Because if you serve hard liquor, you have to maintain a 45%-55% food to mixed drink ratio (beer and wine don't count). You can't have a hole in the wall establishment that focuses on selling alcohol.

If you have a beer/wine only license, you have to sell $4,000 in food a month, no matter what. $2,000 of that must be in entrees.

Exceptions have been carved out over the years for entertainment venues, vineyards and breweries where alcohol is brewed on-premise, but these laws date back to the end of prohibition, and have basically stopped all dive bars from existing in Virginia.

There's a floor plan requirement, too, where at least half of the seats in an establishment must be at tables or booths, rather than at the bar. So there aren't the traditional narrow bars like in most cities, where you walk in and it's a few high tops plus the bar itself.

Throw in the food requirement (and more importantly, the requirement that the kitchen always be serving full entrees while alcohol is being served), and you basically don't have bars in Virginia.

i think it's reasonable to categorize something as a restaurant or bar based on whether it sells mostly food or drinks