EL nightlife perks up to welcome students

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For Paige Culham and Victoria Gonzalez, Fall Welcome served as a weeklong birthday celebration.

After turning 21 on Aug. 18, Culham, a psychology and nursing senior, was able to visit East Lansing’s bars for the first time.

Throughout the week, she and Gonzalez, an interdisciplinary studies in social science senior who also just turned 21, visited The Post Bar, 213 Ann St., Harper’s Restaurant & Brewpub, 131 Albert Ave., and Rick’s American Café, 224 Abbot Road.

“Harper’s was my favorite,” Culham said. “I just like the atmosphere.”

Some of the Fall Welcome specials — such as those offered at Rick’s — encouraged Culham and Gonzalez to visit the bars.

Local bars have held Fall Welcome events, as well as food and drink specials to welcome students back. The Landshark, 101 E. Grand River Ave., was one of these bars, scheduling special events, such as a ladies night, each night of Fall Welcome.

For those who were not old enough to experience East Lansing’s bars, the campus’ fraternities provided an alternative.

“The freshmen are always looking for somewhere to go,” Delta Sigma Phi recruitment chairman Andrew Jenkin said. “Usually a fraternity party is where they’re going to go, because most of their friends don’t have houses or apartments yet.”

Many campus fraternities hosted parties during Fall Welcome, and some, such as Delta Sigma Phi, hosted several.

For general management sophomore Alexandria Smith, fraternity houses were the main place to have fun during her freshman year and continue to be a year later.

During her freshman year, Smith went to fraternity parties because it was easy for her to meet people there. Now she returns to some of those houses to see old friends.

“I don’t go to go dance in (the fraternity houses’) basements anymore,” she said. “I go to actually see my friends.”

Among the parties Smith attended throughout Fall Welcome, she said the theme parties are among her favorite.

Culham and Gonzalez agreed this year’s Fall Welcome festivities outshine the nightlife activities in their hometowns.

“I’m from a hick-town in Alpena, (Mich.), so compared to (the nightlife there), this nightlife is pretty popping,” Gonzalez said.

After Fall Welcome concludes, the fraternity parties and bar events typically become less frequent as students become more focused on their classes.

“Once school starts we’re going to be booked solid,” Gonzalez said. “Right now we don’t have much to do besides unpack and go out.”

Culham and Gonzalez said they both were satisfied with the week’s festivities.

“I wish it was longer again,” Culham said. “ I want to go back to the Welcome Week and not the Welcome Weekend.”

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