Bikinis and Beer

What is it about a girl in a bikini that makes you stop and buy some beer? Who knows?

There’s one of those drive through beer stores in Dallas on Greenville Ave. At first glance, it looks like a small auto repair shop, but the closer you get it’s simply a warehouse that has two large garage doors at each end with two drive-through lanes that go all the way through the building. Coolers line the walls and there’s a casher’s desk stuck right in the middle. You turn in, go around to the back of the building, pull in through one of the lanes, buy your beer and pull back out onto Greenville all without ever getting out of your car.

It’s been there for several years.

Driving by one day this summer I noticed a couple of bikini-clad girls sitting out front under a big umbrella. Contrary to what I’m forced to assume is the owner’s plan, the first thought that popped into my mind wasn’t, “Hey, I need some beer!” but rather, “I wonder what they’ll do if I honk my horn?”

Sadly, mine must not have been the first horn they had heard that day, because I honked twice and they never even moved.

But it left me wondering…

This guy hires these girls to sit out in front of his store to attract business. (Now I don’t mean to be sexist here, but you have to admit it sounds like a guy owns this place) Does he really think that’s going to help drum up customers? Even if it does, how do you measure the cost effectiveness of this kind of marketing?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have the occasional drive-by bikini sighting, but I just don’t understand the thinking behind this scheme. I’ve never driven by while someone was actually buying beer. Maybe the girls carry the beer to the car, or take the money, or dance, or something.

However, here’s the real quandary. We’re into January and it’s no longer bikini weather, not even here in Texas. I’m driving by yesterday and I see a girl sitting not in a bikini, but jeans with a parka. Not only that, but she was reading a newspaper and once again didn’t look up when I honked.

So what is it about a girl in a bikini that makes you stop and buy some beer?

The world may never know.