The march of money on college campuses continues unabated.

This week we mourn two of the best late-night drunk spots on Big Ten campuses—and a few others, while you’re also welcome to cut open a boozy vein in the comments—as the Northwestern and Minnesota institutions of the 24-hour Burger King and “Drunkdonalds” (the Dinkytown McDonalds), respectively, are seeing their lives come to an end.

There was nothing pretty about the fat old ketchup-and-mustard McDonalds on the corner of 4th St. and 15th Ave. in Dinky, nor was there anything glamorous about the stumble across the Elgin Road to be shepherded around the line by a security guard who had absolutely no time for your shit. But it was a college memory.

Northwestern alumni much older than me have reacted to the announcement on Facebook by remembering how circumventing Evanston fast-food laws meant their to-go food was served on a tray, while the rest of us recalled the coupons, the bags of ice, and the parts of ourselves—probably all too literally—that we left behind in the booths, the bathrooms, and the trash cans.

Daily Northwestern

Burger King was my first drunk food on campus, the first night I ever consumed alcohol—I remember the walk there, though the best Burger King memories are no doubt the ones you don’t remember. [There’s also, to be sure, the shame of how we treated the underpaid fast food workers manning the register and grill, to say nothing of the un- or under-housed denizens catching a moment’s sleep at one of the tables.]

So too do those stories apply to the U of M—I have drunkenly leaned over a friend to shout my order into the drive-thru window, slumped down in a second-floor booth, and not batted an eye at the questionably-sticky table I laid my hands on—and no doubt in greater quantity and quality than I can offer. It was greasy, it was disgusting, but it was THE campus haunt for drunk food at all hours of the day and night.

Bring Me the News

The best I could ever do was find out, as I walked in one evening after meeting Eliot Eliason (he told me to go fuck myself for liking Bill Carmody and the 1-3-1) at B-Loco, that my buddy—and my ride—would be heading off with some random girl.

Hell, drunken nights my first years in Milwaukee weren’t complete without a greasy burger and fries from Marquette Gyros—until the university declined to renew its lease. (There’s still Real Chili, of course, but it’s just not the same.)

Yelp

You ordered and looked over that disgusting counter, wondering how there was never a grease fire breaking out right there in front of you. But a couple minutes later your burger and fries—oddly, I never got the gyro or really know, indeed, if there was one—were in the nondescript brown paper bag, and on your stumbled home.

What’s going up on the site of the old BK Lounge? Well “multi-story mixed-use commercial development,” of course. The Dinkytown McDonalds will “return,” but in the lower level of “a new mixed-use development” property. As our immediate off-campus environs need to look, for university recruiters and city planners, like the glistening college towns of their dreams, the greasy holes-in-the-wall must come down. Glittering, glass-fronted stores beneath $1400-a-month one-bedroom apartments look nice on a brochure. Drunkdonalds doesn’t.

Of course, as Marquette has learned in its never-ending quest to beautify the campus surroundings—not learning, of course, from its Campus Circle failure—it’s not always easy to just put something new in there.

Google Street View, 12/17/20

No doubt there is something to be said for not allowing the continued, inertial existence of the BK Lounge, Drunkdonalds, Gyros, or the dozens of places you all will mention in the comments—if a building is unsafe or not useful, it ought to come down. And the pandemic has exacerbated those trends toward change. Pave paradise, put up a parking lot mixed-use development.

Some of it, the idea that no Northwestern experience is complete without a Dillo Day spent in a 20-minute line at Burger King or that Spring Jam has to include a midday stumble to McDonalds, is surely silly.

But some of it is the idea that passing on those traditions—the seedy joints where we may have acquired, well, a seedy joint—to the next generation of students is something we think is part of student life: the cheap food in an increasingly bourgeois oasis of downtown Evanston, the comfort of a grease bomb when you’re on the 27th hour of a Finals study marathon.

We’ll always have the BK Lounge—and the Keg, and the 1800 Club, and so many more spots—in our hearts, of course. At least one of my blocked arteries can be chalked up to the Triple Stacker. But now it’s just another fleeting memory—and not just because of the alcohol—of a different era at Northwestern.

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I asked the various OTE writers to recall their drunk foods, and we got a couple hits:

Andrew K: Rest In Peace, Theio’s. Though I suppose it actually wasn’t on campus, and most MSU students were unaware of it because it was on the west side of 127.

BoilerBettor: La Bamba’s with their trademark Burritos As Big As Your Head. If you ate their sober, you were taking your stomach’s future into your own hands. Granted, they still exist but the location across the street from the bars in WL closed down sometime in the early 2000’s.

MC ClapYoHandz: I am not regularly in Madison anymore but most of the RIP contenders I can think of are chains like Qdoba, Taco Bell/KFC, and Fat Sandwich Company. I will not be surprised if at least one popped up again or never actually closed.

I do have a winner though. I will be dating myself a bit here, and I can’t remember if it was a late late night option, but in my time there was also a food truck/stand called Jin’s Chicken and Fish (you just called it Jin’s) that was ultra popular. That one closed while I was still in school though, so it’s been gone for about....oh god.

Compose your drunken paeans to the BK Lounge or Drunkdonalds in the comments; or, hell, tell us about your own memories of the greasy drunk food that’s no longer there.

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Thursday

Don’t Watch This

{EPL} Sheffield United vs. Manchester United [2pm, NBCSN]

{CBB} North Dakota Fighting Hawks at Southern Illinois Salukis (-7, 135.5) [1pm, ESPN3]
{CBB} #9 Creighton Bluejays (-7.5, O/U 158.5) at St. John’s Red Storm [6pm, FS1]
{CBB} #5 Kansas at #14 Texas Tech (-3, O/U 134) [6pm, ESPN]
{CBB} San Francisco Dons at Oregon Ducks (-7.5, O/U 143.5) [7PM, Pac-12]

{HOC} Arizona State at Ohio State [4:30pm, BTN+]

{NFL} Los Angeles Chargers at Las Vegas Raiders [7:20pm, FOX/NFL]

{NBA} Golden State Warriors at Sacramento Kings [8pm, ESPN]

Watch That

Soccer

{EPL} Aston Villa vs. Burnley [12pm, NBCSN]
{Denmark} Kobenhavn vs. Midtjylland [1:15pm, ESPN+]
{Serie A} Roma vs. Torino [1:45pm, ESPN+]
{Liga de Expansion MX} Tampico Madero vs. Atlante [9pm, TUDN]

{WBB} #16 Northwestern at Purdue

6pm | BTN

{CBB} LIU Sharks at Sacred Heart Pioneers

3pm | NEC on the Run | LIU -5.5 | O/U 151.5

{CBB} N.C. State Wolfpack at Saint Louis Billikens

7pm | ESPN+ | SLU -4.5 | O/U 142.5

{CBB} Seton Hall Pirates at Marquette Golden Eagles

8pm | FS1 |

Woooooooof. We were supposed to have a random ULM-Troy game tonight, but the Warhawks—already having fired HC Matt Viator—do not have enough players to play the game. So that stinks.

But while the Warhawks—at 0-10 and Sagarin’s 192—will go down as one of the worst college football teams in recent history, they aren’t even the worst of this season. That honor goes to the 0-4 Massachusetts Minutemen (Sagarin 220 of a possible 258 D-1 programs), who made about $60K on an 0-4 season in which they scored 12 points, including two on a safety in a 24-2 loss at Florida Atlantic. There’s no speaking to how pathetic this season was.

As I type this, Aston Villa is probing the bunkered-in defense of the Clarets, searching for an opener. No doubt it’ll come after this guy dives just outside the box and converts the free kick or PK:

Photo by James Williamson - AMA/Getty Images

That’s Jack Grealish, asshole and troll extraordinaire. You’re correct to note that his hair is held back by a hairband and that his shin guards are approximately 2” tall. You can also search his name on Twitter and find that he was recently breaking (we think) lockdown protocols in England with...well, she definitely looked like a nurse.

Grealish also just took a 9-month driving ban for drunk driving and twice crashing his £80,000 Range Rover—under a day after posting a message on Twitter saying English citizens should stay home and follow lockdown rules—with the CCTV footage plastered around the internet making him look like every bit the douche he was, is, and ever shall be.

Of course, then he does this to the English tabloids when showing up for his court date:

I don’t wanna hand it to him, but...

Friday

Don’t Watch This

{C-USA Championship} UAB Blazers at Marshall Thundering Herd (-5, O/U 42) [6pm, CBSSN]
{Pac-12 Championship Game} Oregon Ducks at #13 USC Trojans (-3, O/U 64) [7pm, FOX]

{CBB} Davidson Wildcats at Rhode Island Rams [6pm, ESPNU]
{CBB} Iowa State at #8 West Virginia [8pm, ESPNU]

{HOC} Arizona State at Ohio State [4:30pm, BTN+]

{NBA} Brooklyn Nets at Boston Celtics [7pm, ESPN2]
{NBA} Los Angeles Lakers at Phoenix Suns [9:30pm, ESPN]

Watch That

Ball State Cardinals at Buffalo Bulls

MAC Championship Game, Ford Field, Detroit
6:30pm | ESPN | UB -13.5 | O/U 67.5

Nebraska Cornhuskers at Rutgers Scarlet Knights

6:30pm | BTN | UNL -6.5 | O/U 54

Soccer

{League One} Hull City vs. Portsmouth [11:30am, ESPN+]
{Bundesliga} Union Berlin vs. Borussia Dortmund [1:30pm, ESPN+]
{EFL Championship} Preston North End vs. Bristol City [2pm, ESPN+]

College Basketball

Eastern Washington Eagles at Northern Arizona Lumberjacks [1pm, PlutoTV]
BYU at #18 San Diego State [4pm, CBSSN]
Hampton Pirates at Howard Bison [4pm, ESPN]
Richmond Spiders at Loyola-Chicago Ramblers [5pm, ESPN+]
Chicago State Cougars (0-7) at Northern Illinois Huskies (0-5) [6pm, ESPN3]
Weber State Wildcats at Portland State Vikings [9:05pm, PlutoTV]

Lot happening here, and while UAB-Marshall and Oregon-USC have closer lines than Balls Tate-Buffalo, the Jaret Patterson angle—along with possibly Lance Leipold’s last game on the UB sideline, if Illinois comes calling—and the fun story of the resurgent Robotbirds makes this one a watcher for me.

Of course, I’ll mostly be watching Nebuttska for the laughs.

Saturday Morning

Don’t Watch This

#5 Texas A&M Aggies (-14, O/U 51) at Tennessee Volunteers [11am, ESPN]
{Big XII Championship Game] #10 Oklahoma Sooners (-5.5, O/U 58) vs. #6 Iowa State Cyclones [11am, ABC]
Florida State Seminoles at Wake Forest Demon Deacons (-6.5, O/U 66) [11am, ACCN]

{CBB} #23 Louisville at #12 wisconsin [11am, ESPN2]

{Serie A} Sampdoria vs. Crotone [11am, ESPN+]
{Bundesliga} Bayer Leverkusen vs. Bayern Munchen [11:30am, ESPN+]
{EPL} Everton vs. Arsenal [11:30am, Peacock]
{La Liga} Levante vs. Real Sociedad [11:30am, beIN]
{Eredivisie} VVV vs. Twente [11:45am, ESPN+]

Watch That

#14 Northwestern Wildcats vs. #4 Ohio State Buckeyes

Big Ten Championship Game, Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
11am | FOX | OSU -20.5 | O/U 57

{CBB} Butler Bulldogs vs. Indiana

Crossroads Classic, Bankers Life Fieldhouse
10:30am | FS1

{CBB} #3 Iowa at #1 Gonzaga Bulldogs

Sanford Pentagon, Sioux Falls, SD
11am | CBS

Will Oklahoma-Iowa State be a better game? Almost undoubtedly.

But I say “Watch That”, Big Ten, because this is your punishment—and that is geared, in particular, at Iowa Hawkeyes fans. You deserve to be glued and Ludovico’d to this game. Watch this and feel bad that once again, because you are merely a mediocrity of a different shade, Northwestern is appearing in the Big Ten Championship while you eat Cheetos and scream at Dollar Tree employees about mask policies.

Who am I kidding, you’ve pivoted to basketball, and I can’t blame you.

But still, remember: you suck. Go ‘Cats.

Saturday Afternoon

Don’t Watch This

Minnesota Golden Gophers at Wisconsin Badgers (-12.5, O/U 47) [3pm, BTN]
Illinois Fighting Illini at Penn State Nittany Lions (-15.5, O/U 52) [4:30pm, FS1]
Washington State Cougars at Utah Utes (-10.5, O/U 56) [12:30pm, FS1]
Air Force Falcons (-3, O/U 37) at Army Black Knights [2pm, CBSSN]
Missouri Tigers (-1, O/U 49.5) at Mississippi State Bulldogs [2:30pm, SECN Alt]
Ole Miss Rebels (-2.5, O/U 78.5) at LSU Tigers [2:30pm, SECN]
{ACC Championship Game} #3 Clemson Tigers (-10.5, O/U 60) vs. #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish [3pm, ABC]

{CBB} #22 North Carolina at Kentucky [1pm, CBS]
{CBB} Purdue vs. Notre Dame [1:30pm, ESPN2—Crossroads Classic]
{CBB} UC Davis Aggies at Sacramento State Hornets [2:05pm, PlutoTV]
{CBB} #2 Baylor at Kansas State [3pm, Big XII/ESPN+]
{CBB} UCLA vs. #20 Ohio State [3:15pm, CBS—Cleveland]

{Eredivisie} RKC Waalwijk vs. PSV Eindhoven [1pm, ESPN+]
{Serie A} Parma vs. Juventus [1:45pm, ESPN+]
{EPL} Newcastle United vs. Fulham [2pm, Peacock]

{HOC} Michigan State at Notre Dame [4pm, NBCSN]

Watch That

#19 Louisiana Ragin Cajuns at #12 Coastal Carolina Chanticleers

Sun Belt Championship Game
2:30pm | ESPN | CCU -3 | O/U 55

Boise State Broncos at #24 San Jose State Spartans

Mountain West Championship Game, Sam Boyd Stadium, Las Vegas
3:15pm | FOX | Boise -6.5 | O/U 56

College Basketball

Furman Paladins at Winthrop Eagles

3pm | ESPN+

Delaware Fighting Blue Hens at La Salle Explorers

3:30pm | NBCSN

Welp; g’bye, Chants. It was nice while it lasted.

I can’t see “San Jose” without hearing “Do You Know the Way to San Jose”, except as a millennial I don’t hear that, I hear this:

I’m so sorry.

Saturday Evening

Don’t Watch This

Michigan State Spartans at Maryland Terrapins (-2.5, O/U 50.5) [6:30pm, BTN]
Stanford Cardinal at UCLA Bruins (-7, O/U 59)
{SEC Championship Game} #1 Alabama Crimson Tide (-17, O/U 74.5) vs. #7 Florida Gators [7pm, CBS]

{CONCACAF CL} Tigres UANL vs. Olimpia [7pm, FS2]

Watch That

#23 Tulsa Golden Hurricane at #9 Cincinnati Bearcats

AAC Conference Championship Game
7pm | ABC | Cincy -14 | O/U 45.5

{CBB} Cincinnati at Georgia

7pm | SECN

When Florida loses by 20, Cincinnati wins the AAC, and the Bearcats still wind up behind the Gators in the College Football Playoff rankings, do we finally riot?

Also Michigan State-Maryland isn’t happened.

Will the Terps get a bowl game? I neither know nor care.

It’s late and I’m drunk...

Don’t Watch This

Watch That

Arizona State Sun Devils at Oregon State Beavers

9:30pm | ESPN | ASU -7.5 | O/U 55

{CONCACAF CL} Los Angeles FC vs. Club America

9:30pm | FS2 | Semifinal

I got nothing. This is what’s on. Watch it.

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Enjoy the games, everyone. RIP to BK Lounge.