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By: Addie Robison, Print Reporter
Each college’s bar scene is unique to the culture of the school. Nearly every college bar will have the same “so what’s your major?” awkward conversation starters and herds of girls going to the bathroom together, but what makes them stand out is how the students remember - or sometimes don’t remember - the night they had.
Over the next couple of months, I am going to rate my experience at all of the Statesboro college bars, inducing Dingus MaGees, Blue Room, Southern Social, and the latest to join the Statesboro nightlife, 5th Quarter. For each bar, the group I am with is going to drink and rate three drinks; a draft beer, one of that bar's specialty drinks, and a vodka RedBull. For each, they’ll be ranked on a zero to five-shot scale.
If you're looking for a place to casually drink and hang out with friends, without the loud club atmosphere some of the other bars have, Dingus Magees is the place to go. My final rating for Dingus Magees; I’d rate the atmosphere a 3 out of 5, the drinks a 4 out of 5, and the food another 5 out of 5, leaving Dingus with an overall rating of 4 out of 5 shots.
Dingus MaGees is a restaurant and lounge located directly across the street from the central part of Georgia Southern’s campus. Its proximity and live music contribute to its appeal to students and non-students alike.
One of the main questions I am proposing is; how much can $20 get you at Dingus MaGees. On top of this, would it be quantity over quality? Quality over quantity? It could also be a mixture of both. To tackle these questions my friends and I set off for a night out at Dingus.
“Weekends start on Thursdays” is a common phrase thrown around by Georgia Southern students, because of the ability of many students to opt out of Friday classes. My friends, Brandon, Allyn, Shehzad, Hadnain, and I all were in need of a night out, after the midterm week we all had just had.
To get the rawest experience we can, we chose not to call in a reservation and chose to go at a busy time, 9 p.m. I was surprised it was not packed, but I remembered it was the Thursday before spring break. At the door, I was asked to show my ID and given a wristband. Once you walk past the table with their merchandise, you get to the bar, where you’ll see the stage that once hosted Cole Swindell and Luke Bryan during their time at Georgia Southern. Compared to the other Statesboro bars, Dingus has a more low-key atmosphere, with booths and tables, living up to its name as a “lounge.”
Once my friends arrived, we got the late-night food menu where we ordered 2 orders of wings, two chicken strip baskets and an order of fried zucchini. While Dingus doesn’t have house cocktails, their specials make them stand out. They had $3 specialty shots, Green Tea, and Dead Turtle shots were advertised on the neon sign beside the bar. My first drink of the night was a vodka Red Bull. This drink was so good. It was really sweet, not too strong but the mix of the two was done really well. This drink is always a go-to bar special, because it is a simple drink, and is consistently pretty tasty. I give the Dingus Vodka Red Bull 5 out of 5 shots.
Once our food got here, we were really impressed with how good the wings were specifically. It is typical bar food, but as far as bar food goes this was better than average. According to my friend Shehzad, the chicken strips were just a normal chicken strip basket, definitely good, not phenomenal, but definitely good, but the wings were the highlight of the night.
With my friends all being Graduate level STEM majors, they had some serious midterms the day after, so they chose not to drink that night, making me the sole consumer of alcohol that night. The table next to us ended up getting one of their draft beers. I am not a beer connoisseur, but I know generally what to look for in a good draft beer, and Dingus had it. The Michelob Ultra they got looked like it was poured well by the bartender, with a good amount of foam without it being too much. I’d rate the draft Mic Ultra a 4 out of 5 shots, meaning it was pretty good.
We talked, laughed, and spent over two hours catching up until it was time for me to order my last drink of the night, a vodka cranberry. This one was very strong. It was a little hard to drink due to its strength, however, it did end up doing the job. It was not a bad drink at all, but I preferred the vodka Red Bull strongly over the vodka cranberry. I also think the vodka Red Bull set my standards maybe a little high for the cranberry, but nonetheless, I would rate the vodka cranberry 3 out of 5 shots, strictly for the taste.
As far as my $20 went, I ended up being right on the money pre-tax. The vodka Red Bull was $6, the vodka Cranberry was $4, and my wings were $10, meaning that I spent exactly $20 pre-tax. Post-tax plus tip it ended up being around 30, which is not terrible as far as bar spending goes.