Our Favorite College Dive is Gone (updated)

Update: According to Twitter, Dave’s is closed. According to a comment below, it’s only temporary. If you have any additional details, please share in the comments below. It’s official. See the comments below.

If the rumors are true, Dave’s Taverna called last call for good Sunday night. Details are few, but it’s well known that the establishment had filed for bankruptcy and had been struggling for a while now. It’s unfortunately also pretty much accepted that the management had taken on a less than customer friendly approach to business the past few years. Which is a shame because in it’s heyday (or ancient times) when we were students, it was just about the perfect college dive. Cheap beer, good food, and a shall we say liberal ID policy, made it a go-to spot practically any night of the week.

Dave’s, or as it was know when we were student’s Gus’s, didn’t hit on any magic formula. When it was thriving, it’s recipe for success pretty much was straight out of College Bars 101. Cut all frills and keep the beer cheap. Really cheap. If you wanted entertainment, you could buy a pack of cards from the waitress. And order more beer. It wasn’t rocket science. And it worked.

It’s been years (many, many years) since we were in school and we realize that our stories about Dave’s/Gus’s can toe the line between authentic and apocryphal. If my memory serves me right (and it probably does not) happy hour ran from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM. During that time, pitchers of beer were $1.95. After happy hour ended, they bumped up to like $2.25 or something. Granted, you could get a keg at Mike’s Chevron for $27 bucks at the time, but that was still pretty damn cheap. And nobody was going to serve you gyros drinking off a keg at your friend’s apartment.

So the beer prices were obviously a huge draw. The rather lax ID policy also helped pull in plenty of students. Didn’t have an ID? No biggie. You could just order water initially and then magically change your mind and ask for a glass for the pitcher, after the waitress came back with the pitcher…and your friend had passed you his ID under the table. It was real cloak and dagger stuff. I swear I was there one night when 3 of the 4 people sitting in a booth used the same ID. It’s a wonder the place wasn’t shut down years ago when you think about it. And did we mention that the ATM directly across the street used to let you withdraw a minimum of $5? Talk about perfect placement.

But it’s gone now and something will take it’s place. If the results of our highly scientific twitter survey are to be believed (and why wouldn’t they?), then we could make a killing buying it and re-opening it as JMUSB Taverna. Same menu, cheep (good) beer, cornhole on the roof, and here’s the twist, a better attitude. We’d be golden. Todd has restaurant experience and well, I’m tall and can reach things on high shelves. It’s pretty much a foolproof plan. R.I.P. Dave’s.

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