Floods, fires, famous figures: a pint-sized history of Pub

By Sophie Garlick     1/28/25 11:02pm

If the Rice Memorial Center walls could talk, they’d probably ask for a drink. Because let’s face it, since its construction, The Pub at Rice has seen some wild nights. 

Wayne Hale ’76 told the Thresher that Steve Golvatch, the student behind the idea, began plans for Pub after receiving permission from Rice’s former president Norman Hackerman.

“I think that Steve Golvach gets most of the credit for actually getting the pub in operation. He was elected SA president in ’74-75 largely because of his efforts for the pub,” Hale said. “Remember, in those days the legal drinking age was 18, so almost all Rice students could participate.” 

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Preparations for what was then called Willy’s Pub’s opening included a capital outlay exceeding $22,000, a search for those interested in bartending or managing and a public request for name suggestions. 

An April 1975 edition of the Thresher describes Pub’s opening night – complete with wine, wine coolers and five kinds of beer. 

“Willy’s Pub, the new undergraduate bar/lounge in the basement of the RMC, will open this Friday, April 11 at 7 p.m. Beer is $1.75 by the pitcher and 40 cents by the mug,” the article reads. 

However, Willy’s Pub wasn’t immune to the woes of Houston weather. A July 1976 edition of the Thresher describes how torrential rain brought flooding. Students at the time began to call the bar “Willy’s Sub.” 

“[The waters] backed up in a basement room to at least six and a half feet before bursting through the plaster wall located in [Pub] beside the trophy case,” the article reads.

 Phillip Walters ’76 recounted the festivities that followed in comments on a recent Facebook post. 

“There was the First Unbelievable Celebration of Knee-deep Water and Disaster Spectacular party after The Pub reopened after the June 1976 flood,” Walters, a former bartender, said. 

Not only chance weather, but chance encounters took place at Pub. Pete Cramer ’80 described his meet-cute in a comment. 

“I met my wife in Willy’s. She was the blind date from [the University of Texas at Austin] my friends tried to fix me up with. I said no, but we all ended up going out to dinner at Birraporetti’s,” Cramer said. “The two of us closed down the pub, and I learned later she asked one of her friends to ‘disappear’ everyone else. That was 45 years ago.”

Walters recounted his own surprise guest experience. 

“There was the time Tina and I opened the pub as a place for Garrick Utley, Carol Simpson, Irving R. Levine (all national NBC News) and Ray Miller (Local Channel 2 news director) to hang out and have beer and some snacks between a couple of on-campus gigs,” Walters said. “The ‘not suitable for prime time TV’ jokes were flowing as readily as the beer.” 

Walter Underwood ’81 even shared in a comment that he met the former United States Secretary of State. 

“Henry Kissinger came to speak at Rice and came down to the Pub. I was working at the Thresher, so I went down and took photos while he was there,” Underwood said. “When I went back up to the Thresher office, I discovered that I had not loaded any film into the camera. I think that was the only time I did that.” 

In 1983, the impact of raising the drinking age was a hot topic. According to a January 1983 edition of the Thresher, Michael Trachtenburg ’83 submitted a resolution to the Senate, arguing against raising the drinking age.

“The resolution cites the effect on campus institutions such as Willy’s Pub and on-campus social life in general as reasons why the legal age should not be raised to 21,” Trachtenburg wrote.  

Pub suffered reduced profit due to the eventual legal changes as well as a decline in beer sales, according to  Kevin Gass ’89. 

“I worked with Dr. Akers, then VP of Administration, to lower the pub’s ‘shared costs’ from the university, which covered about 45% of the total deficit. We also closed the pub on the least attended/most money-losing night,” Gass, former Student Association president and a member of the Pub Executive Board, wrote in an email to the Thresher. “That erased the remainder of the deficit and got the pub to break even.” 

A decade later, not having seen the last of Houston weather, a fire (literally) roasted Pub in 1995. Bob Sanborn, the former associate dean for student affairs, said the fire caused more than $2 million in damage in an April 1995 edition of the Thresher.  

“Everything in the Pub was gone. The only things we were able to save were the taps and the Pub sign,” Sanborn said. 

Charles Klein ’97 commented that the fire investigation was unexpected and limited the time they had to work on the first issue of the Thresher after the annual change in leadership. 

“It was a Thresher production night, and we had to let the [campus police] into the building to respond,” Klein said. “It was rough (we all were arson suspects) but a triumphant first issue of our editorship.” 

In 2001, the pub experimented with different events like an alcohol-free night according to Corey Devine, in a February 2001 edition of the Thresher.

“It’s really a mix between the casual atmosphere of the Pub on a Thursday and the fun of dancing at a club on a Friday,” Devine wrote.

The ripple of enthusiasm for Pub amongst students was felt even into the 21st century as pub-goers’ palpable energy. Alex Weinheimer ’13, an editor for the Thresher, described the crowd in an October 2011 edition.

“Willy’s Pub opened to a packed crowd who milled about, complaining, ‘Pub isn’t good tonight,’ but never actually leaves,” Weinheimer wrote.

Nick Shannin ’91, noted the thread of consistency weaving Pub’s years together. 

“To this day, some 34 years post Rice, Thursday Night is Pub Night. TGs were on Fridays, yes, but the party always starts on Thursday!”

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