Tim Long has been here before. It was the late 1970s, and he and Santa Clara student Claranne Ravizza ’78 would stop by The Hut, the bar at the corner of Franklin Street and The Alameda. Now they co-own the business and are reviving it.

“It was dark,” Long says, and he pauses. “You know, it was a college bar.”

It was also check-and-jowl with the Santa Clara University campus. So, naturally, the exterior was red: red brick topped by red-painted wood. Back in those days, The Alameda was a four-lane road running through the heart of campus. Also back in those days, Long played baseball and studied at San Jose City College.

Tuesdays at The Hut were known as “little Fridays” because there were no classes at Santa Clara on Wednesdays. The Jesuits, Long says, felt students needed an extra day to study midweek. That tradition ended, he surmises, once the University came to grips with the fact that many undergrads weren’t studying on the free day, but were, perhaps, making up for the night before at The Hut.

For Long and Ravizza, dating led to marriage and children. One—baseball player Matt Long ’09—followed Claranne to SCU. Matt’s sister, Jenna Johnson, remembers going to the bar once while visiting Matt on campus. “Probably because it was the only bar around,” she says, and she laughs.

And that, love it or hate it, is what made The Hut part of the Santa Clara University experience for many. Friendships were forged over pints and pitchers and shots. Relationships began at the tables. And success—a job after graduation, surviving finals, graduating itself—was celebrated by pinning a signed dollar bill or business card to the ceiling. Plus another round. Commencement morning, the place was packed to the gills, with those about to graduate enjoying the Dads and Grads tradition of a shot with pop.