On the occasion of my 100th Yelp review, I figure I should review the place that had the biggest impact on my life for the past 12 years or so.
Thursdays pretty much defined the better part of an entire decade for me:
- listening to amazing music and dancing like Ian Curtis;
- ruining our lungs by the age of 25 with pack and a half nights in the weird prison courtyard;
- drinking cocktails so strong and so cheap, it's amazing we ever made it home most nights;
- kissing scruffy boys who, at best, only LOOKED homeless (you'd be amazed...);
- trying to keep our "nice" thrift store clothes safe from various bodily fluids on every surface;
When I go to Thursdays now, I am amazed at its resilience. Still pretty dirty and full of hipsters, but definitely 98% less smoky. DJ Mario is still playing the best 80s new wave along with current indie hits. Drinks are still strong and cheap.
I remember my friends and I dancing our asses off to "The Good Life" by Weezer, sing-shouting every lyric with conviction, already nostalgic for our fleeting youth at the ripe ages of 22 or 23. Oh, the irony...
I went here for the first time to see some bands play including Worship This. The bar environment is pretty cool and definitely captures the idea of the dive bar pretty well. The area in front of the stage was large enough and allowed one to get right up close to the band.
The bar service was quick and courteous. They had a decent selection of beer including a rather nice porter that I cannot remember the name of right now. The prices were very reasonable and certainly fitting of the sort of environment they have created. Oh the bartenders also know how to pour properly strong drinks as well.
Overall this place was a blast, and I hope I end up getting to visit again. This is pretty much an ideal sort of place to watch some live music.
having been going to this place for 6+ years now, theres so much i can say about this place but you need to experiance it yourself. thursdays used to be the place to go dance if you were goth, punk, hipster before the term existed, etc. nowdays seems everyone goes to thursdays. i mostly blame this on the universities dorms and the stadiums all moving in and around the area changing up the locale a lot. its still the best place to go dance if you dont want assholes grinding on you and prefer having beer spilled on you. if you want to hear indie, dubstep, and remixes of alternative and 90s and industrial on occasion youll enjoy it here. i miss the way this place used to be but i hear its still a good time and the bathrooms still flood so it still has its charm. drinks are dirt cheap and on thursdays and saturdays expect to be crowded like cattle to the slaughter on the dancefloor and everywhere else. the new patio has really helped with the overflow but the crowd is part of this places charm. Mario still djs here and barb shows up pretty rarely. i cant reccomend this place enough it was a big part of my life for a lot of years and even though i dont go much anymore, all my memories of this place good and bad i wouldnt take back (except that one time i got into a fight. no not that one, the other one...no..the other one...no...ugh nevermind).
tues: 80s and 90s
weds:karaoke
thurs: dance party
fri: i have no idea.
sat:dance party
sun: techno/dubstep dance party. electronic and djs only.
Thursday's has the reputation of a hipster bar, but it is far more complex than your typical hipster bar.
It has the beer selection that The Matinee has, mainly because they're owned by the same guy. The main difference is The Matinee is strictly a hipster bar, while during the school year you have all different kinds of people here at Thursday's.
Thursday's  on Thursday is an Akron tradition. Thursday is easily the best day at Thursday's. The music here varies from 80's music to dubstep to your Top 40 crap. There's a large dance floor, a long bar, and a great patio outside.
Thursday's can be a little pricier than your average Akron bar. Regardless, Thursday's is the place to be on Thursday night.
LOVE THIS PLACE.
I don't care who comes here, I don't care what it smells like, or how gross the bathrooms are....
like everyone else has already explained: you can dance you a$$ off and it's SO FUN.
The drinks and cheap and strong...so those of us who need a little liquid courage can down a couple and still have fun dancing to the great music.
the one downfall, the music is INSANELY loud. I can't handle it so I put in ear plugs and I'm good to go :D
Thursday's hasn't changed since the mid nineties, when I was going there frequently, drinking insanely potent gin and tonics, and dancing to Lovecats by The Cure. In fact, the only thing that has changed is my age.
I still go there from time to time, get drunk, and dance. Why? because there's nowhere else in town that I can dance to Fugazi, MGMT, The Cure, and other alternative gems.
As for people bitching about the hipsters...they're the hippies of our time. They're everywhere now. Get over it. Get drunk on your well drinks and party.
Also, bathroom wise? I'd pee in the parking lot or just hold it in. The women's room always has great graffiti, though.
I have been dancing and drinking at this place for a few years now, and it has still been the only place I am comfortable dancing. My M.O. for the longest time has been to go on Thursday, which is the big night, get drunk, and move in a sea of frantic people and sweat and good music. However, the DJ has been playing with the music too much, the people have become more about the scene than the dancing, and the sweat makes those things worse, not better.
So I stopped going.
And then I went back. Saturday night. A night I have never gone before, and It was great. The music is straighforward and un-fucked with, the place has more people who want to dance than be seen, and the sweat is minimal due to there being less people.
This is not a club. Really, no one goes here to wait in line, wear clothes they can fuck in public in, or buy over-priced vodka-tonics or
fish-bowls." There is almost no rap or hip-hop played, and what is, hasn't broken the 2000's.
I won't tell you to go here if only because that wouldn't represent how I feel about Thursday's. You go here when you feel like it and you don't when you don't. Nobody needs to tell you to feel like dancing or where to dance.
Warning: I don't like vast quantities of people.
Thursdays was....cliche. I've been there twice now with the coaxing of a work friend. The plaid shirts, thick-rimmed glasses, and excessive posing was enough to make me down my Tanqueray exceedingly quickly and run like hell.
Only upside: The drinks are cheap. So the faster you can get them down, the more appealing the packed bar and annoyingly pretentious people are.
The music isn't bad. Usually an odd mix, but whatever. Good to dance to, I'll give it that.
I'm giving it 3 stars because for what it is, it's a pretty good version of that.
I guess this is what I was missing when I was in college, living in the dorms, and reading bad poetry on weekend nights: drunk girls grinding on one another to "Blister in the Sun." I was dragged to this place late one Saturday night, and it brought back some entertaining memories of the few times I did debauched/regrettable/possibly illegal things when I was in college. Although the worst thing I did here was drunkly bum a cigarette off of some frat dude. They have a great dance floor here, and the night I was there I heard "Fuck the Pain Away" AND a Jesus and Mary Chain song, both of which I have never, ever heard at a dance club. With a name like Thursday's, I was expecting a place like Applebee's, but I wouldn't take grandma here, unless she like to get freaky.
Review Source:I vote Thursdays best place to dance your face off in NE Ohio.
Sure you're going to leave drenched, ears ringing with a hangover to follow - but you'll also leave possibly 5 lbs lighter and with money in your pocket (it didn't get stolen and the drinks are cheap- bonus!)
Something about the atmosphere and music is contagious. I can't stop moving the whole time I'm there. I'll try and go be chill, but it doesn't last long.
And the best part is how comfortable I feel there. I do find it to remain chode-free. There's never a fear in my mind that I'm going to groped, grabbed or receiving creepy stares while I dance my little heart away. I'm not sure a lot of dance floors come sans creep these days.
Back to the music - maybe because I can't make it down there from Cle as much as I like, but I find DJ Mario's selections well, danceable every time. There are repeats, but only ones I welcome like Modest Mouse, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Phoenix, The Sounds , MJ...all good staples to have.
sadly, i don't feel the same amount of excitement for this establishment anymore. the playlist hasn't changed in years, the vodka-cranberries taste like fish sauce, the staff reminds me of high school and the temperature is NEVER right. in the winter, you leave smelling like a bonfire. in the summer, you leave looking like you just got out of the shower.
this bar went from alternative and indie and electro and diverse and unexpected and amazing to... just like every other bar in akron.
thusdays is no longer a chode-free zone. consider yourself warned.
This was the college stalwart. Â Where else to go? Â Besides, it combines dance with dive-- with a bonus cockfighting ring out back. Â What, you mean that courtyard isn't for cockfighting? Â Might as well be. Â Sure the playlist is always the same; you could do worse than having a good play list. Â Besides, it lets you work on your moves. Â Oh Thursdays, you are a heck of a joint.
Review Source:A revelation when you first discover it, but it gets pretty boring after about the third visit. For me anyway. Everybody else i know loves it and hoofs it all the way down there( even in blizzards) to dance to Billy Idol. Since when is the Rolling Stones "paint it black" indie dance? Answer me, Mario.
Review Source:During my three years in Ohio, I found this bar to be strangely and spectacularly consistent. Â Get this: the same DJ, Mario, spun every Saturday. He played the same songs every week. The same revelers entered the bar at the same time each night, and danced their same dances to the same songs drinking the same drink specials. So it was essentially like reliving the same party each Saturday.
But here's the thing: It was a terrific party. So I went almost every Saturday. And now I miss it, and I would still be attending if I hadn't moved three thousand miles from it.
Here's the deal with Thursdays. Â It's the only club worth going to in Akron. Â Everywhere else you deal witih douchebags with over-gelled hair. Â The music is better than anywhere else, even though it's the same music week in week out. Â Hey, I love 80s dance parties as much as the next boy. Â But I think they're a bit played out. Â As soon as the sorority set is hipped to it, I'm out. Â And that happened years ago. Â Years.
The other downside to Thursdays: Â Same crowd week in week out. Â So, we can go dance to the same music with the same people any day they're open. Â Cool.
Oh, and because people never seem to tire of Thursdays, they don't really have to try very hard there. Â So, the bartenders are maybe not the hardest working in the AK. Â And the men's bathroom is always puddled. Â Actually, it's a lake. Â And that's disgusting. Â I don't care how 'punk rock' you think wearing a tight t-shirt and dancing to Depeche Mode and Modest Mouse makes you (or why that means punk rock to you in the first place) but I don't want to stand in your piss. Â
And there's crap parking.
(Over the course of this review I went from four stars to two...)
Damn-it! Â Someone else snagged the "first-to-review" for Thursday's.
Damn-it!
This is MY bar. Â MYYYYYYYYYY BAR. Â During the 90's me and my friends owned this place. Â Owned it. Â (Well, actually Barb & her husband own it - but, that is veritably the same thing - given that Barb LOVES me.)
Sigh.
Okay.  Thursday's is my college bar.  We spent inordinate amounts of times at this place from 1991 until 1997.  I probably spent more time at Thursday's (or, recovering from having been at Thursday's) than I did in class.  This once biker bar became the ultra-underground hangout for all the artsy-fartsy indie kids from both Kent State and The University of Akron (fondly referred to as "Crackron U") - mostly based on the $1.50 price tag which went on Rolling Rock beer and the fact that the DJs were pre-disposed (being punky-gothy-indie-metal freaks) to have 80's Dance Parties and Industrial Night and  Punk Party and all sorts of other theme nights that it drew the best of the best people to hang.  It was a chode free zone... totally chode free.
Five Fun Facts about Thursday's:
1. I have been in this establishment dressed as a Catholic School Girl, a "Sexxxy Devil," Sally from A Nightmare Before Christmas and a Psycho Slut Clown  - and, NONE of those costumes were worn on Halloween.
2. I may have or may not have *coughgottenluckycough* in the bathroom, the smoking patio, the DJ booth and the storage area of this bar... Â (Oh you know I so did... I am the Naughty-Naughty Princess, after all.)
3. This is where my friend Pinkie and I conceived of the "beer and Taco Bell" diet which we subsisted on for most of 1996.
4. I once suffered a concussion on the dance floor because my 6'7" friend Jeremiah (aka, King Tycoon) accidentally whacked me in the back of the head with his hand (which happened to be holding a Heineken bottle) while he was whirling around in circles due to his delusions of being a robot from the future during the song "How Soon is Now?"
5. I have climbed on the roof of this bar and howled at the moon.
Thursday's is chock full of memories for me - it's a wonderful place and it reminds me of a wonderful group of people who I'm lucky to mostly still be friends with - if you're ever in Crackron, Ohio and feel the urge to get your drink on check out Thursday's... many of the people who made it great in the first place are still there.
Really fun bar in Akron. Â Every night here is different. Â I've been here on a Thursday for the indie dance party and on a Tuesday for 80's night, and I had a great time both nights. Â Drinks are really cheap too, and the cocktails are among the strongest I've ever had at a bar. Â Plus on the Tuesday night we went they had a bunch of free pizza and other food.
A word of advice: the place doesn't heat up on Tuesday night until about 11 or 11:30 or so. Â I think we showed up around 10 and it was dead, but by the end of the night the dancefloor was packed.
Wish I'd discovered this place when I lived around here. Â Now it's a staple every time I come back to visit.
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