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On Campus

Hungry Chuck’s bar to reopen near campus

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The bar will reopen sometime between August and January.

Hungry Chuck’s, a student bar that was demolished in 2017, will reopen this year close to its original location on South Crouse Avenue.

The bar will occupy a space inside The Marshall, a luxury student apartment complex. Several businesses on South Crouse Avenue, including Chuck’s and the original Funk N’ Waffles, were demolished to build the apartment complex.

Chuck’s restaurant and bar had been a popular destination for generations of Syracuse University community members. Many SU students took to social media using the hashtag #SaveChucks to express their discontent prior to the bar’s closure.

“That’s why we’re the heart of the Hill,” said Steve Theobald, owner of Chuck’s. “We’re all about that experience of friends and the comradery that goes on.”

The bar will reopen sometime between August and January, Theobald said. While he hopes to reopen this summer, social distancing measures due to the coronavirus outbreak might delay operations, he said.



SU alumnus Levi Stein will never forget going to the bar on Thursday nights. It was a common campus tradition, he said.

“Everyone has fond memories from inside Chuck’s,” Stein said. “Whether you were cheering on the Syracuse basketball team, attending happy hour or simply enjoying a good night out with your close friends.”

Stein wrote his name in blue paint somewhere on the walls inside the original Chuck’s. Sasha Grunberg, also an SU alum, said she still has a jacket she wore to the bar that has paint on it from the same walls. She refuses to wash it or get rid of it, she said.

The original Chuck’s hosted students for the final time on April 18, 2017. Theobald had originally wanted the bar to reopen for the 2017-18 academic year. Grunberg said she’s glad she made it to the bar one last time before its closure.

“On the last night it was open, the place was a madhouse, and they were letting people take things from the bar,” she said. “There’s no place like Chuck’s.”

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