Route 1 and Knox Road
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Beer trucks with 100 kegs circulated Fraternity Row, La Plata Hall and other popular hangouts, as 1983 university alumnus Charlie Tobias remembers. Parties were thrown any time and everywhere, whether the occasion was a snow day, sports victory or a normal Thursday night.
Students lived on a wet campus a mere stone’s throw from Washington, where the drinking age was 18; the nightlife was wild, and the bars and restaurants that served the Terps partygoers were swept along for the ride.
But as the years have gone by, businesses have come and gone, changing the way that students experience College Park with each opening and closing.
University Archivist Anne Turkos, who has worked on the campus since 1985, said the atmosphere of a college town creates difficulties for businesses to sustain themselves during summers and breaks, leading to the closure of many establishments over the years.
“I think part of it is that the rents are very high in the city [and] when the students are gone in the summertime, it’s dead,” Turkos said. “It’s difficult sometimes to make ends meet.”
Because students were the primary customers of many of these establishments, they could decide what would stay and what would go simply by choosing where to spend their money.
Ike Richman, a 1988 alumnus, said Route 1 was “the place to be” after a big sports win. However, the restaurants and bars students flocked to were very different from the ones along the stretch today.
The atmosphere of these establishments seemed to embrace the make-or-break factor; it was about building a brand and gaining a following of loyal customers. Nights that students would remember forever — or not — would become the highlights of tales for generations to come, and future students would flock to the same locations in honor of their elders.
THE RENDEZVOUS INN
Students packed The Rendezvous Inn on Dec. 2, 1983, filling the club from wall to wall like sardines. As midnight struck, a wave of silence fell over the crowd and the small television at the entrance of the bar glowed with the premiere of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
“The Vous used to have a few hundred people at a time, and when that video came out for the first time, the place was silent,” said Jeff Poppel, 1985 alumnus. “It was the only time I could ever remember The Vous being silent because everyone was watching Michael Jackson.”
If Route 1 was a desert, The Rendezvous Inn was its oasis, with hundreds of students soaking in the constant stream of booze on tap at any given time.
“It was a wild night every time you went there,” Kyle Gold, 1987 alumni said. “People would drink beer out of their shoes and pitchers off their heads, it was kind of like the place to go.”
It stood at Route 1 and Knox Road, where Cornerstone Grill and Loft is today, sharing the same owner as the then-Santa Fe Cafe, Mark Srour. Students flocked there each weekend despite its appearance, which some considered homely.
“Envision everything like black wood and sticky. Like no joke, the tables were sticky, the floors were sticky, the bar was sticky, everything was sticky with beer because [there] was just constantly beer thrown all over the floor,” said Stacey Goldberg, a 1988 alumna. “It was gross, it was absolutely gross, but that was where we’d go.”
Tobias said students would have a pair of shoes set aside just for braving the sticky and slushy floors of The Rendezvous Inn, or “The Vous,” as alumni fondly recall.
“You would wear your worst pair of shoes because the floor would be about three inches thick with beer,” Tobias said. “It was disgusting.”
With virtually no windows or connection to the outside world, The Rendezvous Inn opened in 1962 and reigned over College Park, shadowing competing bars and restaurants for decades.
“It [was] probably on many people’s bucket lists,” said Turkos.
Students would hear stories of The Vous from older siblings, parents and other alumni and then go once they were students for history’s sake, she said. The bar closed on Dec. 22, 1996 and in 1997 a University Relations writer attributed The Vous closure to “an inverse correlation between rising SAT scores and beer consumption.”
“[When] we used to go, there was this old saying, two to two at The Vous because people used to go at 2 p.m. Friday afternoons and hang out until it closed at 2 a.m. Saturday morning,” Poppel said. “Then we went a couple doors down to a place called Purple Pizza and that was your Friday evening.”
SANTA FE CAFE
As the predecessor to Terrapin’s Turf, Santa Fe Cafe was another bar frequently visited by past students. It hosted live music from local bands as well as more well-known artists such as Eve 6, Lit,Shwayze and Busta Rhymes, as reported in a 2010 Diamondback article.
“[Nights at] Santa Fe were my favorite nights out for sure,” said Sherry Paskin, a 1990 alumna. “It was little but more upscale than The Cellar and The Vous; sometimes we would eat dinner there first and just stay there all night — whereas we would never do that at the Vous or the Cellar. It was a little bit of a step up from that.”
Unlike the bare-bones Vous, Santa Fe boasted TVs and restaurant-style food. The more refined decor attracted many Terps looking for a classier night out.
“Santa Fe was — imagine like a Mexican-looking place with TVs,” said Goldberg. “Kind of like more of a restaurant you would think of today, TVs all around the bar, top of the bar. This was more of a restaurant. You would feel like you were out and you were being grown-up a little bit.”
However, the more formal atmosphere didn’t mean it wasn’t a good time. Richman worked there when it opened and said the happy hour specials of dollar beers and free buffalo wings attracted crowds of students — especially in inclement weather.
“It just became a hot spot on an afternoon, after class, people just flocked to Santa Fe. The lines wrapped around the building,” Richman said.
On May 22, 2010, Santa Fe Cafe closed its doors after years of conflict between Srour and city officials.
R.J. BENTLEY’S
Paskin and her future husband, Lorne Paskin, gathered with a group of friends at R.J. Bentley’s on one of their first nights out together as a couple. Now they have been married for 19 years and have two teenage children, but she said they still remember their time at this university and on Route 1 like it was yesterday.
Richman, who used to work at Bentley’s, said the bar used to attract more alumni than students.
“That’s where the alumni really went to hang out. You could see Tom McMillen in there,” Richman said. “That’s where people, I think, they just went in there for a pregame meal or pregame cocktail and then would go over to the game.”
While other restaurants have closed over the years, Bentley’s has been open since 1978. Michael Stiefvater, College Park Economic Development Coordinator, attributes this to the bar’s ability to brand itself as a staple that students and alumni alike continue to support.
“[Places like Bentley’s] have developed a following over the years and provide a consistent product,” Stiefvater said. “They’re local institutions and people continue supporting them. “
Gold and Richman agree, saying that when they visit College Park, a dinner at Bentley’s is a must.
“I would also patronize Bentley’s and go back to Bentley’s just to pay respects,” Richman said.
STANDING THE TEST OF TIME
At the Knox Road and Route 1, a glowing sign denotes another College Park staple: Ratsie’s Pizza.
“Certainly there’s a lot more pizza places,” Turkos said. “You can become a pizza connoisseur in College Park.”
Regardless, places such as Ratsie’s and The Original Ledo Restaurant stand out from their competitors, Turkos said, because they have become Terrapins traditions.
“The food is good, for sure,” she said. “[But] we need to be conscious of keeping up the traditions as long as we can.”
Marathon Deli, the well-known Greek restaurant, started as another pizza joint in 1972. After switching to its now-beloved Mediterranean cuisine, Sharon Galakanos, the current owner of 16 years, took over.
“While I’ve had it, I haven’t changed anything,” Galakanos said. “If it works, why change it?”
Returning alumni seem to appreciate the consistency, and some return every time they visit the campus.
“We still get people coming in who came in around 1975,” Galakanos said. “They come back to the university for homecoming and whatever — we get the same kind of business we always have.”
Chris Bobee, a server at College Park Diner, said that he also encounters alumni who stop back to eat and reminisce when visiting the campus.
“One in every 10 customers say, ‘I went to school over there,’” he said.
Many alumni have fond memories of being at these staples, and stories pass down generations, Turkos said.
“We need to be conscious of keeping the tradition as long as we can,” Turkos said.
CEMENTING LEGACIES
Businesses seem to shuffle constantly in and out, but a few Terp favorites have survived the decades.
“Successful [businesses] rely on many things, including offering a quality product, filling a market demand, providing reliable service and having a solid management team,” Stiefvater wrote in an email. “It’s not easy to operate a business and many fail within a short time after opening. That’s certainly not a College Park-centric problem, though.”
Economic instability might not always have been the culprit, as in the case of the late Thirsty Turtle, which had its liquor license revoked in 2010 for serving underage students.
Route 1 venues do all they can to stay open and to become these age-old cruxes, but in the end it is about appealing to students in a way that makes the place a classic, alumni and officials said.
Paskin said something as simple as “just gathering with our group of friends and just hanging out for most of the night, just laughing — having fun,” made her college experience memorable.
