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A man walks into a bar. He ducks his head to avoid the low ceiling on his way down the stairs. His feet touch down on a concrete floor. He goes to buy a drink, next to the furnace.
This is a speakeasy in an Orono basement.
“Hey man, can I get a beer please?” the guest asks. He’s not ignored or lost in a shuffle of clamoring customers; he’s met with prompt service and a smile. Like just about everyone in this underground tavern, he knows the bartender. The two chat as the bartender fills a red plastic cup with Pabst Blue Ribbon from a keg.
Four University of Maine students, all males, live in the pub-slash-apartment. One is under the legal drinking age, and he’s the barman.
The bar’s system is straightforward: The residents buy two kegs of beer, charge their guests $5 for a bottomless cup, and keep a list of everyone who has paid. They break even at 28 cups.
“When you get it off tap, it’s something special,” says John Singer*, a senior student and resident at the bar-partment.
They generally clear what they spend, earning up to $50 and averaging $30. They pool the money and use it to improve the bar or pay bills. This evening, they’ve sold cup number 29 at 11:45 – they’re in the black.
One regular fills his cup for the eighth time; that amounts to 63 cents per PBR, compared to $2 or $3 at most local bars.
Every few minutes, a slurred, hollered countdown commences. It’s a new group doing shots at the bar.
“Carry On Wayward Son” by Kansas pours from the speakers. The whole bar sings along. Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” and Sir Mixalot’s “Baby Got Back” receive the same drunken enthusiasm later.
“We’re lucky to have a pretty soundproof house,” says Chief Bromden, another senior student residing here. The tenants take pride in their sound system, which runs from a laptop through the entire house. The party doesn’t end at the bar, but extends upstairs, where constant drinking games complement the basement’s all-night beer pong.
The basement is illuminated by a kaleidoscopic mix: strands of multicolored Christmas lights, neon signs, spinning yellow dashboard lights, strobes. Large, reflective signs adorn the walls, pilfered from the roadside or passed down from unknown origins.
The bar and its stools are constantly occupied. There’s often a line and a wait for beer, as with any watering hole. The difference here is the personal touch; when a new guest approaches the bar, holding a 40-ounce beer, bartender Nick Andros ribs him: “I have two kegs! I have two kegs, and you come in here with a 40? That’s bull.”
Nick has thought about taking a bartending course, he explains between wiping the bar down with a rag and refilling a bowl of pretzels.
“But I just do it for fun,” he says. “I’ll mix a drink every once in a while, if they trust me.”
He and his roommates have recently been experimenting with cocktails, searching for a signature drink. Nick is the default bartender, but each roommate takes a hand at staffing the bar. John plans to take a mixology course this semester. One of the only existing trademark drinks at this establishment is a flaming shot, which John performs.
“We mostly do just really simple, simple stuff, not to get too crazy. We want to keep it basic,” John says.
The bar has one access point – a swinging door made from a stop sign. A refrigerator stocked with liquors and juices sits underneath, available to keep guests’ drinks cold.
Orono Police Sargeant Scott Lajoie said while there is no increased penalty for habitually furnishing liquor to minors and a place for minors to consume liquor, it is a crime.
“Not to mention the whole civil liability,” Lajoie said.
Friends call Nick “DD”; he’s the designated driver, and he typically sips from a Styrofoam cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee behind the bar. He doesn’t drink alcohol and doesn’t intend to until he’s 21 – he’s content with the legal drinking age.
“I mean, driving at 16 and drinking at 18, that wouldn’t be good,” Andros says. “Underage drinking is already a problem.”
Still, drinks are sold here regardless of age, and the barmen don’t have a consensus on the legal drinking age. Chief differs from Nick: “My father was in Vietnam. It was the whole, ‘If you’re old enough to die for your country, you should be able to drink in it.’ That’s how I feel.”
Chief says the bar is an outlet for enjoyment for the “majority” of college students who will not turn 21 until their senior year.
“We’re safe; we’re smart about it,” John says. “People aren’t stupid. We cut people off.”
One 18-year-old first-year student estimates he comes to every party held here.
“The bar adds a lot to it. It feels familiar; it’s fun. Everyone knows each other here,” he says.
The tenants are selective and cautious about their guest lists. The attendance is usually a “core group,” according to Chief.
“Usually at parties like this, there are 10 to 15 people we don’t know, and that’s fine with this,” Bromden says.
“We’re pretty strict,” Singer adds. “If someone has a friend, that’s fine, but we keep a close eye on people. If they act out, it’ll be the last time they’ll be here. Sometimes we’ll boot them out and actually drive them home.
“People know the rules, and we enforce them pretty harshly here.”
Drugs are forbidden, Chief says. “We don’t want people to do harm to themselves – we want people to have a good time. If they’re mature enough to hang out here, we let them come back and keep doing it.”
The goal has always been for a safe, fun atmosphere. The bar has never incurred a noise complaint or a run-in with police.
“We don’t want to cause trouble. One mark here, and we’re kind of scarred for life,” John says. “We’d like to keep people coming here, but if something were to happen, we’d be shut down.”
The four roommates lived here for a year before becoming close enough to attempt the speakeasy creation. The idea came from a bevy of unceremonious college keg parties, according to John.
“Parties I used to go to, the keg would be in the garage or outside in the middle of the winter. There’d be 60,000 people inside the kitchen playing pong on this overly small table. You couldn’t move anywhere, you couldn’t breathe. You never knew who to pay to get a cup; the guy who was taking money for it was always wasted, passed out in the toilet somewhere,” John says.
“We really wanted to change that down here. We were like, ‘We’re going to make this look professional.’ People know who to talk to; they know directly where to go when they get here,” John says.
They looked specifically for stools, but the rest of the decor came over time.
“We find pieces here and there. There’s nothing really uniform to it,” John says. “We’re very crafty. We have all the tools we need to basically build whatever we want. We do it ourselves, we measure it all out and everything.”
Parties are sporadic; the bar has no set operating hours. The residents shoot for once or twice a month.
It wouldn’t be a speakeasy if the operation wasn’t chancy.
“We’re probably not as careful as we should be, but that’s part of the whole experience,” Bromden says.
“If we find that the tenants are all there and that they knowingly furnished a place or furnished liquor to minors, they would all get charged or arrested,” Lajoie said.
“What we’re doing here, we’d definitely get in trouble for. It’s always a risk,” Singer says.
So what makes the bar worth it?
“I don’t know. It’s kind of the fun and excitement of being at a college campus. You’ve got to do some wild and crazy things while you’re up here. It makes some great stories to tell people.”
Though the bar may be passed on to future tenants, the spirit of this Orono speakeasy is fleeting.
“I think we have taken it to the next level,” Singer says. “It’s something fun for us to have right now, but turning it to someone else will completely change it around. We’re going to let it run its course until it dies out.”
* All names within this story have been changed to provide anonymity.
