Ok, its nothing fancy but it is fun. They have cheap drinks but the staff is fast to serve and the cover is usually cheap too. It gets packed because its small and the bathrooms are well um.. they leave something to be desired. But they place good music, lots of dancing, and the DJ always is nice and will play requests. I have always had a good time here. Some of my best memories (and some forgotten) are at this place!
Review Source:Had a blast at "The Gaff"! Â I was in town for a friend's bachelor party and this was our first stop of the evening after dinner. Â There was a line outside that took about five minutes to get through. Â We were then sent up the stairs to the bar. Â It was dark, dirty and smelled like college (by which I mean light beer, a hint of sweat and a little bit of shame).
The bar was super crowded but it was easy to get a drink. Â There was a special for $6 mixed drink pitchers which I gladly indulged in. Â I forgot how cheap it was to drink in a college bar and felt like a high roller when I pulled out a $20. Â There was a DJ playing everything from Top 40 music to Shout! by the Isley Brothers. Â Had so much fun just dancing like and idiot while belting out the songs.
Go in expecting a college bar and you'll be very satisfied.
Stop number 3 on my bar tour while visiting Penn State and my first stop here ever. Â Not really sure why I never made a stop to Shandygaff as a student...
Anyways, this is one of the few bars you actually have to go *upstairs* to get to (why are they all in basements?). Â It seemed like a pretty decent sized bar, but it was a Tuesday night and pretty empty so I could have been fooled.
At all my stops, I ordered a vodka cranberry. Â All the other bars gave me the standard sized cocktail. Â I ordered one from here, however, and was given a mini-pitcher of my drink. Â Holy crap I didn't know what to do with the thing. Â My tolerance is shot since I left school and I needed to be up early the next day. Â So my husband and I shared and managed to drink half of it... we didn't feel comfortable going much farther than that. Â $6 for the thing. Â 6 bucks! Â Being a Vegas girl now, I'm not used to these affordable prices.
Can't really say what the atmosphere would be like on the weekend, since I've never been... but if you're looking for a chill place on a Tuesday to watch a hockey game and get your drink on, then head to the 'Gaff.
Can a bar be crappy and awesome at the same time?
You're damn right, but there's so many odd things about this place.
Treacherous diamond plate steps, a plastic cutting board material dance floor that must have a switch that turns it to ice as many fallen chicks will attest, smoking, the worst men's bathroom in the western hemisphere, and people from 21 to the elderly!
Beers are inexpensive and the bartenders/waitresses always manage to keep up with us when we do our annual trip. Â The DJ is decent and accomodating to requests most of the time.
"See you at the 'Gaff!"
This was a stop on a bar tour for my major's graduating class. We got there earlier (9:30 or so?), so there was no cover, or I would have ducked out for that leg. Even on the Friday night before finals week, the place was a ghost town. Since the last time I was there, they've apparently changed the way they operate. Ironically enough, considering Simon B's review, they've actually started taking pictures of everyone who comes in, with a little webcam attached to the terminal they use to look up your ID. I asked the bouncer if this was 1984, and he just gave me a dumb stare and said "if you don't like it, you can leave". I waded through the the smoke towards the bar on my way to paying too much for a macro light beer and stood there with money out. I've come to realize, despite being considered rude in any respectable bar, that this is the only way to get served in a place like this. Remember how I said it was a ghost town? Well, I stood there for 10 minutes while the bartenders very slowly saw to other peoples' orders. After the 15-minute mark, I saw a few people get served who had only just walked up to the bar and decided that this just wasn't worth my time. There was absolutely no sense of urgency from any of the staff.
My friend let me try a bit of the small pitcher of rum and coke (and tons of ice) that he paid 10 bucks for. It was surprisingly bad. I don't know how you can mess up rum and coke, but they somehow managed.
The whole place was filthy both times I've been there.
I honestly have no idea why this place exists. It doesn't have any good atmosphere, it's smoky as hell, and the wait staff sucks. Maybe they live off of overflow from better bars on game weekends, but I can't imagine that's a sustainable business model.
Really though, unless your criteria for a bar includes a foosball table and dart board as must-haves, there's no reason to be here.
There is ONLY one reason to go to this place:
- foosball table.
That is, if it isn't under the exclusive use of the Hawaian shirt wearing cigar smoking manager who plays there all night with his buddies.
The drinks are cheap, but not that cheap. You get similar prices at the Den and other places in town.
The dance floor is a roughly 10 X 10 area, right next to the very smelly bathrooms and a couple of small TVs showing sports replays, resulting in a bunch of creepy old guys fake-watching sports but instead staring at the young girls on the dance floor. Not sure why anybody would want to go dance there.
My worst experience with this place (and the last time I went) was when a friend took us there for his bachelor party. I was taking pictures of some of party guests (7-8 guys) when the manager came up to me and told me I couldn't take pictures inside the bar, because I had a "professional" camera. It was your standard Canon entry level dSLR. I tried to explain to him why I was taking a couple pictures, showed him the groom, and told him I wasn't a professional, but no. It was either this or we left. This was especially stupid considering that I saw tons of "camera flashes" from drunk girls around us just as we were having that discussion. I guess he was afraid I was a reporter doing a piece on underage drinking, or something like that.
All in all, if you're in the mood for foosball or if you need a buddy to wear an Hawaian shirt with, this is the place. Otherwise, stay away.
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