Children in bars

"They housed my beer"? Many times.

Whoa wait -- ime to "house" something is to devour or destroy it. ("Monty housed his roast beef sandwich") and for freebies we use the verb comp ("I comped the drinks on 13 bc that's Angela's friend")

butthouse is like smash something and destroy it, in the style of sitting down hard on a cupcake

― tuppence b. bag (roxymuzak), Sunday, April 19, 2009 2:34 AM (fourteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks, La Lechera, "comped" is a more elegant verb and yes I have heard that one too.

Still I maintain and contend that "buyback" is alien to me and it also doesn't make any lexical sense. If it is an idiom in your personal world, great; rock on, drinking people.

Buybacks are what they're called in NY and what I've always called them.

And housed definitely means to devour or destroy so if you said someone housed your beer I'd assume you meant they drank it.

Maybe it is regional but I know it from growing up/working in two restaurants my parents owned in NY and then bartending in MA.

Why not just say "on the house," which everyone understands?

To be clear the act is called a buyback but I don't think the term is used in the moment. Then obv you'd say - this is on me or on the house. You would use the term if you were talking about someone doing it like oh that Gary sure gives the regulars a lot of buybacks. Something like that.

But you don't buy it back so why is it called that? The bartender is not buying anything, he/she/they is merely not charging for it. It makes no sense.

Sorry, I will shut up now.

I only heard it after my friends befriended a bartender in Brooklyn circa 1998 or so. It seemed like a very NY concept to me at the time bc I had never spent extended time in a bar as a young adult.

I understood the word from context the first time I saw it but yeah, it doesn't make sense to me. Nobody's ever used it with me. Comps, freebies or on the house, sure.

we need a regional map of these variations

yeah, i’d never heard it til calstars began using it, but most of my serious bar years occurred in Northern California, where “comped” or “on the house” were used.

Llwe need a regional map like coke/pop/soda, yes please

*We

I'd never heard buyback until I lived in NYC and it's still the only place I've heard it. Also, it seems much more hardwired into bar culture there, to the extent that people kind of expect it (although part of the dance is that you can never take it for granted). I've had comped drinks here and there elsewhere, but even for regulars it's not a normal thing in the South in my experience.

Also I have definitely had a buyback on the 5th drink when I had no intention of having a 5th drink. But what are you gonna do, say no?

but even for regulars it's not a normal thing in the South in my experience.

otm

John at the bar is a friend of mine
He buybacks my drinks for free

(See? It makes no sense, and New York ers are gaslighting me. As usual.)

having been forced to think about this:

I bought four drinks from bartender WmC, so he bought me one back

still miss dc’s frank v., who would basically just make up a number at the end of the night and we’d tip him the difference

― mookieproof, Wednesday, August 2, 2023 1:41 AM (nine hours ago)

this makes me fondly remember the days where I'd go to the same place regularly with a group of friends and the bartender was able to save time by not keeping track of my drinks or taking money, making change, etc. every time I ordered a drink. I'd either tell them at the end of the night what the tally was or they'd just say "you had three beers" while looking at me and I'd pay for three beers with a healthy tip

xp 🤯

i think you cracked it, i'm terribly impressed.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/01/i-dont-come-here-to-enjoy-other-peoples-children-should-pubs-and-restaurants-be-kid-free-zones

― Andy the Grasshopper, Tuesday, 1 August 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Pointless, but very Guardian, piece.

idk what buybacks are, I prefer takebacks, which is where I help myself to a beer I didn't pay for

YMP wait’ll you hear about how Run D.M.C. is using the word “bad” these days

Friday night is like “parents take your screaming offspring to the bar” night

It is. Last night there was a large table and this little kid kept touching our silverware, messing with the folded napkins, playing with glassware while her parents did absolutely nothing to stop her. I asked her FIVE separate times to stop and eventually the cake came out and she was distracted. Free babysitting not part of the job.

Brutal

phones are good actually

I agree — I’d rather deal with a group where half of them are nose deep in their devices than to have to ask someone “please stop touching our things” that many times. More than once.

I'm a parent and it drives me mad when parents ignore the behaviour of their child like this