Do you want to snack with me?
Did you stay at a hotel recently? In the 70’s and 80’s, almost every hotel in the world boasted a minibar full of snacks and drinks. Nowadays, minibars are vanishing from most hotels and the few that are left are often empty. What happened?
Minibar History
The minibar (a small refrigerator filled with drinks and snacks for the guest to purchase) was invented in the 1960s by Siegas, a German company.
Opened in the ‘60s, the Madison Hotel (in Washington, DC) was the first to offer a minibar in every room. In 1974, the Hong Kong Hilton offered a minibar with liquor in each of its 840 rooms, boosting drink sales by 500 percent! In the ‘70s and ‘80s, major chains around the world followed suite, making it a common amenity. In 1987, during the Washington Summit, a minibar even played a role in ending the Cold War! Mikhail Gorbachev stayed at the Madison Hotel and paid $1,400 in minibar alcohol charges in one night. That’s over $3,000 today!