Paul Mescal Has Passed the Hotel Minibar Test
Grabbing that $12 coke without checking the price is the ultimate flex.
In a recent interview with Vanity Fair, Gladiator II star Paul Mescal admitted that his greatest extravagance is not looking at the prices of items in his hotel’s minibar. “That’s a new thing for me,” he says “Growing up, I remember my mom and dad being like, The minibar is totally off-limits.” Celebrities, they’re just like us.
Mescal’s humble admission gets at a core truth: We have all, to some extent, been led to believe that a forbidden aura surrounds that tiny refrigerator, stocked with $12 cokes. It’s not that the snacks themselves have felt truly luxurious—we’re talking your run-of-the-mill vending machine offerings of Cheez-Its and M&M’s—but there’s something about the way they’re physically so close, and yet economically so out of reach. Of the many ways hotels will “scam” you, this is maybe the most obvious and well-known.
And this trickery is most likely why our parents drilled into our heads that we must not, under any circumstances, be tempted by the overpriced amenity. In fact, we shouldn’t even peek inside. This TikTok, for example, makes fun of such airport-dad parenting. But it’s movies and TV that have added to the allure, too. We watched with fascination and envy, for example, as Kevin McCallister raided the minibar in Home Alone 2. And now in adulthood, when we’ve finally understood the value of a dollar, we can’t help but hold onto the frugality of our forebears.
But perhaps one day, you too, could share in the same freedoms as Paul Mescal. The minibar is many things—a penny-pinching machine, a forbidden tree, etc.—but, most importantly, it’s a barometer for knowing whether or not you’ve made it. Let’s call it the Minibar Test: Are you financially stable enough to near one without panicking? That’s what we call quiet luxury.