TCU losing its Pub a sign that the institution of the college bar is endangered
Part of the college experience is the “college bar,” a dive that a sailor, trucker and roughneck would pass on in favor of something more upscale.
The college bar features the bathroom that is an insult to wild animals, and yet young men find these places as the ideal spot to find love for one, but no more than two, evenings.
The college bar is designed for young people, low on cash, who don’t mind drinking beer that most countries call water. Few college bars feature food, and what is offered can only be cooked through a fryer full of grease that predates the Siege of Vicksburg.
The most important detail to the college bar is that it can be reached on foot, even if that walk is a zigzag pattern that includes a few falls, and restroom breaks behind public buildings.
The college bar’s charm is that it has none.
There are fewer of these relics around, and last week TCU lost its last traditional college bar. The University Pub, which claims to have served “Thousands of Horned Frogs” since 1981 closed over the weekend. Sucks.
The Pub announced that it would close May 18. A disagreement (wink-wink) between the landlord, which contrary to popular belief is not TCU, and the tenant. The Pub’s neighbor, Buffalo Bros, will expand into that spot to increase its dining area where it serves pizza, wings, etc.
As TCU has morphed from a small, regional school to a nationally known brand, and its campus footprint and enrollment have doubled, places like The Pub are vulnerable to this final destination.
The corner area that consists of nine tenants on South University Drive is privately owned; it has been a staple of this community since 1928. The Pub is the last vestige of a previous era, and a thread for multiple generations.
“The Pub was someplace you never wanted to admit you were going to, but once you got there, you ended up seeing all the people you were too embarrassed to tell you were going there in the first place,” said Adrianne Specker Deem, who graduated from TCU in 1994.
What’s happening here is not that different than locations all over America. The area around Wrigley Field in Chicago is barely recognizable; all of the old places have been replaced with modern architecture, and a layer of sleek.
The exterior of the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C., where President Lincoln was shot in 1865, looks ridiculous. The historic landmark sits on 10th St. NW in The District, and it’s flanked by new, pretty buildings up and down the avenue.
America has always preferred new.
For a lot of people, places like The Pub are much more than a spot for cheap beer.
“I actually thought about flying in this weekend for a farewell pitcher. But thought better of it,” said Brad Horn, who graduated from TCU in 1998 and is currently a professor and associate dean for the School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
“The Pub has always felt like the one constant through life. As a student, I had no idea how special that place would become for what it represented many years later. It’s a place where time stood still — and where your Polaroid photo on the wall actually proved it — while your life was evolving through your 20s, 30s and 40s.”
(Yes. Yes, I should have had Brad write this entire column.)
“Even though I haven’t lived in DFW for 25 years now, the memories I’ve made there in that time only amplify what I experienced as a student,” Horn said. “It’s as big of a Fort Worth institution as Joe T. Garcia’s, Ol’ South and Dan Jenkins and it’s a sad day for all of us who have lived and loved The Pub for exactly what it always has been.”
Most college communities have these sorts of places; places that feature a portion of one wall loaded with “autographs” from students. Floors that require not Bleach or 409 to clean but gasoline. Walls that feature kitschy vintage signs that are coated in layers of permanent dust.
And bars and kitchens that the local health department and the establishment have come to “an understanding.”
These places are historic, but it’s getting to a point where they should be put on America’s Endangered Places list.
Places like the Dixie Chicken in College Station. The Hole in the Wall in Austin. Lubbock’s Bash Riprock’s.
These dives may be staples of a college town, but they’re also typically old and sit on valuable real estate. Real estate owned by landlords that fully recognize they can charge just a bit more.
And, just because the 30-, 40- and 50-year-olds may have the fondest of memories of the place doesn’t mean the incoming freshman with the third-generation fake ID has the same affection. The 19-year-old may lean for the shinier place with the cute cocktails more than the Shiner Beer, 50-cent draws and happy hour that lasts until 2 a.m.
The Pub served its time, customers, to the best of its ability and held its own as one of those great “college bars.”
Thanks for the memories, even if most of what happened there no one actually remembers.
This story was originally published May 15, 2025 at 11:00 AM.
