Cheap pint? The outlook is favourable at UK’s first real-time, automated booze “stock-exchange” bar
Sick of never getting change from your tenner at the bar? Have no fear; the City is about to welcome a “stock-exchange” bar, pricing drinks according to supply and demand on the night. You could even get a pint for under £3.
The Reserve Bar Stock Exchange, the UK’s first real-time, automated stock market for booze, is preparing a launch party where a crashing market will actually be a good thing. The more popular a drink is, the more expensive it will be.
Reserve Bar founder Alan Grant told The Capitalist: “Alcohol doesn’t have to be sold at an extortionate rate.”
This rings true in the drinks menu; items on the menu include classic cocktails, wines and three-pint “growlers”, sometimes selling for as little as £6.
VIPs will be treated to a night of inflation and crashes at the Gresham Street establishment tomorrow, as Made in Chelsea’s Stevie Johnson hosts the bar’s launch party with former Towie star Jasmin Walia.
Alongside a live market price board, there is a smartphone app available. Guests can check risers and fallers and place orders. Grant is confident City slickers will love this take on the financial district’s daily grind.
One central markets broker, who wished to stay anonymous, said: “The one in Times Square is excellent. It’s all bells and alarms and absolutely mad.”
“A lot of business is done in bars”, said Grant. “We thought this concept added to that. It’s a nice fit.”
Business may be done in bars, but if there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s to avoid trading drunk. One oil futures trader learnt that the hard way in 2009, waking up from a night out to discover he’d single-handedly moved the global price of the black gold to an eight-month high. The moral of the story? Do trade drinks, don’t trade drunk.