New app lets friends buy each other drinks from home

WEST CHESTER, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- With the ban on indoor dining coming and going, it's been rare over the past year that two friends like Ryan Perri and Nick Mingone could sit in a bar and have a drink.

The pair are trying to revolutionize how friends can celebrate together with an app called BruYou. It shouldn't come as a shock the guys thought it up sitting in a bar.

"We were trying to get one of our other friends to come out," explained Ryan Perri. "We said it would be awesome if we could do it directly through an app, say you have whatever kind of shot waiting for you at the bar, it could get him off the couch to come out."

That was four years ago. Now they've launched the app in 10 bars in the middle of the pandemic, including Kildare's Irish Pub in West Chester, Pennsylvania.

"It was always intended as a way for people to share drinks with each other through their phone, but since the pandemic, people can't be together, people can't go to bars," said Mingone.

"People are always buying people drinks from across the way, so this is a different way of doing that," said Mark Tarzwell, the general manager of Kildare's.

While the idea for the app came before COVID, the guys behind it say it's very pandemic safe since you don't actually have to be in the bar to buy your friend a drink.

"If you couldn't make a birthday, couldn't make a promotion, or a graduation, the idea here is you could enjoy a drink with them without being there in person," said Perri.

It also adds an automatic tip for the bartender.

"We're still at 25% capacity, any new, different idea can definitely help us in any kind of way. We're open to right now," said Tarzwell.