Trivia at Meehan's Tavern

On Thursday a couple of friends invited me to come out and play trivia at a bar named Meehan’s Tavern. The bar is located on Merrill Road and is a good distance from my comfort zone, but, being a big fan of trivia, I decided to take them up on their offer.

The moment I walked through the front door I noticed a frightening calm and silence in the room. It was odd. A group of people were rolling dice. For an instant I thought I had fallen face first into a nightmare of mine which involves me accidentally walking into prison and not being able to get out. My eyes scanned the room and, instead of finding the tough-as-nails warden with a drawl, I found one of my friends sitting at the bar.

So I asked, “Why are they rolling dice?”

“Because that’s how they do it here,” he said. “It’s not all about the questions.”

Meehan’s trivia is done in-house. Questions are projected on a screen by the host, who runs through a Power Point presentation he created containing the questions and answers. The game is divided into four rounds of four questions. At the beginning of the round, a slide of four hints is displayed. Each hint supposedly helps with a question. I disagree. All the hints do is further complicate the game. And let’s be honest, bar trivia is a drinking game. The less complicated the better. With Meehan’s you have certain point values each round that you can bet. There are two wager questions, one in the middle and one at the end, where you can bet up to a certain number of points that will either be added to or subtracted from your point total. Bonus events other than questions pop up throughout the game as a way to add to your score. The bonuses vary and are doled out based on the results of testing random skills – with rolling dice being a constant for that night.

Unlike larger trivia companies that may host trivia at several locations on a single night, this is truly Meehan’s trivia. The questions being asked are unique to the bar. The host reading the questions to the crowd also writes the questions. Anyone who has played trivia before knows that most hosts highly dislike people questioning the answers to questions they have written, which makes Meehan’s a perfect place for an up-close and personal argument over Wikipedia fact-checking.

The questions are multiple choice. You might think that this makes it easier. Yes and no. It’s nice to have a question asked and know the answer. It’s even nicer to know the answer and then have it displayed among the four options in front of you. The only problem with the format is that it makes it acceptable for questions to border on ridiculous. Such as, “How many dots are on the Domino’s Pizza logo?” This is the kind of trivia question that angers people who like trivia. This type of trivial knowledge is pointless. People with an IQ above eighty like answering questions that make them feel intelligent, not lucky. Knowing the answer to a question about history or music or sports or anything one has dedicated time and effort to learn, despite being as useless in reality as knowing the answer to the Domino’s question is three, rewards the answerer with a feeling of accomplishment. That person answered a question grounded in some kind of historical context relevant to their life. There is an emotional attachment, whether big or small, to that bit of knowledge. It actually means something. The only common feeling and memory shared among people regarding the logo of Domino’s Pizza is the shame and humiliation of ordering Domino’s, eating Domino’s and watching your ass expand thanks to a box with three dots on it.

I don’t want to bash the questions too much. There were also perfectly reasonable questions like, “On which team did Ricky Henderson play the most seasons?” This question feels more legitimate to me. It’s an actual fact some people might care about. And if you don’t care about it, you can still guess. Four options are provided. With a twenty-five percent chance of being correct on every question, you can guess and walk away with house cash.

We didn’t stay at Meehan’s too long. When the questions ended we cashed out and headed on to another bar. During trivia we relaxed with a reasonably-priced pitcher of Yuengling. It’s not exactly glamorous, but it felt right in the circumstances. I think it’s best to try the cheaper beers in a bar before buying something more expensive. It makes sense. From keg to tap, the lines running through a bar can be a lot longer than you think. And the beer inside is just waiting to be poured. Something expensive is bound to sit there longer than the cheaper options.

The scenery in the bar was not what I expected. And by scenery I mean people. I expect bars to be filled with young professionals on a Thursday night, relishing in the fact that there’s only one more workday till the weekend. Not so at Meehan’s. The bar was quiet when we walked in during the game of dice and it stayed quiet until we left. There were people. Lots of people considering the size of the space. But the majority were card-carrying members of AARP. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just surprising. In my life I’ve only been in two public locations where the majority of the people were missing teeth: a Waffle House at 3 A.M. in the middle of nowhere Georgia and Meehan’s at approximately nine-thirty on a Thursday. And that made me want to leave.

Would I go back to Meehan’s? No. I see no reason to make the trip. Bars like Meehan’s are for people who live nearby. It’s the kind of place where the person pouring your beer knows you. There’s something special about that, but it’s not special enough for me to go that far out of my way for trivia and a beer.