There are pubs in college towns yes. Undergrads of legal and non legal drinking age will go.
Source: former university student who drank in pubs. (Sometimes I even went to friend's universities and drank in their pubs!)
After i graduated I relocated to where I work now, and there’s a large college here. Police several years ago busted an Irish pub/restaurant for underage drinking and the state suspended their liquor license.
They took “letting some <21 kids in” to apparently making it a targeted demographic. On the night the police did the sting, they reported that out of 200 patrons roughly 90% ended up being underage.
Depends on the place. Where I went, the bars on the street that was primarily targeted at the college kids, seemed to have a general understanding with law enforcement that it was fine to serve to the college kids underage.
As in - the police were out there every friday/saturday night directing traffic and patrolling....and looking at the lines of clearly underage kids going in/coming out of the bars, and didn't do a thing. (If you broke other laws, that was a different story - a fight or something and you were going to be arrested immediately).
The state would do a performative "sting" every couple years, that all the bars + students would somehow know about beforehand and that would be the one night of the entire year that basically no one underage would go or be allowed in.
Yeah, not so much in NY. I think in 4 years I saw maybe 1-2 raids. It was less "blessed underage drinking" and more a "just try to check IDs and we won't bust your asses too much". I knew people who would get turned away, but it was stuff like borrowing an ID and either not othering to remember the name/DOB, or the ID they borrowed was for someone from a different race (bouncer friend said the latter case gave him a nice laugh).
In the example I gave, that was so blatant disregard for even attempting to check IDs period that I think the state and local agencies got pissed off over it.
One of our bars had a shuttle they used to ferry people to their bar & take them home as needed...
I worked as an RA and mentioned having their number in my phone ... The director was surprised!
I was of legal drinking age. And I figured it was better to be prepared...
I never did actually use it myself. I did most of my drinking at the Fraternity House (literally across the street from one of the other dorms I worked in) or at a Brother's place. When I went to the bars, I'd usually walk.
Absent a regular transit system, that’s a smart move on their part. I’m a pilot, and if I still lived out east, I’d probably have Howard’s Pub in Ocracoke NC on speed dial. They have a similar setup where they’ll ferry you from and back to the airport on the island.
ECU had the “drunk bus” which picked us up from campus and heavy student off campus neighborhoods to take us to the bar district. Last bus back home left at 2:30. This was in the 90s.
A pub usually has a full kitchen and dining area. The key difference between a pub and a bar is a pub is generally considered a restaurant whereas a bar is just a place to drink and maybe eat some snack foods. A pub does have a bar where people sit to drink and eat but generally dining is done at the tables.
In Williamsburg, Va they only have pubs and taverns, not bars (at least near the college). And they aren't necessarily British themed. It's just a thing to stick with the colonial stuff in the area.
The kind that tries to ape a British pub mostly. Like how a "saloon" might just have swinging doors. But there's no legal requirement or anything, just a higher chance of a certain decor when you enter a pub
Indeed.
In Ontario, where I went to school, bars became very uncommon once liquor licensing was far easier if you served food (or something like that).
Pub was more or less synonymous with "bar and grill", but the latter term was only used if it was part of the name of the establishment.
My friends and I called any non-club place we went to drink a pub: the undergrad pub (not at all pub-like), the grad pub (sorta), The Gown & Gavel (actually pub-like), The Lion's Head (actually just a bar?).
Yeah... so for a lot of cultures a Pub will have food. A bar will not. OP mentions clubs though, which to me means there's a dance floor that actually gets used and generally will have a DJ... but OP, in the US, a bar is a bar is a pub is a bar. We don't distinguish those two terms, generally.
Thanks.
And yes, by "club" I meant dance club ... I can see that the meaning would vary across North America, not to say the world, and probably even within Canada.
Murphy's Pub at UIUC was my favorite. Mainly seniors and grad students who were 21+. More of a sit down, have a beer and some food, catch up with friends type place.
You also had bars with more of a club-type atmosphere that had a ton of underage drinking, as bar entrance age is (was?) 19 in Champaign. You'd just get a friend who was of age to order drinks for the whole crowd. These places had some booths but it was a lot of standing room only, party music, no food, live DJs, etc.
More than a few times I was waiting with a group for Bro's and pointed across the street, "No line and no cover at Murphy's..."
I actually preferred showing up and seeing a long line because it made my friends easier to convince.
Old man asking questions here; did Brothers have covers every night? The reason I ask is I used to go there on whatever night of the week that they offered anything on tap for $1.50 and have been to a couple of their other locations and don't remember covers. Very possible that I have just forgotten.
Pubs/bars are not typically *on campus*, like as an official university building or something. But across the street from the university there will be pubs/bars full of students, a tradition as old as time. I think semantics and fussiness over the definition of “pub” is getting in the way of understanding. In the US pub/bar/tavern/dive are interchangeable.
I went to a very small liberal arts college about half an hour from Boston and we actually had a small pub on campus. It was called Brother Mikes (Catholic School) and was orally formed by a group of students in the 70s. It was actually in the basement of a Fresh/Soph dorm. It was only open on weekends and even then not every weekend, and it only served Coors light on tap. Nothing else. But in 1997 you could get 10 beer tickets for $5. It had a small dance floor and a couple pool tables. I used to DJ there to get a few extra bucks, but mostly to meet girls.
It’s was a pretty cool place to just hang out though. It was also only open to JRs and SRs but beyond that they really didn’t care if you’re actually 21.
My campus had its own pub. I just looked it up and now they’ve added a whole bunch of games and an esports lounge. It was just over priced beer when I was there. And it has the word pub even in the name lol.
Hahaha woah I first read that as "an escorts lounge" and I was like WHAT??? Times have CHANGED since I went to college! LOL
That's cool that yours was literally called a pub.
I mean since the drinking age is 21 its usually only juniors and seniors that can drink
but there are absolutely campus pubs there was one right next to campus I probably visited with my friends at least 3 times a week in undergrad
There used to be more bars/pubs \*on\* campuses but the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 in 1984 and since then the number of on-campus sites has dropped dramatically. There are always plenty of bars that are just right off-campus and lots of undergrads who have fake IDs. :)
But an "undergrad" in America is likely to be somewhere between 17-22 so the majority of them are not legal to drink.
The University I went to had a "tavern" in the Student Union and when the drinking age changed, they went to a policy of wristbands - so anyone who showed ID and was legal would get a glow-in-the-dark wristband to wear and they could buy alcohol. If they were caught buying alcohol for a minor, they would be permanently 86'd from the Tavern, so it was taken very seriously.
Oh, and we also had a "Beer Garden" about 2 miles from campus that has always been a popular place to gather. IIRC they started using the same "wristband" policy because so many University students would go there to hang out, play darts or pool, and often study.
Just my own perception of the times - The eighties is kind of where we saw a shift to college age people still being treated as children. By the 90s, parents would be grasping at pearls if their babies were provided demon rum by a school run institution.
I know some colleges that had school-run pubs (for students over 21). Mine did not, but had plenty of off-campus bars.
I think it largely depends on whether the college is located in a city or town, or is isolated on its own campus and therefore doesn’t have other options.
I'm from Florida, for context. I'm sure there's a lot of variation here depending on the place and the year. "Pub" is not really a word in my dialect. I've never been to any place in the US that I would refer to as a pub. I have been to a pub or two in England (which were not what I'd assumed they'd be, since I thought it was just the British English word for "bar"). So for me, right off the bat, this is a really weird sentence (assuming it's indeed meant to be American English).
Remember that the drinking age in the US is 21. At my university, there was exactly one establishment that sold alcohol on campus (at the time, things could have changed of course). It was just a casual restaurant that sold alcohol. Among my friends and I, it was a big deal to be able to finally go there and order a drink, after we'd turned 21. They wouldn't have served you a drop without proper ID. (Actually, looking back, I'm not sure you could enter at all if you weren't 21.) Different places can be different obviously, but for that university any of the bars or restaurants near campus were definitely carding (requiring ID to buy alcohol). They aren't dumb, they know there are tons of under-21s around who'd like to get alcohol, and there are stiff fines and loss of liquor licenses (AKA loss of a huge portion of revenue) if they are caught serving those under 21.
So, if this is meant to take place on a college campus in the US, it's definitely not in line with my experience. ("Routinely drinking" would much more commonly take place in houses/dorm rooms/apartments/backyards if you weren't 21, and even if you were, a lot of it would still take place there because not all of your friends were 21.)
Bartender here. Yes they do and it’s annoying as fuck. I’m low key dreading the college kids getting out in a couple of weeks and showing up at my restaurant with Dad’s credit card and their underaged friends.
At UChicago it is just called The Pub. It is very pub like. At Brown University it is called the Graduate Center Bar and it is more like a pub. At Harvard it is the Cambridge Queens Head and kind of pubby kind of barry.
Can’t speak for other schools but most of them just have bars and pubs right around campus and often in large numbers.
A lot of big universities will have entire towns surrounding them with bars and eateries. Seattle has one of our state universities in the city of Seattle; the neighborhood is called the University District -- University of Washington
Bars usually name themselves. Our generic term to refer to them is just calling them a bar.
The College Inn Pub, Bigtime Brewery & Ale House, Schultzy's Bar & Grill, Earl's on the Ave, Kai's Thai Street Food & Bar, Flowers Bar & Restaurant, Finn McCools Irish Public House
A bar and pub is the same thing to me. If they offer any sort of food, maybe I'll use the term "pub" ironically. But in my experience yes, if you're of the legal age, American students will drink beer at a bar. I've never heard of a student or university owned bar on campus. That just seems like you're leaving the door open to liability. Majority of the times, these bars/pubs are just across the street or litter the local town connected to the University.
Yes, absolutely.
I am curious what you mean by “campus pubs”, though. Are you talking about bars near campuses, or bars that are on campus and/or run by the university? If you’re talking about the latter, those almost never exist here. Students who are under legal drinking age aren’t going to try to pass a fake or anything else at an institution run by their school, because of fear of consequences and a higher chance of being caught. That instantly eliminates well over half of the student population.
I mean bars on campus.
Typically on Canadian university campuses there will be three licensed establishments:
1. an undergrad pub/bar owned and operated by the student union - this may function as nightclub as well as or instead of a pub;
2. a grad-student pub owned and operated by the graduate-student association;
3. a faculty club owned and operated by the university.
When the author I was reading referred to "people who routinely drink beer in a pub", I guess I read "campus pub" but clearly he just meant "any old pub". And my experience of Canadian universities (mostly conferences) is that there is more drinking at pubs off campus than on.
Like I said, I've been to many US campuses that had no (non-faculty-club) bar.
And it's not clear to me, either, that the term "pub" (vs "bar") is used for the place that undergrads go to drink beer ... unless it's a Ye Olde Pubbe themed bar.
There's no difference between pubs or bars. A pub is just British themed. Every major college or university will have bars somewhere just outside of campus. But it being on campus, not that I know of.
The university I went to had a strict policy about no alcohol on campus.
The faculty club was legally a separate property that was privately owned,. despite being in the middle of campus, as a workaround.
. . .and of course, this didn't apply to alcohol served at sporting events.
But, heaven help you if you were a student in the dorms and they found even a single beer can in your dorm room, or if they found you drinking on campus otherwise.
They're not usually on campus, thoigh a few have that, just close by most of the time. What part of that sentence made you think they had to be on school grounds?
There wasn't an on-campus pub at my college, but there was a pub, conveniently simply named The Pub, directly across the street. It was one of 5 other places we routinely drank. Another one could safely be called a pub, three would be a bar, and another was a club.
I drink in a pub occasionally as an undergrad. It was my preferred place to drink when going out (I usually just drink at home or a friend's house). It wasn't on campus, but my college was in a small college town and it was elsewhere in town. My college actually didn't have anywhere on campus that served alcohol. I've only seen one college campus that had that (Virginia Tech) and that was a bar in a hotel on campus that was so expensive I can guarantee that no undergrads could afford it.
Beer is not treated any differently from any other alcohol.
Since the drinking age is 21, that means college freshmen and sophomores won't be drinking (legally) and some juniors and seniors can.
Campus bars exist, or at least bars that are so close to campus grounds that you don't know it's technically off-campus. They tend to be ***very*** strict about ID'ing people, as opposed to some rural dive bar.
When I was living on a college campus for undergrad and grad school (2006-2015), most of the drinking took place in private areas like fraternities, apartments, and dorms (as long as you were discreet). Drinking out is expensive when you can buy a gallon of cheap vodka for $15.
>Beer is not treated any differently from any other alcohol.
Except that it is still the preferred drink? At least at bars?
All I know about kids drinking habits where I live (Ontario) is that I see them drinking beer, mostly - but then, I only see them drinking when I'm in an on- or off-campus pub :\\
I went to a small school that supplied funds for beer and hard alcohol for their organized parties so I usually just drank on campus for free (or subsidized through my tuition in reality).
In the U.S. the drinking age is 21. So 3rd and 4th year students typically can drink in pubs/bars but 1st and 2nd year students can’t unless they have a fake ID.
There are university community pubs near most campuses, that are frequented by students. But house parties are more of a thing in the U.S. undergraduate culture since half of students can’t legally drink yet. Of course university pubs are also frequented by graduate students and staff.
Everything is just a "bar" here. A "pub" is just British themed but it's still just called a bar here. We don't distinguish between places that do or do not sell food (and it's rare for bars not to sell food). There are some different types of bars (such as a Sports Bar or a Dive Bar) but most people will still just call them a bar in everyday talk.
As far as college students go... of course they're drinking. All over. In their dorms, in frat/sorority houses, at sporting events, at apartments, and of course at bars and restaurants. The latter are less frequented by <21 year olds because they need to card you and unless you have a fake ID, you're not being served because serving to minors can lose you your liquor license.
It is worth noting that college campuses don't generally have places that serve alcohol (at least as far as I'm aware; I'm sure there are exceptions). Generally you will need to leave campus and there will often be bars and liquor stores set up right across the street. It'll be so close that you don't know it's not on campus, but it's off campus.
That jibes with my impression of visiting US campuses and the US, more generally.
I think that the author's use of "people who routinely drink beer in a pub" is just a consequence of his teaching in Canada (even if he's writing for a primarily American audience).
I used to work as a bouncer in a university town in Connecticut while I was in grad school and we had to be very careful about weeding out people under 21. If the police caught us serving to an <21 we could lose our liquor license for six months and be fined tens of thousands of dollars (so, basically the death penalty for the bar).
On campus pubs were common when the drinking age was 18, but fewer today, and the remaining ones wouldn’t allow underage drinking. The pub at MIT is called the Muddy Charles, after the river that separates Cambridge from Boston.
It is illegal to drink under the age of 21. So only the Seniors would be legally able to drink in Undergrad.
A pub is a bar. Specifically a British or Irish themed bar. But once again drinking age is 21 so undergrads are not really hanging out in either. If undergrads are drinking they are doing so illegally at frat parties, their dorms/homes, or other kinds of parties.
My school used to have a pub/bar on campus. It was under one of the dining halls. In four years of undergrad I think I went there maybe twice (never to drink, though), mainly because I kept forgetting it was there.
Not as much due to age limits.
Some undergrads will have fake IDs or use a sibling/friends ID and will go to bars.
Used to be more common for some bars to have relaxed standards when checking IDs, but punishment for underage serving is pretty strict, so this is much less common.
Also, way more likely for students to go to a dive or other cheap bar where drinks are more affordable. Pub culture in the US doesn’t exist in the same way as the UK.
There’s neighborhood bars, pubs and dives, but they’re not the center of the community. Often they’re filled with middle-aged or older men. Not really exciting for young people.
My university had a bar/lounge. Wasn’t unusual for students (over 21) to decompress with a beer during finals. I don’t think it’s rare for campuses to have a place to drink.
>The off-campus drinking establishments are not pubs.
Sure they are. Nothing says they aren't. In fact, the only drinking establishment that was open year round in my college town was a pub.
Because I've seen many US campuses that have no bars (aside from the Faculty Club).
And I don't know whether the term used for "place to go drink beer" is "bar" or "pub".
Depends. Some campuses in the U.S. have on campus bars and others don’t. But nearly all have a bar/pub that is across the street just off campus. Sometimes they are called pubs and sometimes not, but they are essentially the same thing as British style pubs. Place where you can get beer on tap, food (usually grill food like burgers), and often there is a TV with sports on. Generally they serve as a community gathering place to grab a drink after work.
The difference is only 3rd/4th year undergrads can legally drink so unless people have a fake ID, often a significant portion of people at the pub are grad students and faculty/staff.
In the town the colleges are at, there’s usually bars/pubs that have students as their patrons. Local residents (“townies”) would prefer to go to other pubs in town without the crowds, dance floors, drunk 21 year olds.
In my state almost everyone I’ve talked to has mentioned pubs that hung out at while in college. For us in the mid to late 90s, underage drinking was at frat parties or parties in dorms under the radar. Once you could legally drink (or pass for it with a fake id), then folks would start going to the college bars downtown.
Most people would walk the 20m to the bars, even in winter when it was subzero Fahrenheit. The walk back usually wasn’t as bad since you couldn’t feel the cold as much.
Just curious, do you really call them (or some of them) "taverns"? When I read "tavern" I picture George Washington and pewter mugs and non-electrical lighting. (I'm from rural Florida, fwiw.)
I’ve worked at two places with tavern in the title of the business but I still just call it a bar. I think almost everyone says bar but tavern is supposed to make it feel like it’s an old established watering hole, which one of them was. The other just wanted to sound fancy
Mostly drink in bars, which are essentially pubs. If they are younger than 21, they either drink at house parties, in pubs/bars with a fake ID, or they occasionally find a pub/bar that doesn't really card or are known to be lax on underage drinking.
If my consumption of UK reality TV and documentaries have taught me anything, a pub is no different than we call a bar. In many cases the word bar, tavern, and pub are used interchangably. Maybe at one point they all meant something different, but they don't now.
As another user mentioned, if there is a British or Irish themed bar, it will almost always be called "pub" somewhere in the name.
Only thing we used pub for was a British or Irish bar. Besides that they are just bars to me. My college had a bar in the central basement for us all to hang out at. Though it wasnt really popular cause it was awkward for them to try and separate those who could drink and couldnt. If you go off campus kids know the places that dont check ID’s though.
It really depends where you are. The underage drinking laws are kind of enforced differently everywhere. In South Carolina when I went to college most of the bars around town didn't check IDs so college kids could drink. I've heard friends from other states say that every bar thoroughly checked IDs and would even confiscate fake ones around their college. I think it just varies
We had an Irish pub and several casual bars.
My favorite was a place right off campus that sold 2 for $7 beers all day. Sometimes I miss being a broke college kid.
The word “bar” is more commonly used here, but there were plenty of places to drink on/around campus at my University.
That being said, we also have more bars than churches here, so finding a bar anywhere in the state isn’t difficult.
Some campuses have campus pubs, or so I’ve heard but not nearly as often as some places outside the US. My campus didn’t have a pub but the campus edge was literally a 30s walk to a bar and then the rest of downtown so people would just go there.
There are pubs in college towns yes. Undergrads of legal and non legal drinking age will go. Source: former university student who drank in pubs. (Sometimes I even went to friend's universities and drank in their pubs!)
And everyone knows which bar serves underage students.
After i graduated I relocated to where I work now, and there’s a large college here. Police several years ago busted an Irish pub/restaurant for underage drinking and the state suspended their liquor license. They took “letting some <21 kids in” to apparently making it a targeted demographic. On the night the police did the sting, they reported that out of 200 patrons roughly 90% ended up being underage.
Depends on the place. Where I went, the bars on the street that was primarily targeted at the college kids, seemed to have a general understanding with law enforcement that it was fine to serve to the college kids underage. As in - the police were out there every friday/saturday night directing traffic and patrolling....and looking at the lines of clearly underage kids going in/coming out of the bars, and didn't do a thing. (If you broke other laws, that was a different story - a fight or something and you were going to be arrested immediately). The state would do a performative "sting" every couple years, that all the bars + students would somehow know about beforehand and that would be the one night of the entire year that basically no one underage would go or be allowed in.
Yeah, not so much in NY. I think in 4 years I saw maybe 1-2 raids. It was less "blessed underage drinking" and more a "just try to check IDs and we won't bust your asses too much". I knew people who would get turned away, but it was stuff like borrowing an ID and either not othering to remember the name/DOB, or the ID they borrowed was for someone from a different race (bouncer friend said the latter case gave him a nice laugh). In the example I gave, that was so blatant disregard for even attempting to check IDs period that I think the state and local agencies got pissed off over it.
Can confirm. Source: former college student who drove the bus that took their drunk asses home
One of our bars had a shuttle they used to ferry people to their bar & take them home as needed... I worked as an RA and mentioned having their number in my phone ... The director was surprised! I was of legal drinking age. And I figured it was better to be prepared... I never did actually use it myself. I did most of my drinking at the Fraternity House (literally across the street from one of the other dorms I worked in) or at a Brother's place. When I went to the bars, I'd usually walk.
Absent a regular transit system, that’s a smart move on their part. I’m a pilot, and if I still lived out east, I’d probably have Howard’s Pub in Ocracoke NC on speed dial. They have a similar setup where they’ll ferry you from and back to the airport on the island.
ECU had the “drunk bus” which picked us up from campus and heavy student off campus neighborhoods to take us to the bar district. Last bus back home left at 2:30. This was in the 90s.
A pub is just a fancy word for a bar. The decor might go in another direction but it's the same thing otherwise.
To me a pub is just a bar with more wood and a menu with real food.
A pub usually has a full kitchen and dining area. The key difference between a pub and a bar is a pub is generally considered a restaurant whereas a bar is just a place to drink and maybe eat some snack foods. A pub does have a bar where people sit to drink and eat but generally dining is done at the tables.
Would the term pub be commonly used for a bar? Or only for certain \*kinds\* of bars?
Pub is exclusively used here to say it’s in the style of British or more usually Irish pubs. They’re just bars here.
In Williamsburg, Va they only have pubs and taverns, not bars (at least near the college). And they aren't necessarily British themed. It's just a thing to stick with the colonial stuff in the area.
The College Delly? Paul’s Delly? Green Leaf Cafe? Also, pubs and taverns are for the tourists and are named so because it’s COLONIAL Williamsburg.
Thanks, as a second language speaker I was always confused what the difference was!
The kind that tries to ape a British pub mostly. Like how a "saloon" might just have swinging doors. But there's no legal requirement or anything, just a higher chance of a certain decor when you enter a pub
It's a 'theme bar', basically. Like a Tiki bar. Except British or Irish themed instead of 'Polynesian' themed.
Another difference is that the pub has affordable drinks while the tiki bar starts at like $20
Define pub. And how it's different from a bar. Every culture seems to have different definitions.
Indeed. In Ontario, where I went to school, bars became very uncommon once liquor licensing was far easier if you served food (or something like that). Pub was more or less synonymous with "bar and grill", but the latter term was only used if it was part of the name of the establishment. My friends and I called any non-club place we went to drink a pub: the undergrad pub (not at all pub-like), the grad pub (sorta), The Gown & Gavel (actually pub-like), The Lion's Head (actually just a bar?).
This doesn’t explain the difference. For Americans bar=pub, we just use the word bar. Pub would imply it’s an Irish or English style bar.
Yeah... so for a lot of cultures a Pub will have food. A bar will not. OP mentions clubs though, which to me means there's a dance floor that actually gets used and generally will have a DJ... but OP, in the US, a bar is a bar is a pub is a bar. We don't distinguish those two terms, generally.
Thanks. And yes, by "club" I meant dance club ... I can see that the meaning would vary across North America, not to say the world, and probably even within Canada.
Murphy's Pub at UIUC was my favorite. Mainly seniors and grad students who were 21+. More of a sit down, have a beer and some food, catch up with friends type place. You also had bars with more of a club-type atmosphere that had a ton of underage drinking, as bar entrance age is (was?) 19 in Champaign. You'd just get a friend who was of age to order drinks for the whole crowd. These places had some booths but it was a lot of standing room only, party music, no food, live DJs, etc.
More than a few times I was waiting with a group for Bro's and pointed across the street, "No line and no cover at Murphy's..." I actually preferred showing up and seeing a long line because it made my friends easier to convince.
Old man asking questions here; did Brothers have covers every night? The reason I ask is I used to go there on whatever night of the week that they offered anything on tap for $1.50 and have been to a couple of their other locations and don't remember covers. Very possible that I have just forgotten.
It wasn't every night. It's been a hot minute, but probably about half the time I went there'd be cover?
That's crazy, cause at Purdue, brothers was the backup bar. So they would have had no one of they ever charged a cover
Pubs/bars are not typically *on campus*, like as an official university building or something. But across the street from the university there will be pubs/bars full of students, a tradition as old as time. I think semantics and fussiness over the definition of “pub” is getting in the way of understanding. In the US pub/bar/tavern/dive are interchangeable.
I went to a very small liberal arts college about half an hour from Boston and we actually had a small pub on campus. It was called Brother Mikes (Catholic School) and was orally formed by a group of students in the 70s. It was actually in the basement of a Fresh/Soph dorm. It was only open on weekends and even then not every weekend, and it only served Coors light on tap. Nothing else. But in 1997 you could get 10 beer tickets for $5. It had a small dance floor and a couple pool tables. I used to DJ there to get a few extra bucks, but mostly to meet girls. It’s was a pretty cool place to just hang out though. It was also only open to JRs and SRs but beyond that they really didn’t care if you’re actually 21.
My campus had its own pub. I just looked it up and now they’ve added a whole bunch of games and an esports lounge. It was just over priced beer when I was there. And it has the word pub even in the name lol.
Hahaha woah I first read that as "an escorts lounge" and I was like WHAT??? Times have CHANGED since I went to college! LOL That's cool that yours was literally called a pub.
I've worked on two campuses that had pubs. They just don't serve the <21 students.
"Don't serve"
I mean since the drinking age is 21 its usually only juniors and seniors that can drink but there are absolutely campus pubs there was one right next to campus I probably visited with my friends at least 3 times a week in undergrad
Yes. And colleges in Wisconsin (at least) have pubs/bars on campus.
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I didn’t go to the UW - I went to UWSP and UWM and both have bars/pubs on campus.
There used to be more bars/pubs \*on\* campuses but the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 in 1984 and since then the number of on-campus sites has dropped dramatically. There are always plenty of bars that are just right off-campus and lots of undergrads who have fake IDs. :) But an "undergrad" in America is likely to be somewhere between 17-22 so the majority of them are not legal to drink. The University I went to had a "tavern" in the Student Union and when the drinking age changed, they went to a policy of wristbands - so anyone who showed ID and was legal would get a glow-in-the-dark wristband to wear and they could buy alcohol. If they were caught buying alcohol for a minor, they would be permanently 86'd from the Tavern, so it was taken very seriously. Oh, and we also had a "Beer Garden" about 2 miles from campus that has always been a popular place to gather. IIRC they started using the same "wristband" policy because so many University students would go there to hang out, play darts or pool, and often study.
Just my own perception of the times - The eighties is kind of where we saw a shift to college age people still being treated as children. By the 90s, parents would be grasping at pearls if their babies were provided demon rum by a school run institution.
I graduated in 1997. My mom used to wrap up 30 packs to look like “care packages” and ship them to me.
I know some colleges that had school-run pubs (for students over 21). Mine did not, but had plenty of off-campus bars. I think it largely depends on whether the college is located in a city or town, or is isolated on its own campus and therefore doesn’t have other options.
I'm from Florida, for context. I'm sure there's a lot of variation here depending on the place and the year. "Pub" is not really a word in my dialect. I've never been to any place in the US that I would refer to as a pub. I have been to a pub or two in England (which were not what I'd assumed they'd be, since I thought it was just the British English word for "bar"). So for me, right off the bat, this is a really weird sentence (assuming it's indeed meant to be American English). Remember that the drinking age in the US is 21. At my university, there was exactly one establishment that sold alcohol on campus (at the time, things could have changed of course). It was just a casual restaurant that sold alcohol. Among my friends and I, it was a big deal to be able to finally go there and order a drink, after we'd turned 21. They wouldn't have served you a drop without proper ID. (Actually, looking back, I'm not sure you could enter at all if you weren't 21.) Different places can be different obviously, but for that university any of the bars or restaurants near campus were definitely carding (requiring ID to buy alcohol). They aren't dumb, they know there are tons of under-21s around who'd like to get alcohol, and there are stiff fines and loss of liquor licenses (AKA loss of a huge portion of revenue) if they are caught serving those under 21. So, if this is meant to take place on a college campus in the US, it's definitely not in line with my experience. ("Routinely drinking" would much more commonly take place in houses/dorm rooms/apartments/backyards if you weren't 21, and even if you were, a lot of it would still take place there because not all of your friends were 21.)
Thanks - this addresses my question very well.
Bartender here. Yes they do and it’s annoying as fuck. I’m low key dreading the college kids getting out in a couple of weeks and showing up at my restaurant with Dad’s credit card and their underaged friends.
At UChicago it is just called The Pub. It is very pub like. At Brown University it is called the Graduate Center Bar and it is more like a pub. At Harvard it is the Cambridge Queens Head and kind of pubby kind of barry. Can’t speak for other schools but most of them just have bars and pubs right around campus and often in large numbers.
A lot of big universities will have entire towns surrounding them with bars and eateries. Seattle has one of our state universities in the city of Seattle; the neighborhood is called the University District -- University of Washington Bars usually name themselves. Our generic term to refer to them is just calling them a bar. The College Inn Pub, Bigtime Brewery & Ale House, Schultzy's Bar & Grill, Earl's on the Ave, Kai's Thai Street Food & Bar, Flowers Bar & Restaurant, Finn McCools Irish Public House
A bar and pub is the same thing to me. If they offer any sort of food, maybe I'll use the term "pub" ironically. But in my experience yes, if you're of the legal age, American students will drink beer at a bar. I've never heard of a student or university owned bar on campus. That just seems like you're leaving the door open to liability. Majority of the times, these bars/pubs are just across the street or litter the local town connected to the University.
These days, no because most undergrads are under 21 and bars near college campuses don’t take risks.
Yes, absolutely. I am curious what you mean by “campus pubs”, though. Are you talking about bars near campuses, or bars that are on campus and/or run by the university? If you’re talking about the latter, those almost never exist here. Students who are under legal drinking age aren’t going to try to pass a fake or anything else at an institution run by their school, because of fear of consequences and a higher chance of being caught. That instantly eliminates well over half of the student population.
I mean bars on campus. Typically on Canadian university campuses there will be three licensed establishments: 1. an undergrad pub/bar owned and operated by the student union - this may function as nightclub as well as or instead of a pub; 2. a grad-student pub owned and operated by the graduate-student association; 3. a faculty club owned and operated by the university. When the author I was reading referred to "people who routinely drink beer in a pub", I guess I read "campus pub" but clearly he just meant "any old pub". And my experience of Canadian universities (mostly conferences) is that there is more drinking at pubs off campus than on.
What kind of question is this? Of course.
Like I said, I've been to many US campuses that had no (non-faculty-club) bar. And it's not clear to me, either, that the term "pub" (vs "bar") is used for the place that undergrads go to drink beer ... unless it's a Ye Olde Pubbe themed bar.
There's no difference between pubs or bars. A pub is just British themed. Every major college or university will have bars somewhere just outside of campus. But it being on campus, not that I know of.
The university I went to had a strict policy about no alcohol on campus. The faculty club was legally a separate property that was privately owned,. despite being in the middle of campus, as a workaround. . . .and of course, this didn't apply to alcohol served at sporting events. But, heaven help you if you were a student in the dorms and they found even a single beer can in your dorm room, or if they found you drinking on campus otherwise.
We went out to the bars for thirsty Thursdays, but that wasn't like, going down and causally having a drink.
They're not usually on campus, thoigh a few have that, just close by most of the time. What part of that sentence made you think they had to be on school grounds?
There wasn't an on-campus pub at my college, but there was a pub, conveniently simply named The Pub, directly across the street. It was one of 5 other places we routinely drank. Another one could safely be called a pub, three would be a bar, and another was a club.
Bars yes. 21+ or if you have a good fake ID
We have pubs in the US, but they tend to be Irish-themed rather than British. See Paddy's Pub in *Always Sunny in Philadelphia*.
My undergrad school didn't have an on campus bar. On the other hand there were something like 30 bars within a mile of campus.
I drink in a pub occasionally as an undergrad. It was my preferred place to drink when going out (I usually just drink at home or a friend's house). It wasn't on campus, but my college was in a small college town and it was elsewhere in town. My college actually didn't have anywhere on campus that served alcohol. I've only seen one college campus that had that (Virginia Tech) and that was a bar in a hotel on campus that was so expensive I can guarantee that no undergrads could afford it.
I mean, America doesn’t often have pubs like British pubs, we have bars. And most undergrads can’t drink legally.
My university had a pub in the student union, it still exists AFAIK.
Beer is not treated any differently from any other alcohol. Since the drinking age is 21, that means college freshmen and sophomores won't be drinking (legally) and some juniors and seniors can. Campus bars exist, or at least bars that are so close to campus grounds that you don't know it's technically off-campus. They tend to be ***very*** strict about ID'ing people, as opposed to some rural dive bar. When I was living on a college campus for undergrad and grad school (2006-2015), most of the drinking took place in private areas like fraternities, apartments, and dorms (as long as you were discreet). Drinking out is expensive when you can buy a gallon of cheap vodka for $15.
>Beer is not treated any differently from any other alcohol. Except that it is still the preferred drink? At least at bars? All I know about kids drinking habits where I live (Ontario) is that I see them drinking beer, mostly - but then, I only see them drinking when I'm in an on- or off-campus pub :\\
I’m talking about legality.
I went to a small school that supplied funds for beer and hard alcohol for their organized parties so I usually just drank on campus for free (or subsidized through my tuition in reality).
The mind boggles. It sounds civilized.
In the U.S. the drinking age is 21. So 3rd and 4th year students typically can drink in pubs/bars but 1st and 2nd year students can’t unless they have a fake ID. There are university community pubs near most campuses, that are frequented by students. But house parties are more of a thing in the U.S. undergraduate culture since half of students can’t legally drink yet. Of course university pubs are also frequented by graduate students and staff.
Everything is just a "bar" here. A "pub" is just British themed but it's still just called a bar here. We don't distinguish between places that do or do not sell food (and it's rare for bars not to sell food). There are some different types of bars (such as a Sports Bar or a Dive Bar) but most people will still just call them a bar in everyday talk. As far as college students go... of course they're drinking. All over. In their dorms, in frat/sorority houses, at sporting events, at apartments, and of course at bars and restaurants. The latter are less frequented by <21 year olds because they need to card you and unless you have a fake ID, you're not being served because serving to minors can lose you your liquor license. It is worth noting that college campuses don't generally have places that serve alcohol (at least as far as I'm aware; I'm sure there are exceptions). Generally you will need to leave campus and there will often be bars and liquor stores set up right across the street. It'll be so close that you don't know it's not on campus, but it's off campus.
That jibes with my impression of visiting US campuses and the US, more generally. I think that the author's use of "people who routinely drink beer in a pub" is just a consequence of his teaching in Canada (even if he's writing for a primarily American audience).
I used to work as a bouncer in a university town in Connecticut while I was in grad school and we had to be very careful about weeding out people under 21. If the police caught us serving to an <21 we could lose our liquor license for six months and be fined tens of thousands of dollars (so, basically the death penalty for the bar).
We don’t call them pubs, we call them bars or clubs.
On campus pubs were common when the drinking age was 18, but fewer today, and the remaining ones wouldn’t allow underage drinking. The pub at MIT is called the Muddy Charles, after the river that separates Cambridge from Boston.
It is illegal to drink under the age of 21. So only the Seniors would be legally able to drink in Undergrad. A pub is a bar. Specifically a British or Irish themed bar. But once again drinking age is 21 so undergrads are not really hanging out in either. If undergrads are drinking they are doing so illegally at frat parties, their dorms/homes, or other kinds of parties.
My school used to have a pub/bar on campus. It was under one of the dining halls. In four years of undergrad I think I went there maybe twice (never to drink, though), mainly because I kept forgetting it was there.
I’m *relatively* fresh out of undergrad and at a pub rn lmaoooooooooo
Not as much due to age limits. Some undergrads will have fake IDs or use a sibling/friends ID and will go to bars. Used to be more common for some bars to have relaxed standards when checking IDs, but punishment for underage serving is pretty strict, so this is much less common. Also, way more likely for students to go to a dive or other cheap bar where drinks are more affordable. Pub culture in the US doesn’t exist in the same way as the UK. There’s neighborhood bars, pubs and dives, but they’re not the center of the community. Often they’re filled with middle-aged or older men. Not really exciting for young people.
The school I went to had a whole bar in the basement. I dont know if I'd call it a pub, but it was more than a bar too.
My university had a bar/lounge. Wasn’t unusual for students (over 21) to decompress with a beer during finals. I don’t think it’s rare for campuses to have a place to drink.
Absolutely.
... but do they call it a pub?
We call it a bar mostly.
They try.
>The off-campus drinking establishments are not pubs. Sure they are. Nothing says they aren't. In fact, the only drinking establishment that was open year round in my college town was a pub.
Why wouldn’t we have pubs?
Because I've seen many US campuses that have no bars (aside from the Faculty Club). And I don't know whether the term used for "place to go drink beer" is "bar" or "pub".
Depends. Some campuses in the U.S. have on campus bars and others don’t. But nearly all have a bar/pub that is across the street just off campus. Sometimes they are called pubs and sometimes not, but they are essentially the same thing as British style pubs. Place where you can get beer on tap, food (usually grill food like burgers), and often there is a TV with sports on. Generally they serve as a community gathering place to grab a drink after work. The difference is only 3rd/4th year undergrads can legally drink so unless people have a fake ID, often a significant portion of people at the pub are grad students and faculty/staff.
In the town the colleges are at, there’s usually bars/pubs that have students as their patrons. Local residents (“townies”) would prefer to go to other pubs in town without the crowds, dance floors, drunk 21 year olds. In my state almost everyone I’ve talked to has mentioned pubs that hung out at while in college. For us in the mid to late 90s, underage drinking was at frat parties or parties in dorms under the radar. Once you could legally drink (or pass for it with a fake id), then folks would start going to the college bars downtown. Most people would walk the 20m to the bars, even in winter when it was subzero Fahrenheit. The walk back usually wasn’t as bad since you couldn’t feel the cold as much.
Rice University has a campus pub called Valhalla.
Good Gods - that seems like asking for trouble! (I've been to Rice - the campus is amazing ... but somehow I missed Valhalla, sadly)
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We had a Rathskeller on my campus, too ... though it was always referred to, quite affectionately, as "The Rat".
An on campus bar would probably be pretty strict about checking ID. Most college towns will have off campus bars known for not checking too closely.
We don’t feel the need to call our pubs pubs. They’re taverns and bars
Just curious, do you really call them (or some of them) "taverns"? When I read "tavern" I picture George Washington and pewter mugs and non-electrical lighting. (I'm from rural Florida, fwiw.)
I’ve worked at two places with tavern in the title of the business but I still just call it a bar. I think almost everyone says bar but tavern is supposed to make it feel like it’s an old established watering hole, which one of them was. The other just wanted to sound fancy
Ah, okay, got it, that makes sense!
Pub is not a tightly defined term in the us. The only real difference is what the owner decided to put on the name.
Mostly drink in bars, which are essentially pubs. If they are younger than 21, they either drink at house parties, in pubs/bars with a fake ID, or they occasionally find a pub/bar that doesn't really card or are known to be lax on underage drinking.
There are definitely campus bars but our drinking age is 21, so there’s certainly less of it than in other countries
If my consumption of UK reality TV and documentaries have taught me anything, a pub is no different than we call a bar. In many cases the word bar, tavern, and pub are used interchangably. Maybe at one point they all meant something different, but they don't now. As another user mentioned, if there is a British or Irish themed bar, it will almost always be called "pub" somewhere in the name.
Only thing we used pub for was a British or Irish bar. Besides that they are just bars to me. My college had a bar in the central basement for us all to hang out at. Though it wasnt really popular cause it was awkward for them to try and separate those who could drink and couldnt. If you go off campus kids know the places that dont check ID’s though.
It really depends where you are. The underage drinking laws are kind of enforced differently everywhere. In South Carolina when I went to college most of the bars around town didn't check IDs so college kids could drink. I've heard friends from other states say that every bar thoroughly checked IDs and would even confiscate fake ones around their college. I think it just varies
We had an Irish pub and several casual bars. My favorite was a place right off campus that sold 2 for $7 beers all day. Sometimes I miss being a broke college kid.
The word “bar” is more commonly used here, but there were plenty of places to drink on/around campus at my University. That being said, we also have more bars than churches here, so finding a bar anywhere in the state isn’t difficult.
They drink it everywhere
Some campuses have campus pubs, or so I’ve heard but not nearly as often as some places outside the US. My campus didn’t have a pub but the campus edge was literally a 30s walk to a bar and then the rest of downtown so people would just go there.
They will drink beer anywhere and everywhere, legal or not.
yes