A Chicago club's open bar pays off at 1.08 drinks/guest/hour

A corporate client books a 120-person holiday reception for three hours and asks the question I get on almost every December call: should we do an open bar at a price per person, or pay for what people drink? Some add a third: why not a cash bar, so it costs us nothing?

Each answer has a number behind it, and the number is easy to compute from the venue's own price sheet. What isn't easy is the other half of the equation, how much this particular crowd will drink. The math below comes from eight 2026 price sheets: what they charge on top, and where state law limits a fixed-price open bar.

The break-even is one division

Almost every sheet I read offers the same three options. A hosted package priced per person by the hour. A hosted bar billed on consumption, per drink. And a cash or no-host bar, where guests pay at a slightly higher price.

To compare the first two, divide the package price by the hours times the hosted price of one drink. The result is how many drinks each counted guest has to average per hour before the package is the better deal.

West Baden Springs Hotel's 2026 banquet menu in Indiana prices its Deluxe package at $41 for two hours, and a hosted Deluxe cocktail or house wine at $11.01. That's $41 ÷ (2 × $11.01) = 1.86 drinks per guest per hour. Below that, consumption is cheaper.

The Metropolitan Club in Chicago's Willis Tower, with pricing valid through December 31, 2026, charges $52 for three hours of its Level I package and $16 for a Level I wine or cocktail on consumption. That's $52 ÷ (3 × $16) = 1.08 drinks per hour.

The service charge usually doesn't change the comparison. West Baden adds 23% and the Metropolitan Club 22%, and as I read both sheets it applies to the package and to hosted drinks alike, so it cancels out. Check that on any sheet you quote from.

The drink mix does change it. If the room drinks beer, use the beer price. At West Baden's $7.11 domestic beer, the same two-hour package needs 2.88 drinks an hour to pay off, and consumption almost certainly wins.

Every extra hour lowers the bar

Look down the table and the pattern is plain: longer packages break even at lower rates. West Baden's first hour costs $28, which needs 2.54 drinks to pay off. Each hour after the third is $12, about 1.09 drinks. The Metropolitan Club's Level I goes from 2.0 drinks in one hour to 0.92 over four. On these sheets the first hour is the most expensive, and each extra hour costs less.

An off-premise caterer can push this further. Blue Moon Caterers in Wichita sells a Premium open bar at $23 per person for up to five hours. On a tab, its Premium cocktails are $8. That breaks even at about 2.9 cocktails per guest across the whole evening, under 0.6 an hour over five hours.

For a one-hour reception before a dinner, I'd quote consumption first. For a four-hour party, the break-even on these sheets falls to between 0.92 (Metropolitan Club) and 1.41 (West Baden) drinks an hour, so the package wins unless the crowd drinks less than that. That's the number the next section can't pin down.

No hotel sheet says how much guests drink

The break-even only helps if you know what to compare it with, and that number is the weak link.

The closest thing to a published planning number comes from Canada: Brandon University's 2024 bar services sheet in Manitoba budgets hosted bars at "1.5 consumptions per hour." A Q&A in EXHIBITOR Magazine with Lisa Gentilin, a meeting planner, says "people tend to consume 2 to 2.5 drinks per hour" at a hosted bar, and 1.5 at a cash bar. That's one planner's experience, undated.

At 1.5 drinks an hour, West Baden's two-hour package loses to consumption and the Metropolitan Club's three-hour package wins. At 2 to 2.5, the package wins everywhere in the table. The answer flips on an assumption nobody has published data for.

A package bills the guests who don't drink

The break-even is per counted guest, and counting is the venue's call. The Metropolitan Club's sheet is blunt: "Host is charged per person regardless of the amount consumed." Hilton Columbus Downtown ties the package count to the meal guarantee, with a two-hour minimum.

Corporate rooms often include people who don't drink, or who have one glass of wine and switch to soda. Say 30 of 100 guests won't drink. At West Baden's two-hour break-even of 1.86, the 70 who do now need to average about 2.66 drinks an hour for the package to make sense.

Some venues price that in. Publick House in Sturbridge, Massachusetts charges $3.50 per person per hour for guests under 21 on its flat-fee bar. If a venue doesn't, ask the client for a non-drinker estimate before you recommend the package.

A cash bar still has a floor

The client who picks a cash bar to spend nothing usually ends up paying something. Most sheets set a minimum or fee the host pays when sales fall short, plus labor (The Railyard lists minimums against sales but doesn't say who covers a shortfall):

Published ratios run from one bartender per 50 guests to one per 150, and Fairfield Inn Madison staffs a cocktail reception at 1 per 50 against 1 per 75 for dinner. That spread matters more on a cash bar, where a slow line also means lower sales toward the minimum. Marcus covers the other per-guest bar counts, ice and glassware, in his bar setup post.

Guests also pay more per drink than the host would. West Baden's cash cocktail is $12 against $11.01 hosted, about 9% higher. I suspect tax is built in, though the sheet doesn't say so. The Railyard's does: its cash prices include tax, and its host prices are plus tax.

On hosted bars, read what the service charge actually is. On the sheets that have one, it runs from 20% to 26%. Publick House reaches 26% with an 18% service charge plus an 8% "fees & commission" line. At Hilton Columbus, the 25% splits into a 13% gratuity paid to staff and a 12% service charge the hotel keeps, which the sheet says is "not a gratuity." Blue Moon has no service charge and puts out a tip jar.

Three states exempt private events; Utah's venues can't sell a package

None of this is legal advice; it's what the published rules say. Several states ban selling unlimited drinks for a fixed price. In three of the ones I checked, private events are exempt.

• Massachusetts. 204 CMR 4.03 bans unlimited drinks for a fixed price "except at private functions not open to the public." Publick House's flat per-guest bar is a working example. Two rules have no exception, even at a private event: the licensee can't give drinks away, and can't serve more than two drinks to one person at a time.
• New York. As I read ABC Law §117-a, the fixed-price ban doesn't apply to private functions not open to the public, such as weddings, banquets and receptions.
• Illinois. 235 ILCS 5/6-28 has the same private-function exception. A separate "party package" rule caps those packages at three hours, in a dedicated space, with wristbands or lanyards marking who's in. The Alcohol Policy Resource Center's summary of the 2015 law says private functions "are not subject to the 'party package' 3-hour time limit." Confirm with the licensee which of the two your event is booked under.
• Utah. Utah Code 32B-5-305, in the version effective March 13, 2026, bars a retail licensee from furnishing "an indefinite or unlimited number of alcoholic products during a set period for a fixed price." That section has no private-function exception. Utah's event permits are a separate statute: 32B-9-204, effective May 6, 2026, allows a fixed-price unlimited bar under an event permit only if it's a seated event, food is available the whole time, and nobody advertises the unlimited drinks.

When the venue or a licensed caterer pours, they're the licensee and the rule binds them, not your client; under a Utah event permit it binds the permittee. The open-bar liability post covers who holds the license and what the contract hands back to the host.

What I'm not going to give you

An average number of drinks per guest per hour. I found no US hotel or industry association that publishes one. The wedding-blog rule of two drinks the first hour and one after is folklore until someone shows data.

Whether drink tickets are billed as issued or as redeemed. None of the 2026 sheets I read says, and it changes the bill by every ticket left in a pocket.

A national average bar spend per guest. I couldn't find a credible survey.

What to do

1. Divide before you recommend. Package price ÷ (hours × hosted drink price), using the drink this crowd will actually order.
2. Build your own drinks-per-hour number from past events: drinks rung up, divided by guests and hours. Keep it by event type. The pour-cost post covers counting the bar side accurately.
3. Ask for a non-drinker count and price minors separately if the venue allows it.
4. Put the cash-bar floor in the proposal: the minimum, the bartender fees and who pays a shortfall. The holiday minimums post covers the larger food-and-beverage minimum it sits inside.
5. Check the state rule before selling a fixed-price package outside a private function. In Utah, a licensed venue can't sell one at all, and an event permit allows it only at a seated event with food.

Disclosure: I work at Katalyst, which sells restaurant POS and catering software. Software can count the drinks; it can't tell you how a particular client's team drinks, and that's the number the whole quote rests on.

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