The overhead costs of bars in Lanzarote

The cost of having a drink in Lanzarote is always a debatable topic.

The difference between price and value is often lost during such debates. I've paid €4 for a bottle of Heineken in some bars and felt this to be better value for money than paying €2 for the same thing in another bar.

Live music is cited as being the reason why some places (mostly Irish bars) charge more for drinks. This is just an excuse in some cases, however, since the cost of live entertainment varies much more than the cost of drinks. For example, there's a bar in the Old Town of PDC (now closed, unfortunately) whose live music costs were in the region of €650 per night. Yet, they only charged the same as other live music bars whose nightly entertainment costs would be closer to €150; that is, 75% less than there own.

Live entertainment is only part of the equation anyway. Let's move onto staff costs. These, in general, will be fairly stable, with total staff costs fluctuating up and down in line with the size of the establishment (larger bar = more staff and more staff costs, but more income - in theory at least!)

Rent is the really big one. Bars that are in situ with a while should--if they have a reasonable landlord--be paying less than ones that opened in the late noughties. This is changing too though and the price of renting/buying should come down in line with the amount of locales now lying vacant. Such a drop is not guaranteed, however, especially given the traditional immobility of Spanish landlords.

Given that most of us don't know what the overheads are in any particular bar we walk into, then it's hard to say definitively whether we're getting value for money or not. Take the advice of a fool: if the staff are friendly, the toilets clean and the beer cold, then chances are you will get value for your money. If you feel like you're not getting value for money, then pay for the one drink you had and simply walk into the bar next door.