So last week I was in Souther California for a week, and the group I was there with spent many a night down at a cool sports Grill in San Bernardino called Celebrities. We had some really huge bar bills last week, which brings me to the question: What is the biggest bar tab you've ever had by yourself, or with a group?

Our tabs last week:

$200 on my birthday...but only 5 of us drinking
over $700 Tuesday night....I dunno how many were drinking...
over $900 Thursday night. There was 25-30 of us drinking that night, and one person paid for it all. He literally is a billionaire(He and six buddies started up a tech company, and sold it at the height of the tech boom in the late 90's or so, or 9 billion dollars....).

I truely have never spent so many nights drunk, and days hung over in my life.


so how bout all of you guys?

I believe is was around 1100$ with about 12-15 of us at the Yellow Rose Gentlemens club on 6528 N. Lamar Blvd in Austin, TX. Was a friends 21st and he was being deployed to Iraq. I split the tab with a buddy from college.

in the late 90's I was working at a major Big 5 public accounting firm in Atlanta. The Atlanta office had approx 1200 people. The firm used to hold firmwide happy hours at local Atlanta bars. The tab for one of them exceed $17,000 one evening.

[Edited 2006-02-01 10:01:34]

The CEO of the leasing company I work for took everyone in the cooperate office out about six months ago for closing a huge deal ($15 billion) and restructuring a bunch of loans saving the company $3 billion over the next 7 years and bought everyone drinks for three hours the bill was over $49,000.00 (around 400 people). The board was not pleased that the money came from company funds. He got the bar to close to the public and a restaurant next to it so everyone could fit inside.

the biggest bar tab I have paid was 120 pounds, although we drank closer to 300 pounds worth of booze. although I have had tabs that I was told were 'on the house' that were higher than that.

Just before christmas I was out with 3 other mates for dinner - total for 4 of us with dinner & drinks was about $450. One of my mates drank $120 worth of double bourbons & coke. We of course carried on elsewhere for the rest of the night - just a warmup!

None really...bar tabs are not part of our culture as such. Brits pay for their drinks as they get them unless it's in a hotel bar or some other upmarket location.

I've run up a £200 bar bill in a restauraunt before now when out with friends (which is probably about $350) on top of food costs. Again we tend to pay for our drinks as they come, and many restauraunts here offer the choice of pay-as-you-go or on a tab. But drinks are billed separately to food anyway.

I suppose it's just a cultural thing but in bars especially we pay as they come.

Can anyone remember the tab we ran up at the MAD meet??  



Lee

[Edited 2006-02-01 14:10:29]

At one of my old companies we had to go to a big meeting over in the US, and Brits being Brits, decided to show the natives how to have a party. I'm pretty sure we did, because my bill was over $2,000 and I've no doubt my colleagues' were fairly similar.

Incidentally, that company's in Chapter 11 protection. Can't imagine why.   

As other Brits have said the 'running up a tab' isn't in our culture. When my brother was rowing at the finals of the Henley Royal Regatta a few years back my grandparents and uncles, aunts etc came to watch. My Uncle bought the first round which was a pint of Pimms for each of us (nine in total), plus three bottles of champagne and it came to over 500GBP.

As a poverty stricken student I wasn't looking forward to getting a round in but bought the next round and he gave me the cash for it after  

I think Henley Regatta is about the only place where you can spend 100GBP on booze that isn't champagne and not feel drunk....I dread to think how much I spent on those five days.

Last summer when my sister from Canada visited England, I took her, my other sister and her husband to see a show in the West End. We arrange to meet up with two other relatives at the American Bar at the Savoy Hotel in London for pre-theatre drinks. As I arrived at the hotel straight from work, they had been there for a while and were on their second or third drinks. As a special treat I ordered a bottle of Don Perigon which, at £225 per bottle, was not cheap! At the end I picked up the tab and despite requests from the others that they paid for the other drinks, I insisted on paying for everything. I was expecting a bill of £300 maximum but nearly died when they presented me with a bill for £425, just for 6 people. It turned out that normal spirits (single measures) and mixers were £12.50 each, cocktails from £15 each and bottled beers at £5 each.

Until recently I organised professional conferences that normally took place at top hotels. The bar tab for one conference came to over £4,000 but this included wine served with the meal to 370 delegates.

Depends, does that counts the cost of my car´s total loss after crashing for being drunk?

Bar tab alone : $30.00 I'm not a big drinker whilst alone...it's boring.

Group: $2,000 ish thank god for company credit cards.

Last year a colleague/friend took a bunch of us to Myrtle Beach for golf, we all went to a "Gentleman's" club for the evening.....the bill i was told tallied over $8,000.00 !!!

The entire trip cost $35,000 and that's including the private jet to get us there and back.

What a thrill!!

Quoting BCAL (Reply 10): I ordered a bottle of Don Perigon which, at £225 per bottle, was not cheap!

Don Perignon perhaps?

Quoting Jbmitt (Reply 13): Don Perignon perhaps?

Or even Dom Perignon

Riley

personal tab: Tony's in St. Louis at $310.00.

group: at the Ritz Carlton in St. Louis on New Year's eve in December of 2002 we (family = 15) ran up a hell of a tab in the lobby lounge which began with cocktails and light fare at lunch and proceeded late into the evening with a consistent flow of martini's, more light fares, sushi, two bottles of Dom, a very expensive cognac, sandwiches, chocolates, chocolates, and more chocolates.

i won't even bother posting the total amount when we cashed out some 15 hours later because it would come across as too pompous. it was ridiculous but tons of fun.

Me and a friend in a 5* hotel in London spent £300 on whiskey in 2.5 hours. For that amount of money I at least expected to be drunk!

I've been to semi-expensive restaurants and strip clubs, but the most I've spent in a single night is still under $500. I guess if you added up what everyone spent it would be over $1,000 but that's still well below what some of you other guys spend pi$$ing the night away.

Quoting Myt332 (Reply 16): Me and a friend in a 5* hotel in London spent £300 on whiskey in 2.5 hours. For that amount of money I at least expected to be drunk!

Library Bar at the Lanesborough?

Quoting Fbgdavidson (Reply 9): I think Henley Regatta is about the only place where you can spend 100GBP on booze that isn't champagne and not feel drunk....I dread to think how much I spent on those five days.

I dunno...some of the posher hotel bars which serve extremely rare spirits and wines can bash your wallet.

There's one hotel in London that has a mega-rare malt whisky which will set you back a couple of hundred a tot. It's a hundred years old or so and worth a few grand a bottle but they serve it to customers. A friend in the trade told me of a group of wealthy Americans who regularly come to London to smoke Cuban cigars and drink fine old whisky, and can easily run up a bar bill into tens of thousands.

Marco Pierre White's restauraunts also have fantastic wine lists with some vino going for up to a grand a bottl or more. His places always have incredible booze selections as he's as much into his wine as his food.

[Edited 2006-02-02 08:32:38]

About 6 of us went out to celebrate a pals birthday back in about 1992. We were all broke at the time, so buddy "borrowed" his dad's credit card. Somehow word got around that he was paying for everything so pretty soon the ground swelled to around 20. It was in Vancouver where you could only drink in a restaurant if you were eating, so we satisfied that legal requirement with a few snacks (looking back we were probably in a restaurant because it was easier than a bar for our dear underaged friends to get served!!) and the jugs of marguaritas just kept on coming ALL night long whether we were asking for them or not. Everyone was pretty out of it, when at about 2am the place wants to close, my pal's credit card is refused.... oops... turns out no-one else seems to have any cash either, so next thing I recall is the whole group making a run for it... Next day we decide that we have to make it right with the restaurant, especially as one of my idiot friends left his leather jacket and walet behind anyway. They start demanding about $900 including a $200 tip they kindly added to the bill. There is no way we can pay, and it's pretty obvious that they are trying it on anyway so in the end we settle at around $400 on the basis that they don't call the cops on us, and we don't get them fined $150 for every or of the 12 or so underage drinkers!

Quoting WhiteHatter (Reply 19): I dunno...some of the posher hotel bars which serve extremely rare spirits and wines can bash your wallet. There's one hotel in London that has a mega-rare malt whisky which will set you back a couple of hundred a tot. It's a hundred years old or so and worth a few grand a bottle but they serve it to customers. A friend in the trade told me of a group of wealthy Americans who regularly come to London to smoke Cuban cigars and drink fine old whisky, and can easily run up a bar bill into tens of thousands.

Fair enough but I'm not a massive whisky fan  So 100GBP on Pimms & beer and not getting drunk is daft 

And the hotel you refer to sounds very much like the Library Bar at the Lanesborough. The 100yr old whisky is I believe a Macallan and my father is a great Macallan fan and has been saying 'we' should go sample. I'll stay away from the whisky though.

well as a nice gesture to my family, i paid for the open bar at my sisters wedding last fall.

so you get 160 guests, an open bar for 5 hours, five bartenders and, well...you can figure out that left me feeling a bit empty of pocket for a good few weeks.