Source: Businessweek

Like restaurants across the country - from Table 8 in Los Angeles to Liberty Bar in Hoboken, N.J. - Cole Durbin, owner of Padre’s Modern Mexican in Phoenix, Arizona, is offering up a Recession Happy Hour. But he has added a twist: Anyone who arrives at Padre’s with a foreclosure notice can have any drink on the menu.

Nobody had taken him up on his offer through its first six weeks. But Arizona ranks third on RealtyTrac’s list of leading foreclosure states.

Durbin’s happy-hour sales are booming, up 22% in the past two months, which Durbin says has kept the restaurant’s earnings even with 2007’s despite the cost of rice having skyrocketed 56% between March and May.

Padre’s isn’t done yet. It plans to roll out new promotions throughout the summer. Up next: free rides to and from the restaurant on Saturday nights for those who might be deterred by $4 gasoline.