Seattle happy hour pricing, benchmarked

The short answer

What Seattle charges, citywide

The number to check yourself against before you look at anything else.

Discounts are each venue's own average across its priced items, then the median of those venue figures. "Most common start" is counted over windows, not venues — a bar open seven days contributes seven starts, which is the right grain for the question "what time does this city open the bar". Window length is the opposite: each venue's own median first, then the median across venues.

Your block is its own market

The citywide number above is an average of places that have nothing to do with each other. Two Seattle blocks a mile apart run happy hours that look nothing alike — a different number of competitors, opening at different times, cutting to different depths. Here is the shape of each block we can measure: how many venues run a happy hour, how long the window is, and when the market opens.

And the depths are not close. The deepest-discounting block in Seattle cuts food 17 points deeper than the shallowest one. Knowing which side of that your block sits on is the whole game — a citywide median fits neither end of it.

A neighborhood needs 5 venues running a happy hour before it gets a row, and a column needs 5 venues carrying a measured value before it states a number. Below that a dash — not a zero. A dash means we did not measure enough of that block to call it, never that the block has nothing there.

Too few venues to publish a row yet: First Hill, International District, North Beacon Hill.

How to use this without starting a price war

• Match the band, not the deepest cut. Your competitor's 50% off is one venue. The citywide median is the middle of the market, and your block has a middle of its own. Landing inside the band makes you competitive; going under it makes you the cheapest, which is a different business.
• Discount the side the market discounts. Seattle cuts food harder than drinks — 28% against 22%. Pour cost is where the margin is, so matching the food number and holding the drink number is the common shape, not a compromise.
• Hours are a lever before price is. The median window is 2 hours and most of the city opens at 4:00 pm. Starting earlier or running later costs you nothing per cover and puts you in an emptier field than another five points off does.
• Check the days before you cut the price. 76% of venues running a happy hour run one on at least one weekend day. Whichever side of that number you are on is a positioning decision you can make this week without touching a menu price.

What this can't tell you

This is menu-side data, not POS data. We read what venues publish — happy hour prices against their own regular prices, and the hours they advertise — so it tells you what the market offers and says nothing about what anybody sells. No covers, no check averages, no food or pour cost, no idea whether a single one of these discounts is profitable. It also can't tell you what share of Seattle's restaurants run a happy hour at all: HapHunt indexes the ones that do, so the denominator here is our tracked set, never the city's restaurant count. And a median is a middle, not a target — half the market is on each side of it by definition. Use it to find out where you're standing, then decide on purpose whether to stay there.

If you're setting the price

This page benchmarks discounts, windows and coverage. How to price a happy hour in Seattle is the other half: median happy hour and regular prices by category — what a cocktail, a beer, a glass of wine and a plate actually go for — plus how deep the discounts run across every priced item.