The Den and Black Lounge

I went for lunch. First the waitresses were not really nice. Then, I ordered a coke that never came and a crispy goat cheese & pear salad (sounds very fancy), where the cheese didn’t taste like goat cheese (didn’t taste much at all actually). Not very good experience.

The DJ sucks so bad sometimes especially lastnight. He kept spinning the same genres over & over. He needs to be replaced ASAP. Also the lines are to long, I suggest that two people be checking ID at the door to shorten the wait time. Nice vibes at the den but the DJ needs to up his game.

Full disclosure — I am not a student. I was a student many moons ago and often went to the Den and the Black Lounge for those busy Thursday nights.
This review is based on me going for lunch at the Black Lounge with a friend that works at the University.
Many things have changed since I was a student. Most importantly, I now actually have money, tend to care more about what I eat, and don’t just have chips and salsa and 2 beers for lunch.
I had the fish tacos for lunch (and no booze — shocking I know) and they were ok. My big beef with many places that do fish tacos is that so often the veg portion is super wet and as soon as you try to pick it up, the tortilla disintegrates and you’re left with a soggy taco salad. My friend had the pizza and it looked really good so I think this was just a question of ordering the wrong thing.
If I was a betting person, I imagine that the best bets at a place like this are booze and anything fried.
Bottom line — students will love it, others may not.

I checked out The Black Lounge. The Den was undergoing reno’s at the time.
It’s the University Bar and as far as University Bars I’ve seen go, it’s really really really good! (Really really.) The interior is clean and well looked after, it’s got an interesting multi-​level thing going on with a bunch of room for getting together in groups, or some private one on one time with that cute girl from math class. No, not that girl, the other one. They’ve even got a fire pit with padded pleather crescent seating around it for crying out loud! Post-​math fireside cuddles anyone?
I only had some edamame beans to munch on so I can’t comment on the food too much, but the others in the group I was in orders some burgers and they looked like they would be more than delicious for the price.
I don’t know when the local beer scene is going to hit you Uni kids, but do yourself a favour and let it. I know price can be an issue when you’re in school, but for the most part, local pints are no more money than «domestic» ones. There’s a place and time for dingy beer, but it doesn’t have to be all the time.
3-​Stars for The Black Lounge and they’re a solid three at that. I’ll be back and could probably be convinced into a 4.
Cheers!

This isn’t even up for debate — The Den is the shit. I have had both awesome and average nights there, but not once have I gone and regretted going after. Since I discovered it, I go almost every Thursday that I can, as Thursday is student appreciation night. I can’t speak for how it is on the other six days of the week, but on «Thursden», this place is off the chain.
A mini-​pitcher of a triple mixed drink or a regular sized pitcher of beer is around ten bucks, so it isn’t even a requirement (let alone smart) to pre-​drink before going.
The top floor has more of a pub atmosphere (booths, tables, lights on, quieter music, etc) and the bottom floor is more of a club with dark lighting and a dance floor. This works perfect because you can go with your friends, sit at a table upstairs, get your pre-​game on, and when you’re ready to roll, go straight downstairs to the club. The top floor is my personal favorite. Because the music’s not blaring and the lights are on, it creates relaxed vibes and you can actually have a real conversation with friends/​new people, as opposed to dumb club talk about nothing.
The Den has a rule that you must be a student with a valid ID to come in, and if you’re a U of C student, you may bring in one guest. As much of a pain in the ass as this is, as I am not currently a student, I wouldn’t change it if I could. This rule keeps out (with minor exceptions), creepy people, older people, greasers, etc. Another thing I love about The Den is that unlike a lot of other clubs, the girl to guy ratio is usually pretty even. A lot of the clientele are U of C students living on res who came straight from class to go have a few drinks. With the population mainly being students, a lot of people are from other places and haven’t met a whole lot of friends yet. This means they are a lot more likely to be outgoing, step outside of their clique, and are used to meeting new people. It’s just like the socialization in a hostel when you’re traveling! Everyone’s got a different story!
The three cons of The Den are 1. The lineup, 2. The smoke pit, and 3. The dance floor. If you go to The Den after 9pm on a Thursday, the lineup can get up to over an hour long. I once waited for 95 minutes. Waiting in line has got to be the most buzz killing activity there is. When you finally get in to the place, you’re tired and lethargic, so get there early to avoid this! I would recommend showing up before 8pm on a Thursday.
The smoke pit has a restricted capacity, and therefore, also has a lineup, which is extremely annoying. They require you to leave a piece of ID with them when you go outside. This lineup can be around 15 minutes sometimes. Normally the smoke pit is my favourite place to pick up chicks; a breath of fresh air, zero music, and the «cigarette exchange» probably sparks more conversations than anything when I’m out at the bar. A simple «Hey, do you have a lighter?» can turn into anything. But with a lineup, usually only guys are dumb enough to wait 15 minutes for a cigarette.
The Den’s dance floor is one of the biggest battlezone’s I have ever seen. It always seems like every girl is already taken, and to make matters worse, there’s a bunch of guys just hanging out there too. You’re often pushing through a sea of dudes and couples making out, trying to find the diamond in the rough. THAT BEING SAID, it is very easy to meet girls in this place, and bring um on the dance floor.
All in all, Den, you get five stars from me.

The Den gets a solid 3 stars. It’s a campus pub, what do you expect it to be?
The thing about the Den that keeps it in business is their monopoly in the market. Sure, there’s the Grad Lounge, but I think they are still charging undergrads for a membership, and it’s only free for grad students, staff and alumni.
The Den recently revamped their menu. I haven’t tried everything on the new menu, but I’m VERY upset that they got rid of the deep-​fried macaroni and cheese. They have added a nice perogy poutine to the menu which is pretty fantastic.
For the most part, do expect typical pub food. Their burgers are always pretty good. Their beer selection is not that good, but typical for any kind of bar. Please avoid Thursday nights if you’re not a student. It turns into a dirty, messy pen of zoo animals — literally.
¹⁰⁄₃₀

Like any lifer undergrad at the UC, I’m pissed and frustrated with how things are run at this institution, even the place I’m supposed to be the least pissed and frusturated: the bar.
Despite being a student bar, the prices aren’t that cheap. While the specials are good (like thursday night, yesss), regular drink prices are on par with nearby places. Thursdays are beautiful with cheap cheap cheap triples ($ 10ish?) and jugs of ANYTHING (except strongbow, those fuckers)
Service is always iffy (I just walk up to the bar to get what I need to drink) and the food is merely good enough. The wings suck although the pizza (only served in the black lounge) is decent.
The issue that I have is that it is too much of a typical bar business and not enough of a student bar. This place has one of the widest molson product agreements I have ever seen: ALL beverages are molson, right down to the liquor and bottles of beer. Yes, that’s right, no local beers: your undergraduate bar is a sell out to corporate interests. The banality goes beyond the food and beverage: they had a punching machine in it for a while while crappy games like deer hunter still prevail. The pool table is trite; what about TABLE TENNIS or cheesy-​ass board games? While Thursday nights are awesome for getting ripped on the cheap, the place takes on a apple-​juice bar vibe, only that the barely 18 clientele can drink. Hard. The DJ plays awful awful (c)rap and classic rock at a volume that the speakers (and sober listeners) cannot handle. Again, moments like that give it the vibe of a Paul Vickers establishment with smaller (and less hostile) door staff.
The interior design is nice, but half assed: this bar isn’t tied to the campus except through its geographical proximity and decent deals for campus club and intramural members. The black lounge has a fireplace with comfortable sofa-​like-​seating around it. The bar table in the lounge is the original (circa 1950s and preserved through the renos). The Den, while lacking windows, is pleasant and quirky, such as the red lights in the far interior. And best of all, both places only have a couple tvs! YAYYYYYYY.
The problem I have is that the interior design doesn’t represent the University in any way; there are no artifacts, no photos, no art; no representation of my school. If you were warped into the bar, you’d have no idea you were on the campus of UC. Even the aesthetic of the menu and its offerings don’t tie itself to the school. Dino Ribs? That’s at Moose McGuire’s. Despite the decent pie in the lounge, they won’t deliver 1000 meters to res. While the bar has decent interior design and the best patio in the city, it’s merely a space to drink and eat: it’s not a PLACE.
Further, the campus bar enthusiastically partakes in the Canadian tradition of invading our privacy in the hopeless pursuit of ‘safety’. In response to previous and isolated acts of violence committed on peak nights by non members, admittance is contingent on your personal information (government issued id) scanned, stored, and shared amongst the private company that owns the equipment and the other dozen or so bars in the city that use the equipment. Apparently, retaining that information after an uneventful night and then sharing it amongst other bars will somehow prevent someone from stabbing/​striking/​kicking/​harming someone else in the Den. So, despite the Den and Black Lounge being undergraduate space, undergraduates must surrender their privacy just to party with their peers. What’s worse is that this was imposed by the students’ union that we pay dues to supposedly represent our interests. I always thought that an academic institution would be the first to resist shrill cries for ‘public safety’, but I must be thinking wrong.
The patio is what saves it from a 1 star rating. Regardless, go to Mooses instead. I don’t have to pay dues to the owner every semester yet I get a higher level of privacy when I go in. Funny how that works, eh?

Well, I’ll admit that I’ve spent a lot of evenings at the Den… and I didn’t even go to university there. I went because the beer was cheap, the music was loud, and people were dancing.
I haven’t experienced it like it used to be in a long time. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten older, or maybe it’s because it’s just lost it’s magic, but there’s something different.
A couple things I never liked about this place were the amount of judging eyes. It seems to me like all the girls are giving you dirty looks and all the guys are wondering it they can hit that. It just isn’t for me anymore.
I do like the specials they often have though. Seriously, it’s so simple to get tipsy and that’s what awesome about the Den! Oh, and upstairs has a wicked balcony in the summer!

Full disclosure: I graduated from the University of Calgary. So I spent a lot of time at its campus bar, the Den, and adjoining-​but-​technically-​different upstairs sister, the Black Lounge.
Like all campus bars, the Den is usually filled with né’er do good students drinking and taking a break during campus. They have a delicious menu, so it is a great place to go. It was especially good when I had cash. My favourites were the pizza and the burgers. The service was usually so-​so — the servers are really nice, but often really slow.
And then of course, there is the drinking. Lots of people start early, but each night has a special. Wednesday is wing night. Saturday is Cab night. I think they have shows on Friday, but no one really goes to the den on Fridays. Also, lots of people stop by to have a drink before going to shows at Mac Hall. It isn’t just for students!
Thursday nights — we called’em Thursden. It was also known as Student Appreciation Night, and the jugs of beer and highballs would go on super special. There is usually a lineup after 5 for Thursden, though it depends on what time it is during the semester. It’s popular with lots of young people in Calgary. Thursden is for shenanigans. If you do decide to go down, it is tame during the day, but at night it gets pretty crazy.
AHHHH… Nostalgia. I miss it.