New drinks app ‘el Tab’ offers Londoners four free drinks a night at bars across the capital

The app is offering a daily digital bar tab of up to £1,000
Bottoms up: bars including the Duchess of Dalston, above, are signed up to the app
Duchess of Dalston
David Ellis @dvh_ellis21 October 2021

A new app putting up to £1000 behind the bar, seven nights a week at venues across Zones One and Two, is offering Londoners four free drinks every evening.

The new el Tab app, which costs £12.99 a month, pings its users to reveal the location of the bar tab, which will be open from 6—9pm.

Users who make the bar before the tab runs out can order up to four drinks for free, each. With the app limited to 500 users — and, at the time of publishing, only used by 200 Londoners — competition for the cocktails is not as fierce as it might be. Those who are determined to get in first can pay an additional £2.99 to “power up”, which notifies them of the bar’s location half an hour ahead of the general send out.

Bars presently signed up to the app include: the Duchess of Dalston, Stoke Newington disco bar Cherry Galore, Waterloo hit Tonight Josephine — famous for its “well behaved women don’t make history” neon sign — as well as Blame Gloria, and longstanding favourites Callooh Callay and the London Cocktail Club chain.

Other names on the roster include Mercato, the Escapologist, Blame Gloria, Near & Far, Kraft Dalston and Little Bat.

The app is the brainchild of former barrister and advertising executive, Oliver Carew, who told the Standard he’d dreamt up the idea during lockdown.

He said: “For our members, the mission is to make going out in London a little less expensive, and a lot more fun... But el Tab is more than just about cheap drinks; I built the app to help the hospitality industry post-lockdown, to drive footfall back into those London pubs and bars we all know and love.

“It's a simple app — a daily, digital bar tab. Every single day we give our members the opportunity to go to a unique venue where they can redeem up to four free drinks. What's not to like?

“I'm excited to build a tribe of like-minded adventurers; spontaneous Londoners who relish the opportunity to explore new parts of what our awesome city has to offer.”

Should the app prove a success in London, Carew said he plans to take it to Manchester and Leeds.

For more information, visit eltab.co.uk

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