I we can jump back to some of the TableTap discussion for a second, here's an idea that is admittedly not unique (because I stole it from an existing European concept) but has a tiny twist that I think makes it a winner.
Networked Self-Service Bars
When I went to Central Europe (Vienna, Brno, Prague) two springs ago for a spring break trip/school project we stumbled across a nice little drinking establishment called
The Pub. There are a lot more of them now than there were then, but the idea was still in concept.
While you are free to order food and beer and all that good stuff, there is also a tap in the center of every table. One nice feature these taps had (outside of no pour limit) was that it had a digital screen and you could buy on each seat separately. So if you were going to split the check each seat could actually have its own bill.
But anyway, the cool part was that all of the taps at these locations were linked up and each restaurant had a huge projection screen that was showing a running count of which table was drinking the most beer in the restaurant, which restaurant was drinking the most beer in the country, and which tables were drinking the most beer in the country. It was outstanding. We had no idea this existed when we walked in, but you better believe we didn't leave until getting on the top-10 list for the entire Czech Republic.
You can imagine how well this would work in the right locations in the US. How do you decide those locations though?
Allow me to demonstrate.
You let Tuscaloosa, Auburn, Gainesville, Athens, Columbia, Baton Rouge, Fayetteville, Lexington, Nashville, Oxford, Starksboro, and Knoxville compete against each other in drinking? How does this not work?
The problems:
1) Liability. Like, a lot of it. I'm not sure encouraging college kids to binge drink is going to be well received the first time someone gets waaaay too drunk and either drives drunk and gets in a wreck or gets alcohol poisoning.
2) Liability. No, really.
3) Construction costs to build out a restaurant and get all the special equipment installed.