Charlottesville Bar Removes All but One Shelf to Advertise Top-Shelf Liquor to UVA Bros

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — A restaurant near the University of Virginia campus announced innovative plans today to consolidate all of their liquor to a single shelf to appeal to the members of Greek life that frequent the bar.

Slippery Pete’s, a Preston Avenue establishment that opened in 2002, came up with the idea as an effort to cater to the high levels of fraternity regulars. According to owner Charlie Stevenson, the new setup will make the lower quality liquors easier to upsell.

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“Our regular customers from the frats like Delta Upsilon and Alpha Sigma Phi always come in and specifically ask for ‘top-shelf whiskey’ or ‘a gin and tonic made with the best gin we’ve got,’ but we’re pretty sure these kids don’t actually know what any of the brands actually are,” Stevenson explained, suggesting that the customers’ only deciding factor seems to be what shelf the liquor is placed on.

“So we think by creating just one shelf, we’ll eliminate the ‘top shelf’ mentality and can help diversify their tastes by selling them cheap shit that they wouldn’t drink otherwise.”

As a result, Stevenson and his staff have constructed a new shelf featuring all of the bar’s liquor options, lined up in no particular order.

“Now, all of our liquor — ranging from higher quality spirits such Grey Goose and Maker’s Mark to the bottom-of-the-barrel brands like Aristocrat — will be mixed together on one single shelf for the fraternity crowd appeal.”

“It made the shelf a little longer, but from a marketing perspective, that also makes it look a little bigger, so win-win,” he added.

Stevenson also believes that even though the bar will be serving drinks made with lower quality ingredients to customers that aren’t used to them, he doesn’t expect them to be able to tell the difference. “There’s no way some 21-year-old jock from Alpha Tau Omega who typically orders a Woodford and Coke with his parent’s credit card will be able to tell we made it with Evan Williams and, you know, upped the price a bit.”

“We threw a few Bud Light bottles into the lineup, too,” he continued. “When you see a Bud Light sitting between Patron and a handle of Macallan 12 Year, that $2 beer suddenly looks like a craft imported from Belgium worth $8.”

The final part of the transformation involves changing the name of the establishment altogether: the restaurant plans to rebrand itself as Slippery Pete’s VIP Highlife. The staff is already considering a similar strategy for the kitchen menu.

“If this turns out to be a success,” Stevenson said, “we plan on doing something similar with the lunch and dinner menus by adding in the origin of every single ingredient to make it seem more valuable and authentic.”

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