After the indulgent drinking that can occur during the holidays, many people adopt the New Year’s resolution known as “Dry January.”
The season of sobriety in which people give up drinking till the end of the month appears to be a growing trend. While healthy for the consumer, this resolution could have a negative impact on bars.
Lukas Havlicek, who has been a bartender in San Francisco for about 20 years has noticed more people drying out since he first heard of the behavior two years ago.
“People are just thinking that taking the entire month off is a great thing to do,” said Havlicek, adding that he's noticed customers abstaining. “A lot of people come in to get food or they get water and they don’t buy any drinks at all.”
Niles Marthinson works at Belle Cora, a wine bar in San Francisco's North Beach. He agreed that business tends to slow down in January, but said there are many reasons for that.
Business tends to slow down in January, but there could be other reasons for that, said Niles Marthinson who works at Belle Cora, a wine bar in San Francisco's North Beach.
“It seems like the nature of the drinking culture has changed a lot, because of high rents,” said Marthinson. “I think a lot of the people that were going out, a lot of the people that work in bars, have had to move over to Oakland.”
Marthinson said he knows people who take an annual month off from drinking, but his friends tend to do it in February, because it is the shortest month of the year.