Funny, we always thought drinking was its own reward.
Turns out Park Slope bar Pacific Standard thinks we need to be further encouraged, so they are pulling a page from the American Express playbook to show loyal patrons that membership does indeed have its privileges.
For a one-time payment of $10, you get a membership ID with your picture on it; and you have your choice of backgrounds — either “a drawing of you fighting a whaleshark [while] riding an Abrams tank, with nothing but your bulging muscles and a harpoon-like device, or a picture of you in a field with various cute creatures,” according to Pacific Standard’s rewards pamphlet.
The card entitles you to drink specials unavailable to non-members, including an all-night happy hour from Sunday opening to Tuesday closing. As a member, you are also allowed to borrow books from the bar’s library, and make use of beer cozies while at the bar.
The main benefit of membership, though, is that the more you drink, the more “yards” you earn. These “yards” can be applied to any number of rewards ranging from the standard (a pizza from neighboring Cherry Tree tavern after 200 yards, or $200 spent) to the frivolous (a sonnet in your honor drafted by bar owner John Rauschenberg, for 400 yards).
When we went in to inquire this afternoon, owner John Stan (pictured) told us, over a freely offered frothy pint of Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale, “We aren’t trying to promote binge drinking here. It’s not like you can come in and earn a dinner at Al Di La with one big bar tab. Rewards come to those who keep coming in every day for a beer or two over the course of a year. We’re not trying to fill the place with alcoholics.”
Still, it stands to reason that you’ll get to that roundtrip flight to California — “land of milk, honey and produce, where burritos drop from the trees and microbrews flow in bright, bubbly streams” at a cost of 7000 yards — faster if you have six or eight pints a night rather than one or two. We’re just saying.
Pacific Standard (82 Fourth Ave. at St. Marks Place in Park Slope) is open Monday through Friday, from 4 pm to 4 am, and weekends, from noon to 4 am. For information, call (718) 858-1951 or visit www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com.
