OT: Anyone recall Wurlitzer's?
- Thread starter DJ Spanky
- Start date
Senior week. Dollar drinks night. They had a bus from College Ave. Went there with 80 bucks in my pocket, woke up the next day with 3. No idea if I got robbed, bought rounds for the entire place, or drank 77 drinks & stiffed the bartender.
Ho's on Hoes. Place 20s through 50s somethings. My 23 year-old buddy hooked with a 50ish HR type there.
Do you remember if the bartender you stiffed was pretty or tall dark and handsome?
I always remember them playing YMCA near last call almost every night me and my buddies were there. If we were drunk enough, which was quite often back in the day, we would jump up on a table and do our best Village People impersonation. The girls loved it. We got some tips and usually someone got lucky. Always lots of fun and lots of talent. Don't know why they closed.
I was there maybe a half dozen times tagging along with friends who liked the place. I don't remember it being all that special.
How about all these old NJ haunts now out of business :
Pretty sure their business model was unorthodox, and in an "unfortunate accident" it went up in flames.
All that remains is the entrance road on the right:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.544...Go_0uhMVMqEkPPv_poGFw!2e0!7i3328!8i1664?hl=en
Great, fun club.... lines out the door past a certain time. One Thanksgiving Eve I never made it thru the long line trying to get in.
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.544...Go_0uhMVMqEkPPv_poGFw!2e0!7i3328!8i1664?hl=en
Great, fun club.... lines out the door past a certain time. One Thanksgiving Eve I never made it thru the long line trying to get in.
Used to go there after work with 6 to 10 people. 5 mins from the office.Abt 90 to 91. Some of my officemates were obsessed with the place.
Remember the buffet. Had some good finger foods. Place got packed pretty quick. Can't dance for sheet. So I left after I was full.
Remember the buffet. Had some good finger foods. Place got packed pretty quick. Can't dance for sheet. So I left after I was full.
Spank...thanks man, that put a little smile on my face and brought great memories!!!
Was there a couple/few times. Hated it. Particularly the YMCA bar and tabletop dancing stuff. Just not my thing. Never liked the loud DJ trying to hype people up by shouting over the top of loud, bad music scene. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
OMG Wurlitzer....yes brings back memories. It really sucks that places like this are gone forever..what do people do nowadays go to Applebee's
Was it Wednesday night that was the big night. What so great is when you are 21 and you go into this giant place with all kinds of older people mainly professionals in the late 20s and 30s letting off steam and you are a wide eyed early 20s new to bar scene, its pretty incredible. You could feel the energy in there and the Nerds played their a lot too. Music was great and they encouraged dancing on the bar. So much sloppiness there. What sucked though was figuring out who was going to be designated driver that night...lots of sketchy rides home even though I lived in Silvers Apt which wasn't that far
Was it Wednesday night that was the big night. What so great is when you are 21 and you go into this giant place with all kinds of older people mainly professionals in the late 20s and 30s letting off steam and you are a wide eyed early 20s new to bar scene, its pretty incredible. You could feel the energy in there and the Nerds played their a lot too. Music was great and they encouraged dancing on the bar. So much sloppiness there. What sucked though was figuring out who was going to be designated driver that night...lots of sketchy rides home even though I lived in Silvers Apt which wasn't that far
how awesome..this song was also a mainstay at the Knightclub on Thursday nights...I wonder what year they phased songs like that out....Knightclub staples were this song, Electric Slide, Youre the One That I Want, Browned Eyed Girl, Drift Away and Its Late I Don't Wanna Go Home...you knew the lights were coming on soon if you heard the last two.
1991, freshman year in a river dorm. Preceptor is a shot girl at Wurlitzer's. One night, she brings a guy home after work. 5 or 10 of us are in the lounge studying or whatever. After a while, the guy leaves. About 5 minutes later, our preceptor comes out in just a towel to head for a shower. The door to the lounge closes as she heads down the hall for the bathroom. Dead silence for a few moments, while everyone in the lounge is trying to come up with the best one liner. The winner: "No matter how much you scrub, no matter how much soap you use, you'll still be dirty when you are done showering."
-Wurlitzers
-Wurlitzers
Wurlitzers was a meat market but also a slam dunk for Piscataway Police. They made a fortune arresting drunk drivers leaving that place. Parked in the office park next store and would pull over dozens each night. A place like that gets that reputation is the beginning of the end
Wasn't a big fan of the music or the meathead vibe (It was Jersey Shore before there was a Jersey Shore, lol), but hard to argue with the talent there.
Two good friends of ours used to work there in the mid-80s (before we knew them - met them in the early 90s) and eventually they got married (and are just about divorced by now, sadly). They always had lots of interesting stories about dancing on the bar and general drunkenness...
Two good friends of ours used to work there in the mid-80s (before we knew them - met them in the early 90s) and eventually they got married (and are just about divorced by now, sadly). They always had lots of interesting stories about dancing on the bar and general drunkenness...
Loved it, absolutely loved it, for what it was and where/when it was at the time. We went there, I guess, every-other-Wednesday night was it? You get The Nerds once a month, girls loved it if you danced to "Strokin," "The Electric Slide," "The Macarena," or just about anything else (make fun all you want, I had a ridiculous success rate there...). Don't know if I recall "beer tub" girls, prior to Wurlitzer's, but I was complete infatuated with one of them lol! Senior Week night there was easily the biggest ****-show in a week filled with ****-shows and the one in '93, IIRC, began at like 4:00 (with a buffet around 6, thank God...) and we closed the place. Best part is that everyone drove there, hence, getting a girl to go back to campus with you, or vice versa, was pretty easy...so long as one of you could drive, lol!
Definitely some great, no...CLASSIC....memories from that place!
Definitely some great, no...CLASSIC....memories from that place!
been married 26+ years now and I met my wife at Wurlitzers. My buddy and I went there for a Halloween costume party, and we went as Ronald and Nancy Reagan. I drew the short straw and had to be Nancy and I was fairly jacked then, so I had my skirt, blouse, and girly short sleeve sweater on and my Nancy mask and this girl likes my arms. The rest is history as they say...thanks Wurlitzers!
Was working for one of the Telecom's on Centennial Ave. during that time. I was in charge of getting the "Bop Party" tickets for our place. With the party invitations you got drinks for a quarter up until a certain hour. Just before the expiration of the "Bop Party" hours we would all go to the bar and get all the 25 cent drinks we could fit on our table. Left that place too many times in a blur. Great happy hour food as well, all kinds of stuff and cooked to order things too. Some how I vaguely remember they closed because of a legal issue. Go figure with all the drunks leaving the parking lot.
ScarletR97 I was about to also mention the bop parties. I too ran them for my company when I first graduated from RU and the best part was being able to skip the lines and go straight in and then stockpile those 25cent drinks. It was also like being a king with the lady coworkers since I controlled the drink tickets so that made for many a fun nite followed by some awkward next days at the office. Great place also to meet mature ATT females and just have a great nite with girls dancing on the backbar tops etc. Before Wurlitzers the School House was awesome for live bands especially Rivendel on a Thursday nite or the Cellers doing some Psycho Killer. Thx Spank for the walk down memory lane. Next thread should be about The Main-Drain Event across from Tara Greens on rt 27.
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The story I heard was that the "legal issues" were mob related. Same thing with that sports bar on Centennial (where Applebees is now).
Here is the deal......As stated previously it was the School house which was owned by local people. When they sold the place they sold it to a corporation called McFadden Ventures. They intern opened it as Wurlitzers which everyone recalls had the parties and the bar top dancing etc.....They drew a huge happy hour crowd from all the corporations in the area which became their bread and butter. After a while McFadden ventures decided to change it up and was going to make it another "theme" type bar called Studebakers (which they also owned). At some point the management at the time went and saw another bar chain owned by McFadden called Pete's Wild Life. This was more of a club and late night scene establishment which did not open till 8pm and was closed Monday and Tuesday. This turned out to be a bad decision because they lost the entire after work crowd etc.....then the word got out that cops would set up down the street on occasion with DWI check point which was not good for business as well. The ultimate demise came when the sewer main for the building broke and filled the basement with 8 feet of sewer water, all of the stock was down there as well as the tap coolers etc....At that point they decided to just walk away and the building was eventually leveled.....
Now who remembers the Jug House?
Now who remembers the Jug House?
Thank you for finding and posting this. Sat and watched with a smile on my face. I was familiar with many,not all, of those sites.[thumb2][thumb2]
IIRC, the "local people" who owned the School House was Mario Medici, who also owned Medici's in South Plainfield. I worked at the School House as a dishwasher and busboy when it was growing, and remember Rivendel playing Thursday nights. I lived a half mile from it and went to Wurlitzers as a main staple in our partying diet--that place was the most wall-to-wall human compression I have ever been a part of, and that includes the Melody. The women were hot, getting a drink from the bar was quite the battle.
As for the Jug House, I remember it well, though I rarely went there. It was razed about 15 years ago. The Sittin' Bull is gone, too.
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See how many memories this jogs for you. Many of these clubs were on in regular rotation of hot spots to hit. Scroll down this guy's blog post for tons of pictures of old clubs from the NJ/NY area.http://tommyrawtales.blogspot.com/2013/05/nynj-rock-club-daze.html
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