Price of one pint of British Empire at 8.30 p.m: Rs. 166; the same at 10 p.m: Rs. 173. This, as it turns out, is not a menu malfunction; it’s how the pricing works at The Vault Bar Stock Exchange, the new pub that opened in T. Nagar a few weeks ago. The interiors — complete with stock tickers displayed on LED boards like in Times Square, and the Stock Market bull just like the one on Wall Street — do justice to the name. It’s all business, except, the boards blink the names of martinis, mojitos and margaritas, instead of GOOG (Alphabet Inc.), MSFT (Microsoft), and so on. The prices change every minute. ‘Why is this happening?’ we ask Iyappan Mani, the bar manager, confused about the fickle figures. He opens The Vault app on his phone, and runs his finger along a column marked ‘Lowest Price’. At the start of the day, the bar, using its app, decides on the lowest price of the drinks ( a beer was Rs. 100 in the morning). As the day progresses, and people start placing orders, the app begins to calculate the pricing of the drinks, based on demand.
On a side note, those at the restaurant can actually order their drinks through the app, by selecting the drink of their choice and the table number. “If more people order for beer, the beer price escalates,” he says. It takes time for us to register, more so with a half-empty glass of Long Island Iced Tea, an empty beer bottle on our table, and a faint ‘With or Without You’ (by U2) playing in the background.
“So, the trick is to order more at a shot. If you are a group of three, order the maximum number of drinks (also mocktails) you are sure you can drink, while you are here. The more you wait, the more the prices shoot up,” he says, leaving us on that note. We place the next order without waiting to take the final swig of what is there, and quickly scan the tables of the rest of the visitors, to check if they were ordering the same. What they drink, unfortunately, is our business too. Suddenly, the display boards turn red, the music stops, and for a second, we wonder whether to continue munching on the stuffed mushrooms (seasoned with spinach and cheese), samosas (spinach and feta with garlic), quesadilla, chicken meatballs, and nachos. “It’s just the Market Crash,” a staff tells us. When the screens come back to life, the prices of the drinks have plummeted by several rupees (by 10 to 15 per cent). This is something that happens when the prices of drinks hit the maximum, we learn.The concept doesn’t apply to food.
So, even as our table gets crowded with lean glasses and pitchers, we take our time ordering the main course — a generous plate of Arabiatta, mushroom stroganoff, classic bangers and mash (smoky sausages with cheesy mashed potatoes in red wine sauce). The menu is being worked on and should be set soon. Enough time for Chennai to learn the business of drinks.
The Vault Bar Stock Exchange is located at 22, Venkatanarayana Road, T. Nagar.
