With most students still away on winter break, the Dugout slipped away with little fanfare, an unceremonious ending for a place that had loomed so large in the social lives of generations of Terriers.

Campus News

After 90 Years Serving, the Dugout Says Good Night

BU alums reflect on the legendary, on-campus dive bar, which closed in early January, with little fanfare

For Kimberly Northup, the Dugout Cafe was never just a bar. The best-known dive on the Boston University campus was where her friends held milestone birthdays, toasted the end of classes, celebrated hockey wins, and gathered even when there was nothing in particular to celebrate. 

So when Northup (CAS’93, SSW’98) heard that the Dugout had closed its Commonwealth Avenue doors abruptly in early January—without a final night or last call—after almost a century in business, her first feeling was sadness. “It helped build a sense of community,” she says. “My friends and I all chose BU because of the draw of Boston, with its fabulous downtown location. That sense of community at the Dugout always brought you back there, whether it was celebrating a milestone event or [having] a heart-to-heart. That’s the type of place it was.”

The Dugout’s owner—who inherited the place from his father, who inherited it from his longtime boss—sold the liquor license to the Canadian chain Earls Kitchen + Bar, which is opening a location in the Seaport. The public learned of the sale during a Boston Licensing Board meeting on January 8. “It’s the end of an era,” wrote Universal Hub when they reported the news that same day. 

With most students still away on winter break, the Dugout slipped away with little fanfare, an unceremonious ending for a place that loomed so large in the social lives of generations of Terriers. The Dugout was well-worn and unapologetically itself. Patrons descended just three steps below street level, into the “the dark, subterranean heart of campus,” says Mark Sullivan (COM’83).

“I remember how it felt to leave the dark of the Dugout in the afternoon and emerge into the sunlight with eyes squinting,” Sullivan says. “A bottle of Miller High Life was a dollar. There was no Budweiser because it’s said [the owner] Jimmy O’Keefe had a dispute with the distributor. There were no taps…. The men’s room had a trough.”

“For my groups of friends, there was never a question that we’d end our night at the Dugout,” Northup says. “We’d go after BU hockey games, for birthdays, the last day of classes, and Senior Week. The Dugout was like a comfort exhale.”

Opened in 1934, legend says the Dugout began life as a speakeasy during Prohibition. In a 2015 Bostonia feature, BU College of Engineering editor-writer Patrick Kennedy traced its long, colorful history, writing that it was a “haven for pro boxers, big-league ballplayers [being halfway between Braves Field and Fenway Park], and career criminals,” as well as the BU community. One of its booths was where a crew mapped out the famous Brink’s robbery in 1950, where 11 men stole more than $2.7 million from the Brink armored car depot in Boston’s North End.

One of the best anecdotes Kennedy uncovered involved the role the Dugout played in the epic Blizzard of ’78, when Boston was effectively shut down for three weeks under two and a half feet of snow.

Kennedy (COM’04), who is the author of Boston Then and Now (Thunder Bay Press, 2009), recounts how, after winning the first round of the Beanpot against Boston College at the old Boston Garden, the BU men’s varsity bus miraculously crawled its way back up Comm Ave to campus. Coach Jack Parker (SMG’68, Hon.’97) stopped the bus at Marsh Chapel so the team could thank God for their safe arrival. But, instead, the team crossed the street to pay their respects at the Dugout, which had remained open during the storm. 

The following day, cars were ordered off the road except for essential vehicles. The Dugout’s owner reportedly circumvented the ban by having his beer delivered in a Boston Edison utility truck. With the power still out that night, bartenders served beers by candlelight. 

After almost a century of serving, the Dugout’s closure may not be so shocking. In recent years, the city has lost other venerable dining and drinking institutions, including Durgin Park, Jacob Wirth’s, and Doyle’s. Kennedy attributes these closures to larger forces, including soaring real estate prices that disproportionately affect independent small businesses.

Still, Kennedy says, the shuttering of the Dugout is a huge loss. “When we lose a unique, independent small business like that—a third place—the city is poorer for it,” he says. “I don’t want to glamorize excessive alcohol consumption, but the Dugout wasn’t a crazy [place]—it was a nice after-work or after-class sort of hang.”

Its closure is a reminder to “get out there and patronize those independent places,” he says. “They make up the fabric of the city.”

Calling all BU alums! Do you have a fun, fond memory of the Dugout? Email us at bostonia@bu.edu. Thanks!