Blackout Wednesday?

Blackout Wednesday: Thanksgiving Eve is one of the busiest nights of the year.

(The Incline)

The day before Thanksgiving is traditionally one of the busiest of the year for America’s fine purveyors of beers, wines and distilled spirits, on par with New Year’s Eve. It’s even dubbed Blackout Wednesday – need we say more?

“The whole weekend of Thanksgiving is usually pretty busy,” said “Bear” McKenna, a long-time bartender at the William Penn Tavern in Shadyside. “People are back in town and haven’t seen each other in months. They’re tired of seeing their families and want to come out and blow off some steam.”

Others have pointed out that almost everyone has Thanksgiving Day off, no one wants to entertain people at home the night before, everyone is back in town, and Thanksgiving dinner is itself an ideal hangover cure. How convenient. All in attempting to explain the Blackout Wednesday phenomenon.

The rest of us *may* also have families that drive us to drink. But that’s a discussion for another day.

“Do people need alcohol more on the holidays? I’m not sure they need alcohol more, but they partake in it more,” said Lisa Zech, a server at the North Park Lounge in McCandless.

Mostly, she added, people come out on Blackout Wednesday to “see old friends and start the holiday season off right – and nobody wants to cook either.”