A night at everyone’s favorite watering hole: Theodore’s

Tucked away in the foggy street corners of Storrs, Connecticut, a little-known bar and tavern is serving up warm food, cold drinks and sweet, sweet music fit for Bilbo Baggins and his friends.

Theodore’s Bar and Restaurant is where classy people go for comfort, relaxation and lasting romantic connections.

These qualities are on full display every Thursday night, more colloquially known as Nickel Night to Storrs regulars. For just $1, a heartwarming bartender will serve you and four of your best friends an ice-cold, masterly prepared drink.

Theodore’s displays its unique definition of high-society even before the concierge greets you at the door. A host of Storrs socialites can be found indulging in high-class Newport cigarettes while discussing politics, philosophy and fiery romances come and gone (the last time they got laid).

The atmosphere of Theodore’s facade is punctuated by the local sounds, sights and smells of rural Connecticut, masterfully engineered by the staff and patrons of the restaurant. What may sound like the rush of a gentle river rambling through campus is actually an adult woman in full-squat position relieving herself by a tree. The commitment to authentic rural ambience is truly admirable.

As you make your way into the building, you can immediately feel a drastic change in temperature and humidity. Theodore’s forgoes standard methods of heating a restaurant, and instead uses the natural heat emitted by hundreds of young adults standing asscheek to asscheek. The smell of so many of my deodorant-less peers perspirating side-by-side took me back to my days as a 6th-grade youth at my first dance: greasy, nauseous, and sexually confused. We here at The Tab applaud Theodore’s for this environmentally friendly method of heating.

The spirit of youth is everywhere at Theodore’s. Although Nickel Night is 21+, eager patrons are not going to let something silly like “the law” get in the way of having a good time, as they confidently display the I.D. of their roommate’s cousin’s co-worker who kind of looks like them.

My posse and I approach the bar at 8:00pm just as Nickel Night begins. We are lucky enough to avoid any lines and order a round of five whiskey sours. And another round of whiskey sours. And another round of whisky sours…

What makes a whiskey sour at Theodore’s so special, and the same can be said for many of their drinks, is they do a splendid job of getting rid of that pesky alcohol taste. If I did not know any better, I would think the bartender forgot to put any whiskey in my drink!

I just had to know: what is in the “sour” of a five-star whiskey sour at Theodore’s? The bartender answered knowingly: “I don’t know, sour mix.”

Wow. Truly the sort of obscure, masterfully ironic answer I expected from the esteemed serving staff at Theodore’s.

In fact, many things about Theodore’s remain mysterious, but this mystery just adds to the quality of this hip establishment. For example, for a bar which serves hundreds of students throughout the night, why would the restaurant provide only one urinal and one open toilet for the men’s bathroom? Simple: to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood.

Can someone really say they went to Theodore’s without having urinated next to another man into the same toilet? The feeling of comfort and genuine connection that overcomes you as you bump elbows with another human being while relieving yourself is something only this bar could ever provide. Other restaurants can learn a thing or two about tearing down the stalls that divide us.

In order to make our way back to the bar we simply needed to bypass around 200 other patrons. This is much easier and enjoyable as it sounds. Every drink is now an adventure of shoving, spitting, spilling and minor sexual harassment as you grind and mosh your way through a crowd of 200 people trying to do the same exact thing at the same exact time. One might claim they are in touch with their fellow members of the UConn community, but those of us who frequent Theodore’s Nickel Night have probably touched most of the UConn community.

Since all you need to get a round of drinks is five cups and $1, patrons will often stuff their cups with a dollar bill and then hand it to a complete stranger with the hope it will return refilled and un-roofied. Getting a refill at Theodore’s is like trying to buy 5000 tons of gold on the commodities trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange: there is a lot of indistinct yelling and you will be lucky to get back a portion of what you put in.

This would be a stressful situation if it were not for the constant hum of sweet, contemporary country music blaring on overhead speakers. And when 200 drunk UConn students start mumbling the lyrics to “Chicken Fried,” it’s like the Zac Brown Band is singing their grassroots equivalent of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony just for you.

Theodore’s Nickel is the UConn community at its finest. Here, like nowhere else on campus, UConn students exhibit the kind of universal brotherhood John Lennon imagined for the world. Whether it is a drink, a cigarette, or oral herpes, UConn students have no problem sharing on Nickel Night.

We leave Theodore’s at around 11:30, warmed against the cold by fun, friendship, alcohol, alcohol and alcohol. After a brief clarification of travel arrangements with some of our party, I continue back to my room for deep sleep filled with joyous visions of frat bros, bar tabs and that person in my class who definitely won’t remember seeing me.

Exhibiting all of the best qualities of our campus, Theodore’s Nickel Night is an absolute delight. I would give it 5 stars, although I am not sure what happened the last hour I was there. 4 stars.