Typically, when a person enters a bar or a club, they can usually find people drunk and on the verge of puking, wallflowers standing in the corner waiting anxiously for someone to approach them and couples grinding up a storm on the dance floor. Neighbors, however, is quite a departure from the expected.
I entered the bar to find myself engaged in a friendly, welcoming
atmosphere. While the bar focuses on attracting the gay/lesbian/bisexual crowd and while it seemed
that everyone at the bar attends regularly and knows one another, I strangely did not feel out of place or unwelcome. While the venue and crowd at Neighbors is significantly smaller than other bars near campus, such as Rennie’s or Taylor’s, everyone present at the bar appeared to be socializing or dancing merrily to hits such as Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.” On the small but accommodating dance floor, it was possible to find girls dancing with girls, guys dancing with guys, girls dancing with guys, a guy sandwiched between two girls, and overall, people having fun and being carefree. Nobody in the crowd, even by midnight, seemed overly drunk. It appeared as though people were there to meet others, dance and relax rather than get wasted.
“Everyone at Neighbors is friendly and accepting. It is a better crowd here. There are no fights like in other bars,” Neighbors’ doorman and DJ Brian Letsom said. “This is the most alternative bar in town. You can be gay, straight, whatever, and not have to worry about not being served.”
Robyn Landis, a 21-year-old Neighbors customer, said she comes to Neighbors every Friday.
“I come to Neighbors to drink and dance. It is laid back here and
you can be yourself. This bar is
not full of college kids who are full of themselves. People here are
not out to talk about teams and
to fight.”
While overall Landis enjoys
Neighbors, she does have a couple
of complaints.
“When I come to Neighbors
on Fridays, I tend to come after
the drag show is over because the drag queens perform to cheesy
music and I don’t like that. I don’t like paying the cover when I
am not entertained, and I can’t dance when the drag show is going on because the drag queens take up the dance floor.”
Landis also mentioned that she wishes the women’s bathroom was bigger and didn’t always have such a long line.
While the bar does attract a large gay/lesbian/bisexual crowd, heterosexual customers are just as welcome and can have just as good a time as anyone else.
“A bar is usually a place where you can go to meet people of the opposite sex to possibly get intimate with. I do not come here with that same satisfaction. I don’t have to worry about impressing other women. I can just be myself and nobody cares,” 27-year-old Steve Larson said.
On the flip side, however, Larson complains that the more he acts like himself at the bar, the more he tends to attract the same sex. Larson initially started going to Neighbors because of a friend he has who is a lesbian.
Neighbors offers a different theme for each night of the week. There are Karaoke Mondays, Tuesday Men’s Night, $2 Wednesdays, Thursday Women’s Night, Shebang! Fridays (Shebang! is a group of drag queen performers), and Saturdays With DJ Lynda. Dancing nights at Neighbors consist of top 40, house and trance music. Neighbors also features $1 Pabst and $2.50 well drinks at all times.
Neighbors is conveniently located at 1417 Villard St.

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