Happy Hour

Happy Hour is a marketing term for a period of time in which a restaurant or bar ^{bar (establishment)} offers discounts on alcoholic drinks, such as beer, wine, and cocktails.

Typically, it is in the late afternoon Monday through Thursday, usually taking place at some period between 4 PM and 7 PM. This promotion is intended to boost business on what may otherwise be a slow day. In most cases the "happy hour" lasts longer than a single hour.

The term Happy Hour also is commonly used to describe the gathering of work colleagues at a restaurant or bar after work hours, possibly outside the period of 4 PM and 7 PM.

The specifics usually differ from country to country. In some European countries like the Netherlands, the price of an alcoholic drink is regulated and selling them at half price is prohibited. During happy hour, a customer gets double the amount of drinks instead. In Italy, a customer often pays the same price or even more for the drink but is offered free fingerfoods. In the United States it typically entails finger foods and discounted drinks; sites like exist as a guide to happy hours.

  The term originated in the United States Navy. In the 1920s, “Happy Hour” was slang ^{wikt:Appendix:U.S. Navy slang} for a scheduled entertainment period on board a ship during which boxing and wrestling bouts took place, this was a valuable opportunity for sailors to let off the steam accumulated during the long periods at sea. “Happy” in this context meant slightly drunk.

The idea of drinking before dinner has its roots in the Prohibition era. When the 18th Amendment ^{Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution} and the Volstead Act were passed banning alcohol consumption, citizens would host “cocktail hours”, also known as “happy hours”, at a speakeasy (an illegal drinking establishment) before eating at restaurants where alcohol could not be served. Cocktail lounges continued the trend of drinking before dinner. "Happy hour" entered civilian use around 1960, especially after a Saturday Evening Post article on military life in 1959.The push against drunk driving and alcohol abuse has curtailed the use of the happy hour to some extent.

In the 1980s, bars started providing free hors d'oeuvres to patrons in order to reduce the rate of absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, in an attempt to lower blood alcohol content.

Happy hour has been illegal in the Republic of Ireland since 2003 under the Intoxicating Liquor Act.

Glasgow has banned happy hours to reduce binge drinking .

In 1984, the U.S. Military abolished happy hours at military base clubs.

Massachusetts was one of the first U.S. States to implement a state-wide ban on Happy Hours in 1984.

The Canadian province of Alberta created restrictions to Happy Hours that took effect in August 2008. All such promotions must end at 8 PM, and drink prices must conform to the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission's ^{Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission} minimum price regulations at all times.