UC Berkeley closes Bear's Lair campus pub UC Berkeley Campus pub closes for student union makeover

A former manager of The Bear's Lair Pub Dave Rowe, works on clearing out the site on Wednesday Dec. 5, 2012, in Berkeley, Calif. Major renovations are taking place on the UC Berkeley campus at Sproul Plaza where Eshleman Hall is being torn down, The Bear's Lair Pub has closed and Martin Luther King Jr. student union building will be renovated and earthquake retrofitted. less A former manager of The Bear's Lair Pub Dave Rowe, works on clearing out the site on Wednesday Dec. 5, 2012, in Berkeley, Calif. Major renovations are taking place on the UC Berkeley campus at Sproul Plaza ... more Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 8 Caption Close UC Berkeley closes Bear's Lair campus pub 1 / 8 Back to Gallery

The Bear's Lair will roar no more. It won't even burp.

UC Berkeley has closed its on-campus pub, where generations of undergraduates had their drinks or whiled away sunny afternoons on the patio with a pitcher of beer.

"This place was a blast," said Dave Rowe, former manager of the Bear's Lair, as he sorted through memorabilia last week - including the bear-shaped doorknobs and a goalpost from the 2002 Big Game - while work crews dismantled the 50-year-old establishment.

"For a lot of students, this is where they had their first job, where they learned how to drink," he said. "It was a safe place for all that. There's many good memories."

The demise of the Bear's Lair is due to a $223 million overhaul of Lower Sproul Plaza, the early 1960s-era student-union complex near Bancroft and Telegraph avenues. The university is chipping in $99 million, and students are paying the rest after voting to tax themselves in 2010.

As part of the makeover, Eshleman Hall will be razed; the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union Building, which houses the Bear's Lair, will be mostly gutted and rebuilt at twice the size; the Cesar Chavez Student Center will be remodeled; and the plaza itself will be repaved.

A new bear statue

Also on the way: a new bear statue. The campus is already a veritable zoo of bear statues, but students plan to install a very big bear statue in the new Lower Sproul, in addition to the elevated bear statue already there.

"We want a central bear," said student body President Connor Landgraf. "Something on the ground, which people can take pictures of and kids can climb on."

The Lower Sproul project is expected to be done by 2015. The new Eshleman will probably have a pub, and it might be called the Bear's Lair, but it won't be in the same spot as the old Bear's Lair and it will not likely have the same grizzled, friendly ambience.

Beat the Clock Fridays

Nor is it likely to have Beat the Clock Fridays, in which pitchers of beer were $4 at 4 p.m., $5 at 5 p.m. and $6 at 6 p.m.

"We'd have 200 people lined up for that," Rowe said. "I should tell the new managers, don't even try it. You'll never make any money."

Also not likely to reappear: the oar signed by the Cal crew team; the 300 beer mugs hanging from the ceiling, each with its own storied lineage as seniors handed them down to underclassmen; or the bar stool reserved for Oski, the school mascot.

And Oski was indeed a regular patron. The portly, costumed ursine would regularly pop in for a refreshment, sipping beer via a straw piped through his eyehole. Rowe swears Oski was always 21 or older.

Students last week said they were sad to see the Bear's Lair and other landmarks go, but the need for modern, safe facilities was paramount.

"We wanted to create a campus living room," said Landgraf, "a place where students from all majors can meet 24/7, relax, collaborate, study, hang out."

In addition to modern seismic reinforcement, the old buildings lacked large public spaces. Students today, who spend much of their time hunkered behind computer screens, need more places to meet for face-to-face contact, Landgraf said.

Doctoral student Funie Hsu said she's happy to see the upgrades, but hopes the new student-union facility won't be filled with chain stores.

"Public education keeps moving closer and closer to a corporate business model," she said. "I'd like to see the student union free of that. It should be for students, foremost."