For the record, I'd MUCH, MUCH rather patron a good dive bar. Also, it's not just the clubs that survive based on alcohol sales, it's the restaurants too. Food costs are WAY higher than beverage costs and fluctuate much more frequently and unpredictably. The most profitable (percentage wise) thing on most menus is either coffee or iced tea. The most profitable dollar wise is usually wine. The restaurant I managed (back in the day) used a very straight forward pricing strategy: take the cost of the bottle x 2 + 5. That meant a bottle that cost $10 would retail for $25. -This is actually a pretty reasonable pricing system too. Alcohol is king in the restaurant world. Which is why a good bartender is a very, very valuable thing. Any restauranteur worth his salt, treats his best bartenders like the profit generating kings/queens that they are.
I bailed on bars right about the time those fuckheads out in Montauk invented "bottle service." That, right there, was a capitulation of the art of bartending - so much so that the people who still could decided they were "mixologists" and magnified their douchebaggery by a factor of ten. Fact of the matter is, at an "upscale" bar you pay $18 for a double of Maker's. Same double is $7 at a dive bar. That's an increase of $11 on something that has a raw cost of approximately $2 to start with. And you know what? If I'm charging some asshole $7 for a Newcastle, he can hem and haw all he wants about "eclipse amber" or some shit. I'm making $1 or $2 for pulling the handle on that one and the bar is making $4 for the labor equivalent of playing a slot machine; I can STFU about my patrons.
Rule the roost with less d-bags - $125 a night
Put up with d-bags - $200 a night These are made up figures from 2002 btw. My point is when the shit hits the fan and you're potentially "in the weeds", it may be an easier scenario in the dive bar. Bottle service, well that's a whole different world that I've only once partook in and left feeling slimy as hell but with a group of 4 twenty something girls at our sides. (shhhh, what happens in vegas..) -$800 for a bottle of Kettle One. WTF???! The things you'll do for your brother at his bachelor party!