A jukebox with roughly 100 songs, a wall of bounced checks and a ceiling full of dollar bills. Students wouldn’t recognize it now, but this was Peggy’s Tavern back in the 90s. Amy Lies, a Drake alum who graduated in 1994, remembers spending her nights in a much smaller Peggy’s enjoying a “draw,” or draft beer, with all her friends both in and out of Greek life before heading over to the “late night” fraternity parties.
“Peggy’s was the main place,” Lies said. “We’d all be packed in there like sardines and there’d be girls standing up on the booths dancing.”
Peggy’s is celebrating its 90th anniversary in 2025. Throughout the years, a lot has changed, but one thing that has always remained constant is Peggy’s impact on Drake students. Lies said it was the first bar she hung out in, and she still remembers those nights all huddled together around Peggy’s one TV watching “Cheers” with her college friends. According to Lies, the bonds she formed at Peggy’s have lasted a lifetime.
“It definitely solidified friendships,” Lies said. “By the time you were a senior, you were so comfortable going there. You’d just walk in by yourself, and you’d know people.”
Peggy’s bartender and current Drake senior, Caitlin Judkins, said the bar’s impact on Drake is still evident today. For example, Mug Night, a promotion Peggy’s offers most Wednesdays, has become a staple of Drake bar culture.
“It’s right next to the freshman dorms, very close to campus, so it is deeply intertwined with the Drake culture,” Judkins said. “It’s really cool to be a part of something that’s kind of big within Drake.”
Back in the ’90s, the Peggy’s Tent was still as iconic as it is today. Lies said it has gotten at least four times larger in recent years and is now much more centered around partying.
“When we went back last year, we were in the tent at Peggy’s, and all of a sudden, it turned into a dance party,” Lies said. “ I was like, ‘Oh, this never happened when we were here. It was just drinking in the rain under the tent.’”
Overall, though, Lies and Judkins both said that the drinking culture at Drake has changed drastically. Through her interactions with various alumni, Judkins has learned that Peggy’s used to be open during the day, too, and students would drop in and have a drink between classes.
“The alumni think we’re so lame. They’ll come back and be like, ‘Why aren’t you open at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday?’” Judkins said. “Honestly, since I started bartending, drinking culture has subsided a lot. I feel like after COVID, people got tired.”
Lies believes that Gen Z is simply prone to drinking in a safer manner. She recollected some of her wild nights out, including driving over to West End for a shot and then driving back over to Peggy’s before the shot took effect because Peggy’s used to only sell beer, wine coolers and Purple Passion, a drink made with Everclear and purple soda.
Even going to West End used to be more dangerous. It was farther away than Peggy’s from most of the dorms and other student housing around campus. The walk would also be mostly dark due to a lack of street lamps, which led most students to drive. That area of campus was also less developed back in the 90s, populated only with a drive-through liquor store, not the Knapp Center or MediaCom Stadium that students are with today.
“Campus is really built up in that direction,” Lies said. “West End did not feel safe. You would never go there by yourself.”
Both of these bars have always been ‘young bars,’ serving college students of all ages, legal or illegal, Lies said.
“Everyone had a fake ID. Everybody was underage,” Lies said. “And, I mean, the IDs were not nice. Like, somebody in the basement of the dorm printed it out on their computer and laminated it. It was terrible.”
Peter Ryan, a Drake Pharmacy alum who graduated in 2014, said that one thing that has made drinking safer today is The Drake Safe Ride Bus. He complimented Drake for having this.
“It’s much safer to bar hop between the few places that exist, knowing you have that option to get around,” Ryan said.
One of the other major changes to Drake’s college bar scene is the loss of The Dublin, an Irish Pub, that Ryan describes as more of a “club” environment and included a “big old dance floor.” Dublin is now replaced by Lefty’s Live Music.
“It was very dirty, but that place would be packed,” Ryan said.
Ryan said that at Drake, going out has always been about having fun and making friends. One night, he reflected, he and his friends were drinking when a blizzard hit. Due to the storm, they realized they wouldn’t have class the next day, so they stayed out drinking all night.
He also recalled watching people stumble home from The Dublin, and the times he and his friends bar-hopped to each of Dogtown’s four corners, hitting The Dublin, The Library, Peggy’s and West End all in one night.
“You’d go out with friends, but if they met someone, you’d start talking to somebody else, or there would be a group of frat guys or sorority girls out, and just start talking them up,” Ryan said.
Specifically, though, alumni said their nights at Peggy’s are what have stuck with them for their whole lives. Whether behind the bar or in line at a store back in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, Judkins said she often finds herself listening as alums share memories they deem “the best times of their lives.”
Donning her Peggy’s sweatshirt is a dead giveaway. Even in Omaha, it encourages a conversation about Judkins’ job and her time at Drake.
“It’s most fun when there’s a lot of people, especially when alumni come and visit because they care a lot about seeing how much things have changed,” Judkins said. “A lot of people will come back and find their dollar on the ceiling, which is cute. We’ll have alums come and say, ‘Oh, I spent more time at Peggy’s than I did in class.’”
The Drake bars impacted Ryan’s life by introducing him to new faces or solidifying bonds with friends. A member of Ryan’s pharmacy fraternity was a bartender at The Dublin and would often give Ryan free drinks. The friendships he made at Drake still last to this day.
They also made Ryan more sociable and the life of the party. One night, Ryan threw a birthday party for one of his friends. He went all out, including glow sticks acting as invitations. Later that night, he and his friends went out to the bar and got into an altercation that could have escalated into a full-blown bar fight, but the entire bar broke it up, claiming “these guys just threw the greatest party ever.”
“[The Drake bar scene] made me who I am: sociable and willing to talk to anybody,” Ryan said. “Older people in pharmacy school would take me out and take me under their wing. We’d go study, and then go out to the bars. It was a really good bonding experience.”
This story was originally published on The Times-Delphic on April 21, 2025.