheap Smashburger place, like a Smashburger for $2.90 or whatever. It's funny because I feel like we. We had this. Like, I certainly had this when I was like in my early 20s in New York. Yeah, because we had a Speaker 3 (6:50) recession, Joanna. I know, but so Speaker 1 (6:52) it's just like, I just, what I'm saying Speaker 2 (6:55) is like. And we're Speaker 1 (6:55) talking about having Speaker 3