BE 629: Should You Have a Drink During a Business Lunch?

This is the Business English Podcast episode 629. Should you have a drink during a business lunch? Welcome to the Business English Podcast from All Ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.

For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.

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Hey there, Aubrey. I'm doing pretty good. What are we talking about today? We have an interesting topic on the show. This is a very interesting topic.

I have a question for you. Have you ever ordered a drink during a business lunch? Yeah, that's a good question. I don't really do business lunches that much, to be honest.

I work from home. So no, but I do order drinks when I go to conferences. Like if I do a dinner, probably not at lunch, but if I have a dinner with someone – that maybe I'm interested in doing business with or a group of other colleagues in the field.

I'll get a drink in those moments. But what about you, Aubrey? Yeah, this is interesting. I used to go to business lunches a lot when I worked for a university's MBA program with either professors or other, you know, we would do business lunches some.

And I also worked for an attorney for a while, basically as a paralegal. And we would go to business lunches with clients a lot. And no one ever ordered alcohol. a drink, right?

And I wasn't drinking at the time, but all of them could have, would have, would have had a drink at night. But at lunch, no one ever did. And this is really interesting. I know this is very cultural.

It's very possible that around the world, this is different depending on where you're doing business. But in the States, very rare to order a drink at lunch these days. But it wasn't always that way, right? Yeah.

It wasn't always that way. Maybe there's some exceptions that people are still doing it in certain industries. I don't know. But the average person would generally, I feel like people order like iced tea, ice water, you know, boring things.

And I actually, because I wasn't sure, you and I both don't have business lunches very often. So I texted a few businessmen that I know. One was a banker and two of them in sales to get their feedback to like try and test the waters. What's this like in American business culture now?

Right. So I'm going to share that a little later in the episode. We're also going to share some details about how this has evolved in American culture and American business culture. Because we recently saw an article where someone was sort of submitting that we should bring back drinking during business lunches.

And they made some very interesting and compelling, honestly, points. Yeah. Interesting. But first we do want to announce the results of a poll that we recently asked in a recent episode.

What was the poll question, Aubrey? Yes. We asked, how many emails do you receive each day? We got quite a few responses. This was interesting. Less than 25 was 33%.

25 to 50 was 45%. That's a lot. Yeah. And 50 to 75 was a poor 22% of you. I feel so bad for you. You're right there with them, though. I feel like, Lindsay, wouldn't you get about that many?

Kind of. On a bad day, yes. On the weekend, for sure. Yeah. Wow. Well, I kind of love that there's solidarity for listeners out there. If you are getting 50 to 75 email, you're not alone.

But also, we feel bad. That's got to be rough. Yeah, for sure. For sure. We need to get a good inbox filtering system, right? I know, right. The good news is we did ask more than 75 and that was zero.

Thank goodness. I'm glad to hear that. Yes, thank goodness. Oh my gosh. So what was this article where someone suggested maybe we should go back to the mid-century...

tradition. So this was in The Guardian. It was called Office Workers of the World Unite. It's Time to Revive the Three Martini Lunch. It was by Andrea Havor.

And this was in The Guardian. And this was really interesting because drinking during lunch used to be extremely common in the US. I hadn't heard this phrase, the three martini lunch before. Had you, Lindsay?

Were you familiar with that? I had not. But it immediately made me think of Mad Men, the series Mad Men. If our listeners have not watched that, definitely check it out.

Just the culture of the workplace in the 50s, a balanced life, pre-internet days really is what we're talking about. And this might be a more common phrase in the UK, right? The Guardian is a British publication, but I did... She pointed out in the article that that phrase, three martini lunch, was first used in a newspaper column in 1950 about New York professional life. So very much like what was happening in the show Mad Men.

And it was Jimmy Carter who said in 1976, he was using it as a weapon, accusing business people of... sort of like taking advantage of working class taxpayers by, you know, this frivolous life, drinking three martinis at lunch while other people are like really working hard at their jobs. And so it's interesting. It wasn't complimentary.

Yeah. Right. And he was saying that because of the tax deduction, right? They're writing it off of their, the business owners writing it off the income as an expense.

Exactly. Right. So he wants the taxes for that. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Makes sense. Makes sense. So what do we need to know here, Aubrey? Yeah, so this is really interesting.

So Andrea, what she said was, I think corporate America needs to revive a much mocked relic of mid-century American business life, the three martini lunch. And so really what she was saying is that the business world has gone so far the other end with AI and online meetings and that we're not often meeting with colleagues. And even business deals, salespeople, we don't have the social interactions we used to have.

And she also was making arguments and had a lot of evidence, anecdotal evidence, that a lot of business deals are easier to make when When someone has had a couple of drinks, right? Yeah. My answer to that would be, do we like the deal the next day?

That's the question. When we think about the deal the next day. When inhibitions are down, we might agree to anything. Right. Do we feel good about what we signed?

But yeah, I mean, this actually brings us into a broader question that I've heard discussed. I actually was talking about this with my family over the weekend around Gen Z, the younger generation, they're doing less drinking. And from a health perspective, it's really good. Some people might argue, not necessarily me, but some people might argue that how is the socializing taking place?

In the US, we don't have spaces for like outside of bars. We don't have like social clubs anymore. This is getting onto a bit of a tangent, Aubrey, which we can talk about another day. But we don't have social clubs.

If you don't play sports, if you don't drink and go to bars or alcohol-oriented places, there's really no place to socialize. Yeah, it's really interesting. I know quite a few people who don't drink.

My friend's children who are like, you know, young married couples and they often, it seems like, stay home a lot. They're not socializing a lot because when they were teenagers, the way they socialized was to go to a bar and have a drink. Exactly. And so you're not wrong.

I agree. It's really interesting. Yeah. So this is kind of the work version of that, right? The work equivalent of that. But tell me more. Yeah. So we want to kind of break down in the US, just sort of a timeline for anyone else who's not super familiar with like drinking at the workplace, what it was like.

So in the 50s and 70s, it was very common, right? Alcohol at business lunches was really normal. Corporate and sales environments, especially, you'd have like a client, everyone would have a drink and you'd be more likely to get the deal done.

Yeah. And hard alcohol too. Martinis, wine, whiskey. We're not talking about light beer here, right? Exactly. And they had what was called a power lunch in cities like New York, which often included alcohol, alcoholic drinks.

And then in the 80s, that's when the decline started, right? So a lot of corporations, HR policies started to crack down and discourage drinking at work events.

I wonder if this is also when more companies moved into places like New York. Because I know that New York became a little bit safer towards the 90s and it became more populated.

More companies might have moved in. That's just a theory. I'm not sure. That makes sense, right? Well, it was in the 80s, I guess, that attention started to be paying more to professionalism, liability, harassment cases.

As things like this were happening, companies started to realize we need to be cracking down on this for our own safety. protection. Yeah. And then in the 90s, 2000s, there was a major shift.

A lot of corporate ethics reforms happen. We heard about scandals like Enron, which if you don't know about that, look that up. We can do another episode another day about Enron.

Expanded HR departments, passing formal laws, sexual harassment suits, things like that, right? And as that all changed... Alcohol at lunch became increasingly rare in large companies to where now it's basically phased out, right?

So like you were saying, Lindsay, a lot of people will have a drink at dinner or maybe cocktails for happy hour. But for lunch, it's very rare. Yeah. Although there are – I feel like there are tech companies that will have – like I recently in Boston – not recently, a bunch of years ago I was in Boston.

We were out with some friends. A friend of ours worked for a consulting company. He took us into his office just because he had to pick up something. It was like a Saturday evening.

But we walked in the office and there are taps there. It looked like a co-working space with floating desks and beanbag chairs, all the techie things. And there's taps for people to just serve themselves beer. But I think the difference is they drink later in the day, I think, when their work is done.

Yeah. So my husband works in a co-working space. Um, and they have, there's like a happy hour, there's alcohol, there's like canned beverages in a fridge there.

Um, but never before like 4 PM. Right. It's not like you're going to go and it's not in the middle of the business deal. Exactly. Right. And if you were to go to an actual business lunch where once upon a time, they definitely would have had a drink or two or three.

Now it's almost unheard of. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So that's the key difference. When is the alcohol being consumed? So I asked a couple of friends, like I was mentioning, I got some feedback.

The first one said it's not typical at all in the US to drink during a business lunch, especially not if customers are present, which is interesting because once upon a time, that's when it would have happened the most. Like we have a client here, we want to have them have a few drinks and then maybe they'll get the deal done. Yeah. Right.

Right. You want to take them out, spend money on them, right? Treat them to drinks. And that still happens, definitely. But it's more like happy hour cocktails at like 4 or 5 p.m., a drink with dinner.

And then this was interesting. They said that a two drink per person limit is pretty standard. Like no one's trying to get drunk and be awkward at it, you know, because it's still you're with coworkers, you're with clients. So it's more about getting a little tipsy, but never going overboard.

Okay. So that was what the first person said. What else did anyone else say? Yes. And the second person said, in my experience, it's rare for anyone to ever order drinks at lunch.

They said at a client dinner, I would only order a drink if the client does first. So that was really interesting to me as well and really makes sense, right? If your client either doesn't drink or just isn't ordering a drink, that makes sense that whoever is hosting them might also not drink.

Interesting. Yeah. So it seems like there's this unwritten rule that unless your client is drinking and you mirror them, no alcohol at lunch makes sense. Yeah.

And then I had one other friend who said never at lunch is the rule. And then he added that he's had clients who will drink a lot at lunch, but he still wouldn't order a drink. So that was interesting. You might think, well, if you're hosting clients and they happen to be drinking, who knows what their culture is like.

You still might not want to. Still might not want to. Really interesting. Interesting. Fascinating. There's a big difference between understanding English and participating in English.

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Okay, Aubrey, so where do we go from here? Yeah, so I thought it would be interesting because I have a feeling that a lot of our listeners out there would disagree with American business culture. They might have a drink or two during lunch. They might want to, right?

And this is also a really interesting discussion. Especially where a lot of you work with people from all over the world. You're working in these global businesses coming from all of these different places. You might be meeting at conferences where you have different corporate policies.

So it might be interesting to know sort of some of the arguments for and against drinking during a work lunch. Yeah, interesting. And this conversation might, this debate might also carry over into just drinking kind of broadly, right? That's a good point.

As a forum for socialization, right? And again, don't get us wrong, guys. We're not condoning drinking. We're not saying you should drink or shouldn't drink.

We're introducing you to structures for a conversation you might want to have. right? Exactly. To explore this with a native speaker. A colleague or a client might ask you about this and you do want to have ideas, the phrases you want to have thought about this.

Yeah. So what would be some of the arguments for drinking alcohol at a work lunch? Like to bring back what the writer suggested. Exactly. So first of all, that it builds relationship and trust.

And this really is true, right? Sharing a drink really will help everyone feel more relaxed. It is a way to break the ice, right? So this is interesting as a person who did not drink for much of my life, and now I'll have a drink among friends.

It is amazing how it immediately breaks the ice for you. There is no awkwardness. Everyone has a drink in hand. It's especially in like sales media consulting, but also in social situations as well.

It's amazing how much relationship building that creates just sharing a drink with someone. Yeah, for sure. Especially if, I don't know, you're talking about the drinks or something or the idea like, let's go out for martinis, let's go out for margaritas, you know. Right.

Is it common, Aubrey? Did you research this a little bit? So this is what I found online is that in some parts of Europe and Asia, I did experience this in Europe myself some, was that having wine or beer, dinner, but also sometimes lunch is a social norm. It's not seen as unprofessional.

So I would love to hear from listeners out there. If this is still the case, I'm sure it depends on the company. It depends on the situation for sure. But it is interesting.

And of course, With all of this building relationship, we all know people who don't drink and they'll have like a tonic water or something, you know, they're maybe holding a drink that's non-alcoholic. Of course, that's never a problem because I know there are people out there who don't drink that might feel frustrated that they can't be in this situation building relationships. Of course, that's not excluded to them.

Yeah. You know, when I was pregnant, it was interesting experiencing that being in that side of things and ordering like the water with the, with the lime. And it actually, I didn't feel as excluded as I thought I would, I would, you know, I actually said it was kind of refreshing to not be drinking for a change to feel clear minded and that kind of thing. But you could, I guess over time you could feel that for sure if you're not drinking.

Yeah. So it does help. It's good to know, right? You can always just pretend you're pregnant. Yeah. Maybe that wouldn't work for the men out there, but we can get away with it.

For sure. And what else, Aubrey? So it does enhance informal communication, right? We can understand why deals are made more, right? It does encourage discussions.

Our inhibitions are down a little bit. Yeah. I mean, we do business with people we like, and I think we probably like the people around us more when we're drinking. I mean, that's just, you know, kind of what ends up happening.

Yeah. So let's share some of the arguments against drinking alcohol. We've kind of shared some of them, but it is interesting. It is sometimes about your professional image, right?

I love... I enjoyed hearing this that some people are like, regardless of whether people are drinking or not, I would never have more than two drinks. Because the worst thing that could happen is if you do lose control of your behavior, saying something you wouldn't if you were sober, like we would want to avoid that, of course, around coworkers and colleagues and Yeah, you have to guard your professional reputation.

This is famous, like the famous company work holiday work party, right? Someone always botches it and ends up getting really drunk, right? With big companies. Yes, exactly.

Really regrets it. Then everyone's talking about them the next day. You don't want to be that person. Right. Exactly. So definitely could be reduced judgment and productivity, right?

A lot of us work online now. If I were to go to a business lunch and have a drink, come home, I would want to nap. I would not want to work the rest of the day. Record the podcast or something.

Right. Exactly. It's definitely harder, I think, if you work from home, you know, on Mad Men, they would go back to the office. They're doing whatever they do.

But yeah, probably less productive. Right. Exactly. And then inclusivity. Aubrey, tell us about this. Yeah. So this is interesting. As we were sort of mentioning, of course, not everyone drinks.

Someone might be pregnant. It could be about religion, health, recovery, or just personal preference. And if there is alcohol at work events or alcohol being served during a lunch, there is a chance someone would feel excluded or uncomfortable. So I think it is important to pay attention to what clients and coworkers are doing.

But always, if someone doesn't want to drink, doesn't feel comfortable drinking, Of course, you can just have the beverage that's non-alcoholic. And I think it's important as a global culture to be like, I love to hear that, Lindsay, that you were pregnant and didn't feel excluded. It wasn't a problem.

That's how it should be for everyone. We shouldn't be making people feel excluded. Yeah, 100%. And there is a trend in the direction of drinking less, especially among younger generations.

So, I mean, I think it'll be interesting to see if this thesis comes true, if this does happen, if we revert back to the 50s or if... we go more in the direction of a lot of generations kind of reducing their drinking. Yeah. I'm really curious what's going to happen.

I thought this article was really interesting. And I hadn't thought about it a lot back when I was attending those business lunches. I wasn't a drinker. I don't think I would want to have a drink.

So I hope that doesn't come back. I'll stick with happy hour later in the day. Yeah. That's how I feel because when I drink, I just want to be able to... Now I can relax.

I don't have to... focus. I don't want to go back to work after having a drink. Exactly. That's a buzzkill, right? Exactly. That's not fun. You want it to be the end of the day and you just go home, eat dinner, go to sleep.

So I don't know, Aubrey. Interesting topic, though. We'll see what happens in the future. Is there another episode for our listeners to go to? Yes. Over on All Ears English, we did a really fun episode called Do You Follow the Five Second Rule?

This would be such an interesting conversation with colleagues as well, right? You might drop something on the floor at work. What do you say? How can you spark a fun conversation?

So check that out over on All Ears English. It was episode 2697. All right. Good stuff. Great episode today, Aubrey. We'll see you very soon. All right.

Awesome. See you next time. Bye. Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.

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