'Smart bars' juice up beverage sales

Nation's Restaurant News, June 29, 1992 by Peter O. Keegan

by Peter O. Keegan

A handful of operators are wising up to the mainstream possibilities of "smart bars," a faddish "bar-within-a-bar" concept that touts a new generation of non-alcoholic, vitamin-charged cocktails called smart drinks.

Places sporting such trendy names as Brain/Wash, Mecca, Galaxy Diner, Lizard Lounge, the Smart Bar and Star Groove are targeting a young, hip crowd with signature drinks souped up with vitamins, minerals, Chinese herbs, amino acids and sometimes caffeine. Combined with water or fruit juice, smart drinks are said to increase awareness, memory and -- most important -- energy.

And while the chief draw at these fledgling operations tends to be powder-based drinks like Energy Plasma, IQ Booster, Blast, Energy Elicksure, Psuper Psonic Psyber Tonic and Oxysmart, many operators merchandise limited menus as well.

Ron Marks, owner of the Galaxy Diner and Bar in Housten, has just added smart drinks and is handing out samples to customers to stir interest. "It's a little marketing twist for us," Marks said.

"We just want to create more dimensions for the place."

Marks said the diner, which he describes as "a funky, Jetson space-age diner for the 1990s," is open 24 hours. So after 2 a.m., when the place has to step serving alcohol, it can offer "smart" alternatives. "We want to get them drunk during the night and then shift gears to wake them up," Marks said. Marks isn't certain how the smart drinks will go with his menu, which features everything from traditional to healthful fare. Nor is he even certain that smart drinks will be around a year from now. For the moment, however, he views them as one more way to boost sales. "We're not expecting miracles," Marks added. "We expect to be here when it [the smart-drink craze] comes and goes."

Many observers, in fact, are skeptical, pointing out that smart bars got off to a less-thanbrilliant start. The craze began in England a few years ago when smart bars pepped up at "Rave" parties -- underground non-alcoholic revels where many people would take a nonhallucinogenic drug called "Ecstasy" and then dance until dawn. Smart drinks, they said, gave them added energy.

Last summer, though, the trend spread to Los Angeles and San Francisco, where it began to attract a following more concerned with the physical boost associated with the drinks than with the drugs.

And with alcohol consumption in the doldrums and drinking ages up to 21 in most states, some operators quickly found that smart bars offered an alternative to underaged patrons and bar patrons not interested in consuming alcohol.

Whether Smart Bars are a passing fad spurred on by an increasingly health-conscious consumer or the wave of the future, the idea is spreading rapidly.

Even those observers who believe that smart drinks will have limited impact on the industry appear to be hedging their bets. "I think it' s a passing fad," said Bob Keene, the editor of Cheers, the magazine for bar operators. "But then if you told me 10 years ago that bottled waters would have taken off like they did, I would have thought you were crazy."

At Brain/Wash in San Francisco, a Laundromat that is also a smart bar and care, smart drinks are consumed during the soak cycle with foods like pizza, Chinese chicken salad, fruit salad, nachos, spinach salad or mulligatawny soup.

Owner Susan Schindler recently. launched the drinks so people can experience them without having to go to a nightclub or after-hours party. "Everybody has to see what works for their body ," said Schindler, who hopes to attract patrons from a new fitness gym upstairs. "I view it as a nutritional supplement. I know menopausal women who take Blast, and it seems to be a miracle drug for them."

Others are convinced that smart drinks are here to stay. "We call it Tang with a bang," said Tiffany McGinnis of Earth Girls, a Venice Beach, Calif.company that runs a smart bar and distributes its own smart drinks to other operators.

McGinnis claims that operators can make more than $100 on a $20 bottle of the powder, giving them a chance to boost profits more than with soda or juice. "It's catching on; we're all casualties of the 1980s, McGinnis said. "People are into life extension and feeling good instead of polluting their bodies with bad things."

At a place called the Smart Bar in The Flats district, a commercial area near downtown Cleveland, owner Angela VerDuyn began selling smart drinks in late January.

"Patrons claim that it gives them the ability to go all night, making.them more sociable, more talkative, and some have seen increases in their libido," VerDuyn said. "It replenishes the body. There's no hangover associated with it. It puts back what the alcohol takes out."

VerDuyn's club stays open until 4 a.m., two hours after local regulations require that it stop serving liquor. So after 2 a.m., patrons continue to dance and party with smart drinks.

"We sell a couple of hundred of them every weekend," VerDuyn said.

While places in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles charge from $4 to $6 for a smart drink, VerDuyn sells them for $1.50 to $2.50. "Margins are smaller, but we're making it up in volume," VerDuyn said.