I've only been here once for Campustown Challenge, and believe me, that was one too many. The smell, what is it? A strange and powerful brew of vomit, cheap beer, and poor life decisions. And just when you can't stand it anymore and want to leave, you find your shoes sticking to the floor. Yeah, I went, but the only good thing I got out of it was a wristband.
Review Source:Worst bar I've been to, period. It looks awful, smells awful, and the nastiest, warmest beer on tap that I've ever drank came from KAMS. On top of that, the clientele are awful, too, unless you're looking to meet the most obnoxious people in the whole city when they're in full bar crawl mode.
Review Source:20,000 watts of awesome.
Note: This review only applies to August 2006 - May 2007. Â Whatever may have transpired at this establishment before or after that time has not been taken into consideration. Â This time period is considered by the majority of scholars to be the Golden Era of Kams.
(This review also applies to the lesser-known Koms)
Just walk by the place and be overwhelmed by the smell. Â I've been in the place once and it is gross. Â This isn't just an "I hate frats" thing or something either. Â It has bad beer sticky floors and rude staff---though I must admit I understand why on the staff thing. Â I can't imagine going to this place at a peak time. Â
One only imagines how many evenings that end in sexual assaults have started in Kams.
Beyond disgusting. I have never been here, nor will I EVER go. I've stopped walking down that street because the stench is so repulsive that I just can't take it.
If I have to walk down Daniel street, I walk down the other side of that street. Still, I can still smell the horrible stench. Very low class joint, filthy, loud, and repulsive.
Ok. The two stars are because the floors had many sticky diseases on it. WTF? Don't they clean the floors? But the bartenders did make me forget about the nastiness with the strong and cheap drinks. That was the only reason it didn't get one star. I'd go back if I'm in Champaign again.
Review Source:Disgusting, revolting, terrible, smelly, I can't think of a better way to describe this place. Â I went down to U of I for a football game around Halloween and uh, if I could choose to burn one building down in my lifetime, it'd probably be Kams. Granted, I'd imagine the building is going to collapse soon due to lack of maitenance and upkeep anyway.
The second we stepped in the door the place smelled like stale beer, vomit, and pee. Â My feet stuck to the floor throughout the entire bar. The tables probably hadn't been cleaned in years. I think it would have required a power washer and about 2000000 gallons of bleach to clean the place.
The bathroom was the most disgusting bathroom I've ever been in other than one in China. That's saying something.
The staff at this place was something else. The bar tender was so drunk she asked me to repeat my order of 3 bud lights 4 times in a row. She'd ask, turn around to get them, then turn around and ask what I ordered again...
The only plus to this place was for some reason it was loaded with attractive girls (have to imagine it is the cheapest place to drink on campus) and the beer and alcohol was dirt cheap.
Seriously, avoid this hole at all costs, or at least bring a clothes pin for your nose.
Rarely am I rendered speechless. However KAMS did it to me. These people we met at the football game randomly invited us. Even though my friends warned me, we went anyway. There is a distinct smell that hangs over this establishment like a proud banner, a beacon to the faithful. I had to alternate holding my breath and chugging in order to somehow banish the smell from my nostrils. I drank a Ed Hardy beer, which I didn't even know they made, because they were out of Corona and when will I ever be able to say again that I drank a Ed Hardy beer? (Obviously I am a beer connoisseur.) (It wasn't terrible.) All the games were on, the music was surprisingly good, and I did really have a good time. The guys were also buying shots, which helped a lot. I'd come back again, just for the LULZ.
Review Source:Kam's is one of the best bars in the world. Â
20,000 watts of nightly sound, free shuttle bus, and darts help to make Kam's the #2 pregame party spot in the nation.
Upon stepping into Kam's, you are greeted with a familiar neighborhood crowd and the aroma of fresh, tasty beer being poured. Â A sophisticated, happy-go-lucky crowd draws you in and the fantastic selection of drinks will make you stay.
The basement is fantastic for parties and the staff is very knowledgeable. Â The free popcorn is of gourmet quality.
All in all, Kam's is a wonderful place to bring a date or just have a night of wine-drinking.
eww... if i was still a freshman... or if i loved the smell of throw up & the feel of sticky floors pulling my shoes off; then KAMS is the place to be. Of course this is one of the oldest campus bars, & alumni love it here, but they need to just realize that it has gone down hill very fast in the most recent years. The servers on more than one occasion have been to drunk to serve me let alone be working. & also on more than one occasion someone in my group has stepped in throw up. I will not miss this bar or ever return. Someone needs to mop it every once in awhile. I'll pass on this one & walk the extra half block to firehaus.. or actually id rather walk to any other bar but KAMS.
Review Source:Say what you will about the smell and atmosphere, I never had a bad time at KAMS. Â Ugh the smell - just walk past in the daytime and you wonder why you ever set foot in there at night. Â You have to be in the right mindset - to get drunk and have a good time. Â If you are in the mood for that, you WILL have a good time. Â But if you want to sit back and have a few beers and talk, then go to Murphys or Legends.
Small dance floor that's crowded when a good hip hop or pop song comes on, but the minute they play country or something slow, it gets empty as can be, til the next good song comes on. Â KAMS is always filled with student athletes with the throngs of girls surrounding them. Â Drinks are cheap - find a frat guy and he'll buy you drinks all night long in hopes you'll go home with him. Â Cheap night out.
A UofI alum took me here when I was 20 and itching to go to 19+ bars. We hit this place up first, as it is apparently quite a popular place. I was disgusted, and even more so when my alumni, a former PKA told me he and his brothers peed while in their chairs at the bar.
The place stunk. The drinks were worse and painfully weak. I was horrified to see people in formal wear. Guess they were pre-gaming it there?
Ladies...pass this one up. You can do better!
If you are going to KAMS, you should know what you are going to be getting into. Like everyone else said, wasted freshmen, disgusting bathrooms, bad smells. Recently voted as the best place in Champaign-Urbana to have a one night stand. So, if you know what are getting into, and want a night of debauchery, it gets five stars. If not, one star.
Review Source:Are you a sensible, intelligent human being? Â Are you older than 19? Â Does your clothing generally obscure your breasts/underwear/genitals from plain sight? Â Are you averse to fist-pumping? Â Does the pungent odor of beer-tinged vomit make you nauseous? Â
Well, then, welcome to KAMS - your personal hell.
Okay, to all you naysayers, here is my rebuttal.
1. Of course the K-Rock is full of underage drinkers. COLLEGE is full of underage drinkers, particularly when you only have to be 19 to get into bars. Do you think everyone who goes to Brothers or Murphy's is 21? NO!
2. Sure, the place is dirty. So you just have to use your logic when you go there. Don't drink draft beer (we have all heard the Kams tapeworm rumors), shove extra TP in your purse or pocket during your first bathroom trip for use later, wear shoes...
3. People being hammered, making out on the dance floor, dressing like sluts...this is all part of college. If you didn't do it while you were there, I pity you. I spent four nights a week in this place for four years and never once did I vomit, get vomited on, or see someone vomit in this bar. And, frankly, if I had, I wouldn't have cared because I was less concerned with judging other peoples' poor life decisions and more concerned with making my own.
Kams was, bar none (no pun intended), my favorite bar over the course of my four years in Champaign (2001-2005). Yes, I was in a sorority, so go ahead and keep making snide Greek comments. I get the stereotypes, and I know plenty of people who perpetuate them. But I was an Accounting major, graduated with a GPA above 3.5, and also partied my ass off at Kams. When I say I'm well-rounded, I mean it. :)
At any rate, Kams has a great outdoor area, super cheap drinks ($1 can get you ten shots if you play your cards right with the bartenders) and a fun crowd. Always photo opportunities with football and basketball players. Dee Brown may have been super creepy, but he was fun to party with.
There is a dance floor, but it is mostly reserved for freshmen to grope each other before heading back to the Six Pack to have clumsy blacked-out relations.
And if anyone remembers the Kams Taps Tournaments--so sad that these are gone, but some of my fondest (lack of) memories from college took place during those tourneys.
I'll be at Kams on October 11th for Homecoming--I invite you naysayers to meet me there and I will show you what Kams is really all about! :)
This place is a nightmare. Imagine yourself being surrounded by everyone who makes you wonder who fell asleep at the wheel in the admissions department, and all of these people are obscenely drunk and really want you to understand this fact. There is nothing redeeming about this place. The music is really really shit, not even ironic shit but honestly shit. I can't even review the drink selection because I gave up after trying to fight through a 5-deep wall of "bros" probably trying to get some roofied rum and coke for some poor underage girl wearing a misguided sequined top with pancake foundation and caked on black eyeliner. AWFUL!
Plus someone told me once that a girl got syphilis of the foot from wearing flip flops here.
I will first start out by saying that, of course a college town bar is going to be full of underage people (especially in a town when 19 year olds are legally allowed in bars!!!)!!!! Â Who are you people giving these stupid reviews?!?! Â Â
Well, I went back to campus this weekend for the Michigan-Illinois game. Â Wow, this bar is more disgusting than ever (I think it gets worse and worse every year - or maybe I get older and older every year and have less tolerance for grossness...)! Â When you first step foot into the bar, your feet just stick to the floor. Â Do they ever mop??? Â If your shoes aren't sticking to the floor, they're in an inch of piss/booze/broken glass etc. Â I saw a girl laying flat on her back with her hair and skirt in the gross wet mess, and she had lost a shoe. Â EWWW.
Just get some toilet paper in the ladies room stalls!
A place I would rather give negative stars to. Â This place sucks.. I have no idea why it's even popular! Â Full of underage girls... with three crappy beers on tap (Bud Lite, Miller Lite, Coors Lite). Â Bad dance floor because nobody is dancing. Â Oh.. and there is a cover. Â Why you would pay to go somewhere that sucks? Â I have no idea.
And I think it kind of smells.
If this is what sorority girls and frat boys like to give their money to... they must be really stupid.
Kam's is definitely an under age paradise. Most people (or should I say kids) there are under age, wearing almost nothing, basically having sex on the dance floor, and puking all over the place. I was a transfer student, and went there with some friends my first few weekends there. I definitely learned my lesson and never went back, although I was tempted with all the Real World people they have on random nights to draw in a crowd.
Review Source:I didn't go here at all until I was a senior, and had discovered the wonders of country night. On this night (Tuesday!) you'd go, pay $5 and get a mason jar to fill with beer for $1.50. You only ever had to buy the jar once and could bring it back again and again every single week. My friend Bob and I would go, drink buckets (or jars, whatever) or Miller Lite, and watch "Married With Children" on TV.
And then I realized that the KAM'S bartenders have decent memories, and so long as you aren't asking them for big fancy drinks with lots of parts, they'll remember you and your face and your drink. If you tip them nicely, they'll have your drink waiting for you when you return to the bar. Or maybe that was just me, I can never be sure. Hell, maybe I stole someone else's beer.
Regardless - it's a dirty, dumpy little dive full of underdressed, underaged children with popped collars and excessive skin-baring. And DESPITE all this, and DESPITE its sticky floors and weird clientele, I still really enjoyed myself every single time I was here.
YAY KAM'S!
Ah Kams, a unique form of campustown blight that eclipses all other bars in its propensity for stench and spewing of both human and non-human scum. Please don't support this establishment...it gets enough support from the Greek hegemony, despite the fact it imposes a variety of ills on the nearby sidewalk and air. I still don't know how people manage to navigate the miasma with enough strength left to even open the door. I suspect it is facilitated by a uniquely potent protective layer of bright sienna self-tanner, tube tops, and Abercrombie polos.
Review Source:You know there's a problem when you've never been in this campus bar, but your 60-year-old father has read about it in Playboy and shouts from the psych building across the street: "THERE'S KAMS! WOW!" So then, of course, he wants an up-close view of it even though it's butt early in the morning and there's really nothing to see. Half asleep, you agree, trot across the street and then remember that overwhelmingly volatile vomit smell... All day, every day.
Review Source:I have also never been inside Kam's, and that is causally related to the reason I can still give it one star: Â I have to walk by its vomit stench lined exterior every fucking day during school to get to the psych building, and on unofficial I have to endure having riot police stationed in the lobby of my building to prevent the kam vomit and mayhem flow from infiltrating the psychology building. Â
The vomit smell is even there at like 8AM on Tuesday mornings! Â When I was in college, I went to bars that didn't card too, but on the real I still don't understand why anyone would go to kam's.
After seeing Jenna, Sarah and Melissa all give Kam's one star, I realized they are the most intelligent people reviewing Kam's and I had to follow in their footsteps. They're right - Kam's blows. It deserves ZERO stars.
You know how you can pin point freshman when they come to the UIUC? Bingo! They're toting around bright orange Illini Union Bookstore bags. Same goes to the people who wait in line at Kam's. The majority are freshman. Underage drinkers who can't hold their liquor. Screw that.
Some drunk guy peed on my foot here. True story. I was only eighteen and not proud to be in the bar.
You can find cheap drinks with "attractive" and coherent people almost anywhere else in Champaign Urbana. LOOK!
A must try once kind of bar for me. Had a great time here during the day after a bar scramble. Not so great at night when the typical crowd gets there. A little on the pale side for me. But when you get ranked by Playboy as a top college bar, you better have tons of drunk guys trying to hook up w/ slutty girls.
Review Source:Drinks. Lots of them. I remember walking up to the bar and honestly ordering 50 shots for groups of friends on a regular basis.
Yes, it's dirty. Yes, it's smelly. Yes there is some girl in a tube top trying to make out with you and/or puking. Hopefully the former before the latter.
College binge drinking at it's finest. Not that that is necesarrily a good thing.
I used to bartend there while I was in college, so I have to show it some love!
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