Come springtime last year, Duke students flocked to Devine's-that faded, familiar Main Street bar-in greater numbers, angling for tall-boys of Bud Light and crushing cigarettes into the low wooden banquette tables. On an average night, scruffy locals linger at the bar over half-empty beers, college boys glance at the game on any of 24 TVs, and student bands play to drunken cliques congregated on the patio. On a special night-some may remember St. Patrick's Day last year-the bar is four deep, you just got too close to that guy next to you, and not even the dry-cleaner can wring the cigarette smoke from your jeans.
Sitting around a patio table outside Devine's in May, I asked Gino Devine, the eponymous bar's founder and owner, and Mike Tuttle, its informal promoter, to explain the recent boom in business. Devine is a bulky man with a gapped, tobacco-stained smile, clad in what you might expect of a Durham sports bar owner-both Blue Devils and Durham Bulls athletic gear, rip-away sweats and white basketball sneakers. Tuttle, a recognizable face from behind the bar, squints from underneath a baseball cap, drawing infrequently from the pack of cigarettes on the table.
For the two, the bar's success comes from a combination of three factors: low prices, tight connections to students and patio real estate in Durham's busiest restaurant and bar district. Have the prices drawn more patrons to Devine's since the economy nose-dived into recession? "Absolutely," Tuttle and Devine nodded.
Devine's is cheap-arguably the cheapest in Durham-by any number of bar price indices: beer, wings, cover charge. The $15 credit card minimum is a challenge to handle solo, even with two fists clutching drinks and a third on the table for later. "Our drinks are at least $2 cheaper than everywhere else. The last time we changed prices, it was a year ago," Tuttle says proudly. He quotes the pricing of Buffalo wings from memory: Devine's has nine wings for $7 vs. a dozen wings for $12 at Wild Wings.
It took me a few years to realize that Devine's revives itself to serve lunch during the day, which was around the time I also realized the grubby and infamous Shooter's II could dish out a side of chicken fingers with that Jager shot. Items on the menu at Devine's rank among standard bar fare, dishes that look more appetizing after a few drinks: chicken fingers, chili cheese fries, mozzarella sticks, and those wings-600 pounds per week, Devine says. "If he's here, it's chili fries," Tuttle said, referring to a 2009 SAE grad he preferred not to be named. "If PIKA's here, always chicken fingers. If the football team's here, it's like ten baskets of chicken fingers."
Both Tuttle and Devine recognize the importance of staying connected with current students and catering directly to them to ensure their loyalty. "One thing we do really well here is get a lot of feedback from students. Anything they like on draft, we can get it," Tuttle said. "Whereas at somewhere like Parizade, they might not really care." For Tuttle, students' phone numbers are valuable assets, allowing him to link in with who or what group is running the social scene on a given night. Unlike at several other bars, fraternities and sororities pay no fee for hosting Devine's, and usually receive free cover and discounts on certain drinks-a feature that makes the bar all the more competitive for organizations looking to cut costs on parties.
For Devine, Trinity '75, the bar's current name is the fourth in a series of iterations: first, "Uptown Main Street," then "Maxwell's on Main" (because "Maxwell" sounded good with "Main"), and "Chevy 47," after Devine's ride of choice at the time. "Before we came here in 1978, there wasn't anything here, just one place called the Ivy Room," Devines says. "The first thing I thought was, how can I get the Duke students down here?" His mission for the bar has remained the same, in spite of its name changes. In what students and recent alumni know well as Devine's, Devine has established a comfortable, if tired, institution best suited for survival in a college town, where the price and selection of beer on tap overrides the importance of a trendy ambiance.
"We've got a great mix of people who come in here-blue-collar, white-collar, downtown, uptown, a lot of Duke grads who work in the area," Devine says. The bar he describes is a study in inclusivity, a local joint where students and area residents can mix to soothe town-gown relations. In reality, students overrun it Thursday through Saturday, crowding out even the most stalwart of locals who perch at the bar.
Devine motioned me over to the back room of the bar, where dusty sports photography and beer signs crowd the walls. "You're getting the grand tour," said Tuttle with a smile. Devine introduced a signed action shot of "The Famous Chicken," unofficial mascot of the San Diego Padres, who had come in for a drink one night-alas, in plainclothes. "The difference with here and most places is that I know 80 percent of the people who are on these walls," Devine said, demonstrating what seemed like an encyclopedic sports knowledge as he reeled off noted players and coaches.
Abruptly noticing the layer of dust coating a poster in the corner, he scowled. "We could probably clean some of the cobwebs off here," he said, turning to address a waitress nearby. "Could you get a wet rag?"
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