National Happy Hour Day Date in the current year: November 12, 2024

Happy hour is a time when bars, restaurants, and other venues offer discounted alcoholic drinks and menu items like appetizers in order to draw more customers outside of their peak business hours, typically sometime between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. The phrase “happy hour” has been known at least since Shakespearean times, but its use as a marketing term is, of course, much more recent.

In the late 1880s, the phrase “happy hour” began to appear in the names of women’s social clubs like “Happy Hour Club”, “Happy Hour Social Club” and similar. In early 1913, a group of homemakers calling themselves the “Happy Hour Social” organized regular smokers (informal social gatherings) aboard USS Arkansas. Eventually the crew began to refer to these smokers as “happy hours”.

By the end of World War I, the practice of holding scheduled periods of entertainment and calling them happy hours had spread throughout the United States Navy. They included music, dancing, movies, boxing and wrestling matches, and other forms of entertainment.

The roots of the tradition of drinking before dinnertime can be traced back to the Prohibition era. Following the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment and the enactment of the National Prohibition Act, people would attend “cocktail hours” or “happy hours” at speakeasies before having dinner at restaurants that could not serve alcohol. When Prohibition was lifted, cocktail lounges carried on the tradition of pre-dinner drinks.

The term “happy hour” was first used in its modern sense, referring to a time when a venue offers reduced price on drinks, in the 1950s. For several decades, happy hours were a common occurrence at bars throughout the United States. However, since the mid-1980s, some states have implemented bans on happy hours to prevent binge drinking, public drunkenness, and drunk driving. A number of states lifted their bans in the 2010s, but as of 2015, happy hour bans still existed in at least eleven states.

Bars and restaurants outside of the United States often hold happy hours as well, although some countries have certain restrictions and some have banned happy hours altogether. In Ireland, for example, happy hours are prohibited by the 2003 Intoxicating Liquor Act.

As we’ve already mentioned above, it is unclear who and when came up with the idea of celebrating National Happy Hour Day, but does it really matter? What matters is that you have an excuse to have a couple of drinks with your friends without stretching your budget too much.

If you live in an area that doesn’t allow happy hours, try to find a bar that offers “buy one get one free” and other all-day drink specials. Finally, you can simply invite your friends over for a cocktail party at your place. And don’t forget to snap a photo of your drink and share it on social media with the hashtags #NationalHappyHourDay and #HappyHourDay to spread the word.