Syracuse University students spent their last night out at Hungry Chuck’s a year ago. Today, the area where the popular bar once stood is now covered by a soon-to-be apartment building.

The Marshall Syracuse plans to open this summer, offering luxury student apartments at competitive price. The structure towers eight stories atop the sacred ground that once housed the popular student hangout.

Construction for the South Crouse Avenue apartment project began last spring, forcing the famous student hotspot to close in April 2017. Orange Crate Brewing Company also had to close, but has since found a new home a block away.

Orange Crate — commonly referred to by students as Lucy’s, its former moniker — and several other Marshall-area bars, including Faegan’s, Harry’s and DJ’s On the Hill, are adjusting to life after Chuck’s while preparing for the opening of The Marshall. But the future of Chuck’s is unknown.

R.C. Faigle, owner of Orange Crate, said he was shocked when he first heard of the housing project two summers ago that would force him to relocate. He feels he caught the luck of the draw by quickly finding a new location at 731 S. Crouse Ave., a former Bruegger’s Bagels.

“I’m in the best position that I’ve been in. I love the location,” Faigle said. “I certainly miss the traditional location, but we’re going to have great things to come here for 10-plus years.”

Orange Crate’s original location at 721 S. Crouse Avenue had two floors, each with a bar of its own. While the new spot is confined to one floor, it has something that no other Marshall bar has: a spacious outdoor area. The shaky weather conditions have held back its unveiling, but Faigle said the back area is essentially a second venue that will have its own bar.

While Orange Crate was able to relocate, Chuck’s is still looking for a new spot. The bar’s owner, Stephen Theobald, said the staff has been working on reopening the bar constantly since its closure a year ago. It’s been like a full-time job to try and reopen, he added.

Theobald said there are currently three potential options for the new location of Chuck’s. Each of these would see the bar reopen at different times — one as early as this summer, two as late as next year, he said. One option is a first-floor spot on the site of its original home in The Marshall’s retail section.

The complex’s owners have yet to publicize any of the impending business partnerships. However, Theobald said they have requested floor plans, menus and other information regarding Chuck’s intentions from him as recently as this week.

Hieu Nguyen | Asst. Photo Editor

Chuck’s signature atmosphere will not perish with the closure. Theobald said he saved all of the original furniture, signage and memorabilia, including the large copper-top bar where generations of SU students have ordered drinks over the decades. He has shipping containers in East Syracuse filled and ready to be unloaded into a space hopefully as big — if not bigger — than before.

“If it hadn’t been torn down, we would never have touched a hair on its pretty little head. We loved it the way it was,” Theobald said. “We’re pretty committed to putting it back pretty much the way it was … we intend to recreate what was there, down to every detail that we can possibly pull off — kind of like a historic restoration.”

Faigle said he would like to see Theobald and Chuck’s return, noting that fewer bars could lead students to spend their evenings away from Marshall Street because there are more options elsewhere.

“Smaller isn’t always better,” Faigle said. “Competition is good, it keeps you on top of your game, certainly.”

Zack Schoem is the DJ manager of DJ’s on the Hill, one of two Syracuse DJ’s locations. He’s experienced the local bar scene inside and out, having worked at Harry’s and Orange Crate in the past, and his year-long stint at DJ’s has given him a front-row seat to the bar scene transformation.

“We have a lot more seniors than we’ve ever had coming in,” said Schoem, an entrepreneurship and emerging enterprises major. “Because of Chuck’s (closing), everybody’s getting extra seniors now.”

Tim Collyer, who graduated in December 2017, said he refused to spend his weekend evenings anywhere but Chuck’s last spring. He cited the establishment’s cheap drinks and discounted food.

“Everything was half-priced during happy hour,” he recalled. “You and your friends could sit down with four drinks and mozzarella sticks for $12. You cannot beat that.”

This year, an entire class of seniors that used to frequent Chuck’s has had to travel a different path, unable to add their names to Chuck’s walls like those before them. To fill the void last semester, Collyer said he and his friends utilized the city’s recent addition of Uber and Lyft to patronize downtown bars like Benjamin’s on Franklin. Once Orange Crate reopened in October, though, Collyer said the luster of downtown began to lose its appeal.

Even with this new competition just yards away, Schoem said DJ’s was, and still is, consistently packing the house. He believes that trend will continue into next year once students are living in The Marshall.

“I think everyone is going to do better,” Schoem said. “To be able to say, ‘I live next door to the bar’ — it’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be phenomenal for business.”

While Faegan’s and Harry’s declined to comment for this story, the optimism has also made its way to Orange Crate.

“I love it,” laughed Faigle. “They’ll look down at my patio and see people having fun and go, ‘I gotta get down there.’”

Schoem, along with many other seniors who experienced Chuck’s before it closed, is still disappointed it’s no longer around, but grateful he had the opportunity to spend a few nights there.

“Think about the people that had legacies that came here and went to Chuck’s. My brother used to go to Chuck’s, his name was on the wall,” Schoem said. “Imagine if I wasn’t old enough to get in there and I could never live that moment that my family lived.”

Theobald said he’s sorry this year’s senior class has been unable to hang around Chuck’s, and he hopes to make it up to them down the road. He said when the bar reopens, they’re considering having some sort of celebration for the class of 2018.

“We’d like to give you guys a chance a chance to get your names on the wall,” he said. “It’s a big thing to me.”

Published on April 17, 2018 at 11:34 pm

Contact Adam: aglehner@syr.edu