Come in, stay awhile
Upscale happy hours riding high in Houston, where restaurants invite guests to sample and linger
ROMY Mitchell is an avid diner who frequents many of Houston’s top established restaurants while also making sure to hit buzzy newbies such as Le Colonial and Steak 48.
But the anesthesiologist gets especially happy about happy hour. Those weekday windows in which restaurants tempt customers with food and drink specials offer her the perfect forum for socializing. Shared plates, smaller bites and value-priced wine and cocktails are how she and her friends like to take in the local dining scene.
“It’s great to have options that aren’t expensive and are normal, nice portions,” said Mitchell, who practices at Houston Methodist Hospital. “You can try a lot of things without committing.” Happy hour has blossomed throughout the city this year with more restaurants adding happy-hour service or putting more effort into their offerings. And we’re not talking about sports bars, brew pubs and wing joints — many of Houston’s most popular and upscale restaurants are getting in on the action. The ’80s and early ’90s were the happy hour’s golden era, when fern bars ruled and socializing/ networking over cheap drinks was the order of the day. Today’s happy hours are more sophisticated with chef-driven menus precisely calibrated to pique interest in the full menu, and craft cocktails and intelligent wine selections designed to keep guests coming back for more.
“We’ve always put a lot of effort into happy hour,” said chef Rick Di Virgilio, who along with his
wife, Shiva, runs Oporto and the Queen Vic Pub & Kitchen, both on Richmond, and Oporto Fooding House & Wine in Midtown. “We didn’t want to put something out there that was cheap. We wanted to focus on quality; to get them in the door and get the vibe of the restaurant and hopefully convert them into customers.”
The Di Virgilios’ menus offer some incredible values. For instance, a wood-grilled hanger steak sandwich served with french fries is $7 during the weekday happy hour at Oporto Fooding House; it’s $14 on the regular menu.
Indeed, happy hours can be both good daily business and good future business. Since beginning his happy hour — on the menu it’s called Booze & Bites Social Hour — Benjamin Berg of B&B Butchers & Restaurant on Washington has been able to trace new private party bookings to the passed hors d’oeuvres at happy hour. Prices are higher than most other happy hours at Berg’s steakhouse, but there’s an air of refinement in his cheese and charcuterie platters, mini beef Wellingtons, wonton cones stuffed with truffled chicken salad, cocktails and topshelf wines.
“I love hors d’oeuvres. They’re more fun and easier to eat. They add more of a party atmosphere,” he said. “Happy hour is an opportunity to show off what we can do, and it’s a way for guests to get the full restaurant experience without the big bill.”
Houston is mirroring a national movement. According to Technomic Inc., which tracks foodservice-industry trends, more than half (55 percent) of respondents in a recent bar survey offered a happy-hour promotion within the past year. And of all promotions over the past year, the most effective driver of bar business (50 percent) has been pricing discounts.
“There’s a refocus and reemphasis on the bar in terms of driving revenue,” said David Henkes, senior principal at Technomics. “Happy hour is a tool, and a very effective tool, to drive people into the bar.”
Across the country, Henkes said, restaurants are finding that happy hours are a way to fill up the bar and also keep consumers eating and drinking beyond happy hour “in order to capture incremental revenue.”
Annika Stensson, director of research communications for the National Restaurant Association, said the top challenge this year for restaurants is building and maintaining sales volume. For a restaurant, that could mean offering new services such as breakfast, brunch and happy hour.
Happy hours, Stensson added, make money: “If it wasn’t profitable for them, they wouldn’t keep doing it. There are happyhour menus that get (customers) in the door, and then they branch out with the regular menu.”
It is profitable, said Jonathan Horowitz, president of the board of directors of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association and CEO of Legacy Restaurants, “in the sense that you’re giving people another reason to come visit and spend money. It’s not a loss-leader type of situation. It’s just a different offering that gives people an opportunity during a time of day to visit the restaurant.”
In Houston’s current economic climate, happy hour also might be a way to recapture lost revenue as consumers look for more affordable dining options.
“There are a lot more restaurants that are turning to breakfast and brunch. Why? There’s more labor cost and operational cost, but you potentially create traffic and offer people more reasons to show up and get to know your restaurants. The same holds true for happy hour,” Horowitz said. “What you don’t want to get into as an operator is discounting everything to get people in. That sometimes creates an air of desperation, and you don’t want to give off that vibe.”
Even restaurants that currently don’t offer happy hour are looking at making the most of those golden late afternoons. Atlanta restaurateur Ford Fry’s new State of Grace in River Oaks offers $1 oyster deals but doesn’t have an official happy hour. That hasn’t stopped customers from asking for happy-hour specials, general manager Matt Crawford said. He said he is considering offering specially priced drinks that would be “appropriate to the concept” and makes sense with the oyster bargain.
Crawford isn’t necessarily ruling out a happy hour. “If we’re going to do it and the demand is there, and I think it is, we want to do it the best way we can,” he said. “The Houston market is much more into happy hour than Atlanta. And I think that says something about the customer here.”
For local doctor Mitchell, Houston happy hours aren’t just expanding, they’re getting more exciting.
“I’ve noticed there’s definitely been a change in the menus. There are more bites, more vegetable dishes and more healthy options, which I like,” she said. “They’re getting much better.”