Julie Bove wrote:

> Heh! When I was young, we knew all of the best places to get Happy
> Hour food. We'd order a soft drink in the bar and fill up on tacos. Not
> quite free but close to it.

This is a thing that didn't exist in my town until the late 90's, when some
pub started offering food items and soon many other followed suit. Nowadays
pubs who don't offer food during the happy hour are the exception. Some of
them, though, have a raise in drinks prices during the buffet time, which is
pure nonsense: we're in happy hour, the drinks should cost less, and you
make us pay more only because there's some (from frozen) food item on the
bar? This has led to the third age of happy hour: some pubs now offer real
food, well hot thanks to hatplates or to the frequent arrival of new plates
from the kitchen. My favorite pub usually has a rice and a pasta (warm in
winter, cold in summer), bowls of baked potatoes & sausages and lots of
finger food such as tartines, potato croquettes, cold cuts and 2 kinds of
cubed bread and focaccia, fries, buffalo wings, cold buckwheat with veggies,
tomato salad, bits of herb pies... I like this trend a lot
--
"Un pasto senza vino e' come un giorno senza sole"
Anthelme Brillat Savarin