Are there any neighborhood bars or pubs that allow their patrons to run a tab nowadays?

It was some 30 years ago when I last did so, but I would be surprised if it is still not done.

Most of the bars I’ve had the “Tab” on, they usually held on to your credit card, but there are some that I’ve been to where it was just, “Ok, what’s the damage?” and they racked up what I drank. They’re still out there, it’s usually a dive, but they do exist.

When I was a server in a bar in Philly, geez six years ago…People ran tabs all the time. But, you had to give me your credit card. I either gave it to the bartender to put in a drawer, or I held onto it in my pocket. This was a college bar type area, so we didn’t allow a tab to be made without having a credit card.
I can do this at the bar down the street as well.

There are some in my town that still do that.yay!!!

Wait a tick… Aren’t you a little young to be comsuming? ;P

Yes, I’ve been to several that let you do that…not from week to week, but over the course of the night….

I’m confused, you can run a tab anywhere. Do you mean opening a tab without a card of some sort? Like just paying with cash after you close it?

@AstroChuck Do you mean run a tab as in give your card and pay before you leave, or run a tab as in “Bye Bob the Bartender… payday is Friday so we’ll settle up then”?

I have noticed quite a few in Britain, but never in Sydney….

@Blackberry- There was a time where certain regulars would “run a tab” as opposed to just paying at the end of the night. Perhaps they would pay it of at the first of every month or however the establishment set this line of credit up.
Just think Norm from Cheers.

@AstroChuck Oh I see, that’s pretty cool. But I doubt anyone does that now unless it’s in a small town, ‘where everyone knows your name’.

Cheers.

I’ve never encountered a pub in the UK that still does, but I’ve been in several in other countries that did (Spain, Netherlands and Canada). There are restaurants in my home town that will let you run a bar tab but in a restaurant its different because people generally pay at the end anyway.

Most of the bars I’ve been in will allow you to run a tab for the night, but not for any longer than that. I’m sad that I was born too late to experience the other kind… seems like a friendly way to do business.

At my town’s bar, yes there is just one, we run a tab for the evening, but pay before we leave.
I suppose I could ask to pay later, and the owner probably would let me.
It is a bit of a Cheers kind of place.
I would never give my credit card to anyone, I didn’t know that was the way some places handled that.

I’ve never been to a bar that didn’t let you run a tab for the night. They hold your credit card til you pay, and there’s a fine if you leave it overnight.

It seems less prominent than before indeed, but I’m sure some places do, still.

There are some live music places in East Village that will. Small ones.

There are bars around my area that run tabs for regulars. My friend has a tab at one, and he just pays them some money whenever he gets paid. I don’t know if he ever fully gets it paid, but he pays on it every couple weeks.

It’s a common occurrence in our area for neighborhood bars to carry a tab for their regular customers. They probably wouldn’t for any new comers.

There are a few bars here that let you start a tab. I can think of four off the top of my head. In some of them they only do it for regulars. In one that I know of they hold your card in a deck behind the counter and add receipts to it and charge you one lump sum when you leave. At another one, where they do it for the regulars, they just write down what you got next to your name.