A bar crawl through Athens is an experience everyone needs to discover.
We’re halfway through Week 2 and halfway to the weekend, when Athens, amid a drunken haze, becomes an outlet for self-described townies and the college students who may greet them to let loose, and when a slew of underage students stand idly by outside the bars, mustering up enough swagger to go in. Athens, here are some of your stories from bars around town on Friday, Aug. 29, after the first week of classes.
9:27 p.m.
Walking into The Smiling Skull Saloon is one of those “I’m back in Athens” type moments after a long summer. I walked in on the start of my bar crawl in almost second-nature fashion. It just seemed like where to start.
“You’re doing a bar crawl? And you’re starting here?” asked Josh Thompson, the 22-year-old bouncer at the door. “No, you need to start at every place that serves. Go to Grinders, then Cat’s Den, then come back here.”
Cat’s Den, right next door to the Skull, was a complete oversight. W. G. Grinders, the sub-and-sandwich shop franchise, wasn’t on my mind at all.
At the time, Grinders was closed. At Cat’s Den, a bartender, Keenan Garrett, said the “out of the way” bar typically attracts a more mature, moderate-sized crowd.
10:04 p.m.
Now back at The Skull, I catch up with Earl Clark, 49, of Athens. I talked to him for quite a bit and explained the bar crawl to him after Thompson, the bouncer, told me he was a regular. Clark responded kindly, explaining to me “how it is” at The Skull.
“We got gay guys and we got gay girls,” Clark said of the bar’s all-inclusive environment.
I conducted more than a half-dozen interviews at the bar, and just about everyone cited a “welcoming” atmosphere. The mix of students and adults was encouraging as well, especially given the Skull’s reputation of a “townie” bar — or as Thompson put it, “we have less douchebags.”
Clark, a longtime Skull-goer, added: “The door’s always open, even if you” start a fight, at which point “we’ll put your ass outside. Then, you can come back in when you’re done. Alcohol makes people do dumb sh--.”
10:15 p.m.
I catch up with a few folks at Jackie O’s Pub and Brewery who tell me why they were there. Of the handful of folks I talked to, one theme ran pretty deep — the beer’s good.
Asked why he comes to Jackie O’s, Adam Bloir, a senior studying journalism, said though he thought the prices are more expensive than other places in town, it’s “nice to taste the good beer while it lasts.”
A pretty chill spot.
10:32 p.m.
As a Post photographer and I creep nearer and nearer to Court Street, a.k.a. a nightmare if sober, the Athens-ness that makes Athens, well, Athens is roaring into full swing.
Not even on the main drag yet, I realize I might want to do fewer interviews at the bars because I still had quite a few to go and less than four hours to hit them all.
So, naturally, I accidentally spent way too much time at the next spot — The Union Bar & Grill.
Sitting by the pool tables in the more-quiet back area of the bar, Dillon Green, an OU alumus who graduated in 2012, stares off into the distance, pool queue in hand.
He quickly tells me that The Union is his spot because of “the pool culture,” or what he described as a general feeling that “you can always meet people who actually love playing.”
He got up to shoot, at which point another patron, Dillon Mobbs, told me why he comes to The Union. Quite simply, it’s “less douchebags” and “kind of a townie bar,” Mobbs, 22, of Athens, said.
Green returned to tell me how drunk pool works. It’s an equilibrium of sorts that a player should try to hit, he said.
“One or two drinks” might help your game, but once you start drinking, Green said, “it starts going downhill and you still have to play.”
Forgot to keep time after The Union
Now I’m bouncing down Court Street when I realize a sad truth — I won’t make it to all the bars tonight.
At Lucky’s Sports Tavern, I run into Matt Schimmoeller, a specialized-studies senior at OU, who was playing pool with a handful of friends. He said Lucky’s is a cool spot, but not particularly more or less exciting than the other “college bars” uptown.
“Once I saw someone walk out the door at Lucky’s and eat it, just fell face into the concrete,” he said. “That sh-- was crazy. It’s the normal college experience though.”
At Cat’s Eye Saloon, I ran into to Cassie Wojick, a senior studying organizational communication.
“It’s relaxed. It has air conditioning,” Wojick said. “I don’t know, it’s got older people, sure, but older people are great.”
At Red Brick Sports Pub, I met a man and a woman who told me it was their one year anniversary. The pair, flanked by two others at a booth in the back of the bar, tried to get me to take a shot of something dark — perhaps Whiskey. I turned it down. A few minutes later, the pair told me they were brother and sister. Not sure what that was about.
It’s perhaps 1 a.m. when I see that all the remaining bars on Court — The C.I., The Crystal, The Pigskin Sports Bar & Grill, The J Bar, etc. — have people lined up out the front doors onto the street. Upset I can’t hit all the bars I wanted to, I pop a squat on the sidewalk outside of Pigskin.
Dancing queen
The noises, the smells, the stickiness of the bricks, the random people just standing at Dale’s BP — taking it all in right there on that sidewalk, Athens is a zoo. I then see a girl dancing on the sidewalk with an empty Natty Light case on her head.
I tell her I’m writing for The Post. Immediately following, she gives me her full name and tells me she’s underage and has taken shots of Absolut vodka.
I realize very quickly she’s way too drunk to be talking to a reporter, and I decided right then and there I’d feel as though I were taking advantage of her if I used her name in the paper.
But I don’t feel bad about quoting her.
Now on the bricks of Court, with the beer case on her head, she said perhaps the most #ohiou thing I’d ever heard in my more than three years on this campus.
“Why I have this on my head? Why? I saw it on Mill Street. I took it and I put it on my head, and now I’m dancing because I can dance on Court Street and still get As and Bs.”
Joshua Jamerson writes a weekly column for The Post’s news pages. Jamerson, a senior studying journalism and senior editor at The Post, writes for Wednesday’s newspaper.
@joshjame
jj360410@ohio.edu
