piano bar

English

Noun

piano bar (plural piano bars)

1. A drinking establishment featuring, as an enticement to customers, a musician playing a piano or similar keyboard-based instrument.
   • 1968, Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays, page 224:

     "Where'd you learn to play the piano?" the drunk asks. "I got two degrees," the piano player says. "One in musical education." I go to a coin telephone and call a friend in New York. "Where are you?" he says. "In a piano bar in Encino," I say.

   • 1987, Barbara Beery et al., The Bar Off Melrose: A New Comedy, page 15:

     DOUG. Yeah, well this ain't a piano bar.
     BETTY. (indicating piano) Then what is that over there?
     DOUG. This is a bar with a piano. That's not the same thing as a piano bar, believe me.

   • 1989, G. Tullock, The Economics of Special Privilege and Rent Seeking, page 13:

     In the later days of the regulations one of the transcontinental airlines actually had a piano bar on its flights.