JULIA INGRAM/The Stanford Daily
Live music and other festivities will highlight Friday’s official opening of a new campus bar located on the patio outside of TreeHouse. While the bar has received University and student support alike since its “soft opening” on April 7, an uncertain future lies ahead.
“The bar is a pilot,” wrote Student Affairs spokesperson Pat Harris in an email to The Daily. “We’ll evaluate at the end of spring quarter, and then make plans for the future.”
The Social Project student club leading development of the bar — which is operated by the same vendor as TreeHouse — has not yet come to a consensus about the name of the bar, but will debut it soon, club member and bar organizer Emily Arbuthnott ’20 told The Daily.
The bar is intended to complement Stanford’s efforts to discourage dangerous drinking, Social Project student leader Emily Arbuthnott ’20 told The Daily. She added that she and the other organizers “wanted to create this space … that’s completely student-run [to encourage] people to drink in a more sensible way.”
Potential future customers of the bar will be arriving on campus next weekend for Stanford’s annual Admit Weekend event. But neither the incoming frosh, nor any other students, will be sipping during that time.
“We are currently working with our vendor to plan for admit weekend,” wrote Student Affairs Assistant Vice Provost of Strategy and Assessment Jenn Calvert in an email to The Daily. “We will not be serving alcohol from the bar. We are looking into the possibility of serving non-alcoholic beverages.”
Even outside of Admit Weekend, Arbuthnott said she would like for underage students to have an opportunity to enjoy the social venue without drinking alcohol.
“We need to be really careful … we want to make sure people aren’t drinking underage, but we want to make sure the space is inclusive,” Arbuthnott said. “Hopefully, we are going to have more programmed events like student band lineups or movie screenings.”
In regard to other University initiatives — such as the incoming reimagination of White Plaza and the surrounding area as a new Town Center — Harris wrote that the bar is “separate from the town center concept for now,” but that Student Affairs is “working closely” with Associate Vice President for Campus Engagement Matthew Tiews to gather information that will “help develop the town center concept.”
“We thought it was important to get something off the ground as soon as possible,” Arbuthnott said. “That’s why we chose the location behind Tresidder, because we could partner with TreeHouse and CoHo.”
Student bands Brass Acid Collective and Pass by Catastrophe are performing at the bar on Friday night starting at 9:30 p.m., Arbuthnott said.
“There is going to be a stage, student lineup,” she added. “It’s all one big experiment … and student feedback is a huge part of that.”
Contact Dilan Nana at dilan99 ‘at’ stanford.edu and Holden Foreman at hs4man21 ‘at’ stanford.edu.
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