Joe's meeting had finished early, so he had the night to relax in a strange city before grabbing a bite to eat and returning to the hotel. Joe decided that he'd rather not eat at the hotel bar, so he wandered in to a local pub for a drink and hoping for some advice on where to grab a decent dinner.
The man at the door checked his ID and handed him a numbered card. Number 47. 'Great,' thought Joe. 'There's probably 42 other people in line before me.' He mentally shrugged and thought 'this might be good, though. It might counteract my normal property of invisibility to bartenders'.
Joe wandered in to the back of the crowd to see an unusual situation developing. The bartender was microphoned and began in an auctioneerning type speal: "Here's a smooth house Ale, sure to go down easy, finest Ale the house makes, i'll start the buiding at 1.25, do I hear 1.25? 1.25 to the man in the red tie, do I hear 1.50? 1.50 to the lady in the yellow hat, who will give me 1.75? 1.75 for a very nice house Ale, made just a fortnight ago, 1.75 to the man in the leather jacket, number 22......"
Joe noticed people holding their cards up and figured it all out. "Ah! I can get my beer NOW! and not have to wait to catch the bartender's eye. This is great!"
"Who'll give me 7.25? it's a good Ale, best in the city, do I hear 7.25? going at 7 even, going at 7 even, Sold! to the man with the glasses - number 47."
'Oops.' thought Joe. Well at least he got his Ale right away, relatively.-- Zimmy, Mar 16 2009 bidding_20for_20greens The idea that this reminded me of. [jutta, Mar 16 2009] Bidding for Ambers?-- jutta, Mar 16 2009 7.25? Puts me off this idea altogether. How about a reverse auction.... :p Well written idea and probably something in it [+]-- vincevincevince, Mar 17 2009 In a way, I think this is about halfway baked. I read about a bar that will set prices for drinks as if it's a stock exchange.
Short bourbon & diet coke's!-- Zimmy, Apr 27 2010 As the night goes on, the sale prices will undoubtedly get higher...+-- (mans)laughter, Apr 27 2010 Hmmm. One problem is that there are not a tightly limited number of drinks available. If this happened in our local, people would pretty quickly organise their own queueing system. Nobody would bid above the opening price, and everyone would get served in orderly rotation. That's what we English do: orderly and cheap.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 27 2010 We had a similar system in a bar I worked in. The drinks started cheap and the more of the same drink that was purchase raised the price and dropped the price of others. It was pretty good fun!
'Lads, better get on the San Miguel, some crazy guy bought all the Stella while it was rock bottom'-- S-note, Apr 28 2010 random, halfbakery