Hangar 9

Hangar 9 has now been reopened for a week and 2 days.  When i turned 19 the hangar was the hippy bar of southern IL.  It was a pole barn with a bar inside.....    during an ice storm a couple years ago, it crashed in but was rebuilt over the past couple years.   Now it is open again.

The building it's self is epic.  It has a nice stage and a nice smoke garden.  The upstairs has a nice lounge area along with a couple tables downstairs.  The problem is that it's too clean and modern for the kind of characters that it specializes in bringing in.  Its a beautiful building and people will adapt to it and therefor it's really not a problem that it's too clean.  It just needs a little breaking in.

While the building is awesome, there are two real issues with the new hangar:

A)  The bar is no larger than the bar cellar or pk (two one level buildings no bigger than the average college house or apartment.)  but has a building the size of a theater.  The bar just isn't big enough to serve at capacity or for the bartenders to comfortably move around.  You're left with slow service (and no one likes having to wait half an hour for a drink.

B)  2.50 PBR cans.    Some of the mixed drinks seem to be priced reasonably, but the beer is priced light the big city.... but we're in a small town.  It's 4.50 for a 6 pack of pbr at the liquor store but you end up spending 15 if you drink 6 at the hangar.  Bud light and other domestic beer are running average of 2.75, some of them are 3.50.  In a college town, over priced beer does not lead to better business.

2 problems:  no one wants to wait half and hour for an over priced beer.

The nice thing, other than the building, is that the crowd is still similar to the old crowd.  Things might change or not change, but i like the people that i've been running into.

I know that a lot of my friends will not return to the hangar due to the problems, but there are still a lot of people there that i do think are awesome.  I might not be able to afford to drink every time i go there, but i will still enjoy caffeinating myself and partying sober.  However, i doubt that there are very many people that enjoy that kind of thing.

So the Hanger has my approval, but i wouldn't mind not having to sneak in my own beer.