LooseTalk: Hotel vs restaurant bars

There are hotel bars, then restaurant bars. And the assumption here is that a hotel bar is more professional, more strict, and generally has more exposure than a bar in a restaurant or pub. A hotel bar is a much more formal experience. There are other differences: in a hotel bar, someone is likely to set up a table for you, while in a restaurant, you are responsible for your choice of seat. Generally, most private bars open only in the evenings, whereas most hotel bars open as early as 11 a.m. Some hotel bars may require some kind of dress code, (casual, smart), whereas in most restaurant bars, it is “anything goes.” A very important difference is that a restaurant bartender bears much more responsibility in dealing with drunken patrons, whereas a hotel bartender has little to worry about. In any case, many of his customers are simply returning to their rooms after a few drinks during business trips. And who says a hotel bar is the best place to get drunk from? Hotel bars are notorious for being exorbitant on prices when it comes to liquors, and for those of us who believe that “beer is beer”, it leaves us with just one option; head to the local bar, which is not only close to home, it also sells beer on the cheap. What’s more, when broke, you can always drink a few pints on credit. Perhaps the one thing I hate most about restaurant bars, is the fact that immediately you step in, the wait staff simply attack you with such queries as, “would you like to have a drink?” Of course I do. It is the reason I came to the bar in the first place. Otherwise I would have stopped at the amata meza shop close to my home. I used to be shocked whenever I went to a bar and a waiter asked me “how are you?” Now I have better experience. In the hotel bar, you are likely to find a well-shaven young man with well manicured nails and fresh breath and Polo shirt and baseball cap, going about his tasks in the bar like an altar boy. He usually has a good sound stereo on which he is playing Knowless or jazz and some oldies. The hotel bar tender is more sophisticated than the one at the pub, for obvious reasons. He may even hold an iPhone if the hotel boasts many stars. He speaks good English too. And he is more likely to welcome you with something along the lines of “hello, and welcome to Jazz Bar. You can take a seat wherever you want …”, as opposed to ‘How are you?”