The counter at which drinks are served by a bartender is called “the bar”. This term is applied, as a synecdoche, to drinking establishments called “bars”. The bar typically stores a variety of beers, wines, liquors, and non-alcoholic ingredients, and is organized to facilitate the bartender’s work. The word “bar” in this context was already in use by 1592 at the latest, as the dramatist Robert Greene referred to one in his A Noteable Discovery of Coosnage. However, it has been suggested that the method of serving from a counter was invented by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great Victorian engineer, as a means of more quickly serving the sudden rush of customers caused by passenger trains arriving at the refreshment rooms at Swindon railway station while the Great Western Railway trains changed locomotives.
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