Willy's Pub celebrates 35th Birthday

By Ruby Gee     2/10/11 6:00pm

Willy's Pub commemorated its 35th birthday by hosting a four-day celebration this past weekend. Although the ladies' night event was ultimately canceled, the Pub experienced two of its top sales days during its Smoking Section concert and birthday party."I think the birthday party was a great success," Inventory Manager Avery Marcus said. "We're definitely very pleased with the outcome."

Marcus, a Wiess College junior, said when planning the event, he looked into whether or not the timing of the Pub celebration would conflict with other events in campus.

"To be honest, we didn't really know what to expect, because we're typically not open on the weekend," Marcus said. "There [had] been a few times in the past when we opened on the weekend and it hadn't been that successful."

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The first official event of the four-day celebration was a concert by the Smoking Section, an undergraduate band from Martel College who played a few of its own songs and covers of popular pop songs at the pub for the last time this past Thursday as a part of its farewell tour.

Martel senior Page Robinson, lead singer of the Smoking Section, said that classes being canceled the next day probably helped with the crowd turnout.

"The crowd was one of the most engaging we [have] had," Robinson said. "People stuck around until 2 a.m. dancing . it was a pretty good night."

Marcus said that the night of the concert, the Pub was filled to capacity, which is approximately 300 people. According to Marcus, the earnings from the event constituted the Pub's biggest sales night of the year. Drink specials included beer for $1.25 and champagne for $2.50.

"It was bumpin' - that's a word I would use - sweaty also," Jones College sophomore Chris Keller said. "It was fun - they played a lot of really good pop songs [like] 'F. You' by Cee Lo and 'Runaway' by Kanye West."

According to Marcus, the only hitch was the cancellation of the ladies' night event since the Pub had to close on Friday due to inclement weather.

The Pub's 35th birthday party was held Saturday night. According to Keller, student attendance was about the same as Thursday's turnout, though sales were slightly lower. Wiess junior Michael Nguyen, also known as DJ Mycle, provided the music for the night.

"The DJ was really good and the atmosphere was awesome," Baker College senior Johnny Li said.

The last event of the four-day celebration was a showing of the Super Bowl. Marcus said that approximately 20-30 people were in attendance at the Pub to watch the game.

"It wasn't quite as successful as our Thursday night or Saturday night event," Marcus said. "I was relatively pleased with the outcome considering that we had a fair amount of competition, as each college was doing its own thing."

According to Marcus, for future birthday celebrations, Pub is looking into inviting past bartenders, managers and other Pub alumni. According to Marcus, given half a year to plan ahead, the Pub could really turn its celebrations into something special.

"It's nice to have some variation from public parties," Brown College senior Eric Lee said. "It's nice to have this kind of event since they let students get together and relax.

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