Señor Buckeyes

I wonder how long this place will last. For those of you who don't know, Larry's, a popular campus bar, recently closed. In its place is now Señor Buckeyes, and I went here with Jeff last night to check it out.

We found a place to park on the street beside the block and walked in. It doesn't look like a whole lot is different, just a new sign out front and new ownership. It was definitely old and dingy inside and the walls were painted bright red. At the door was a friendly girl who greeted us and told us right off the bat what the specials were. That was pretty nice, and we appreciated that. She told us that the special was $2 gin and tonics, so not knowing what else the prices would be, we decided to order two of those. We had just come from a trip from Ravari Room's happy hour because a band started to play and it was way too loud to talk. But I could tell as soon as we walked into Señor Buckeyes that I wasn't going to want to stay long.

First of all, I did like the huge wall-to-ceiling TV on the wall in the back of the bar. That was awesome, but what wasn't awesome was the group of frat boys playing cornhole right in front of the TV. They literally stopped and stared at us when we walked up to the bar like we were in their turf and didn't belong there. Now's probably a good time to mention that this place was dead for a Friday night. Not a good sign. These guys looked like they owned the place, or at least thought they did. There were a few other tables but these guys had the whole back of the bar and looked like they wanted to keep it that way.

Jeff said that the bartender was kind of an ass. I missed the whole transaction because I was trying to watch the big TV. We got our drinks, which were served in little plastic cups. Classy. There were a few booths and some tables and chairs towards the front of the bar. We found a place to sit at one of the booths, which are clearly leftovers from the Larry days. Every inch of these booths - the sides, the seats and the tabletops are carved with initials and quotes. It's crazy. And they are in full view of the bar, so obviously people aren't worried about getting in trouble, although the point is moot anymore. I didn't mind the carvings, because it actually looked kinda cool, but overall this place stunk. Literally. It smelled like B.O. in there. Really bad. At first we thought it was just one person who forgot deodorant, but the smell was consistent throughout the bar. But we just tried to enjoy our drinks. However, these were some awful gin and tonics. Jeff drinks them often and he was really disappointed in these. The ones he had at Ravari Room earlier in the night were much better, he said. They were mostly tonic and were served without lime wedges. Yeah, they were only $2, but they weren't even worth that. Jeff also noticed that there was a cluster of outlet plugs at every table up on the wall. So I guess if you wanted to come in here with your laptop you could, although I'm not sure about any Wi-Fi.

This place felt really dirty and as soon as we were done with our drinks we decided to get out of there. It smelled so bad. Plus they were playing some awful country music and I just wanted to get away. The scary thing is that they serve Mexican food here. I don't think I could ever work up the desire or courage to try it. You'd have to be really drunk. It's not often that I give a place only 1 star. But, even though I wasn't a huge Larry's fan, this is no Larry's, that's for sure. And not in a good way. It was dirty, it stunk, and really, the clientele were quite unfriendly. Even though they didn't say anything they stared at us threateningly until we were in the safety of our booth (which luckily had high seat backs). The drinks were crap and the specials really weren't all that impressive. I could give this place another chance, but to be honest, it'd take a lot to get me back in here. No thank you, Señor Buckeyes.