Wasn't the place on Highland actually called the Bengal? For me it was Sports, Sports and Sports...those were the days.
Dear lord, what if the union still served beer? My guess is that class attendance would spiral down, but campus visits would go up...Geez...Kids would be out of control...
I happened to drive by a few years back when they were tearing down The Bengal. I almost shed a tear. I was good friends with two of the bartenders (they were brothers) and the manager (Big Richard). There's an abandoned auto parts store on that site now. Such a crime.
85-89 Sports, Fred's, Murphy's and on Sunday's The Gator Bar on Bayou Manchac. A drink special on every night of the week, and I still Graduated!
Best time in the world! Major bands like the Rolling Stones, Emerson, Lake, & Palmer, and Jethro Tull played at the Assembly center regularly. Hippie chicks really believed in free love. We could drink legally. Pot was $10 an ounce . . and we thought it was expensive! Heaven knows how I graduated, I sure as hell didn't study much.
My crowd ('88-'92) frequented The Bengal after football games, and occasionally, The Tiger (though a sorority girl threw up on me one time while I was going into the bathroom there...) On weeknights, I went to The Chimes for cheese fries and "Around the World" beers. I think I'm on the original plaque inside The Chimes. Does anybody from that timeframe remember a fruity place called the Art Bar (down on Nicholson, I think)? SGA had some sort of function there one time. Definitely, the granola crowd hung there.
The Art Bar was in a brick building down Highland close to the bridge and downtown. I didn't spend much time there, but I remember the place. I started going around the world on the afternoon of my 18th birthday (it was a Monday during high school) and finished that summer. Good times.
