> in the US it is commonplace for a bar to serve only alcohol and no food Depends on the state; in mine, a bar can sell beer without a liquor license, but gett

> in the US it is commonplace for a bar to serve only alcohol and no food Depends on the state; in mine, a bar can sell beer without a liquor license, but getting a liquor license (required not only for booze but for wine as well) involves jumping through a lot of hoops, one of which is that no more than X% of your sales by dollar amount can come from alcohol. There are no bars that are just bars, unless they only serve beer. A practical side effect is that lunches are very competitively priced in restaurants that have busy bars, because they take the hit at lunch in order to allow wine/liquor sales.