Here’s a sure sign of a fun pub: The employees play the same bar games as their customers.
“Most of my staff plays pinball,” said Collin O’Coyne, general manager of Wetlands Brew Pub and Sports Bar at 922 Garfield St. The Blue Room Lounge and its neighboring pub that make up the establishment have seen more than 100 customers on a busy night.
With 11 pool tables, two regulation jukeboxes, pinball machines, electronic darts and poker, arcade golf, TVs and Texas Hold ’em tournaments, perhaps the biggest surprise is that it is actually a low-key atmosphere.
“You can always find a corner. Even if it is busy, it can be nice and mellow. Just don’t throw glasses or break pool cues,” O’Coyne joked.
Three 8-foot pool tables fill The Blue Room normally, but it also doubles as a poker room for Texas Hold ’em tournaments held on Tuesday night. Sign-up starts at 6 p.m. and the buy-in is $20. O’Coyne said that 25 to 35 people play at four tables.
The “Dart Star” machine in the pub offers seven games and keeps score for the user. With Wetlands’ astounding six video poker machines, there is rarely a line for customers desiring to test their luck. “Golden Tee 2005,” their golf-themed arcade game, has a track ball that rolls to simulate the varied swinging movements of drives or putts. “Monster Madness” and “Scared Stiff” are two perennially popular pinball machines in the establishment.
O’Coyne added that he hopes to add shuffle board, foosball and possibly air hockey in the next couple of months.
At Max’s Tavern, 550 E. 13th, there are four tables that have granite tiles sunken into wood with checkerboard designs on them. With chess pieces, cribbage sets, checkers, Scrabble and Scattergories pieces, drinkers and thinkers can unite soberly – or otherwise.
“If you like to go out and have a beer and play cribbage, this is the spot,” said the tavern’s proprietor, Ward Fairbairn.
By simply asking a bartender, customers can get a gaming set or pieces to use. The cozy spot has a pool table, which is usually open for play.
Bar game players don’t just square off for peanuts at Max’s.
“When we have done pool tourneys, we’ve had cash prizes. For cribbage we had a cash prize or a nice cribbage set, and if we can get a chess tourney, a nice chess board set might be nice,” he added.
Last spring, Max’s cribbage tournament offered two rounds with about eight people. There just weren’t enough competitors to keep it going. Fairbairn said he would like to see participant numbers go up, but he does not go for the hype surrounding enormous “in” bars or clubs.
“You go to other places to be seen. You go to Max’s just to be,” he said.
At Mulligans, 2841 Willamette St., the buzz of activity doesn’t die until no one wants to play anymore. Manager Tom Randall said that some of these games trail off into half-decade long battles.
“There are guys who come in to shoot pool who have ongoing tournaments running between them. They have been keeping track for probably the past five or six years,” he said.
For 25 cents a play on two different pool tables and 50 cents for a 9-hole round on Mulligans’ “Golden Tee 2005”, the price is right. Chess, checkers and cribbage, as well as a new digital screen “Spectrum Dart Star” game, are favorites amongst students, along with pool. A dozen games are available on the electronic dart system. However, it is sweet nostalgia that fills the air between the latest and greatest innovations.
“We have the old-school ‘Asteroids Deluxe’ (arcade game), with the big, old square-arcade style stand. We had ‘Centipede’ (the arcade game) in here and people would come in and literally buy a roll of quarters, get a beer and play,” Randall said.
The bar’s pinball machine, “Theatre Magic,” gets plenty of attention as well. However, Mulligans itself is still under the radar as far as Randall is concerned.
“We are one of Eugene’s best-kept secrets,” he said.