MAY 1, 2025 | OPINION | By Lilly Asano (Co-Editor-In-Chief)
I’ve never had a fake ID and I’ve never really needed one.
Until a few weeks ago, I’d never gone to a bar, liquor store or presented an ID to a bouncer. I was limited to high school parties, house parties and mixers. Unlike at other colleges, the world of going out in Colorado Springs wasn’t essential to my social belonging or habits.
I turned 21 on April 10, and like most things in my life, my birthday did not go as planned. Like my car catching on fire, catching norovirus while my best friend from home visited, falling off a roof as a freshman or sleeping through a flight, my birthday was an inevitable disaster despite a seemingly perfect plan.
The pinnacle of turning 21? Tony’s Tuesday.
This year, a peritonsillar abscess landed me in urgent care on April 9, with two shots in my hip, oral antibiotics and steroids. The physician’s assistant reminded me of the dangers of drinking while on antibiotics, specifically mentioning that she tells all college students the same thing: don’t black out. Overwhelmed by the possibility of my airway closing and disappointment that I couldn’t black out, I started crying.
Naturally, a week later, I lost my driver’s license while home for Block Break.
Newly 21, I returned to campus with a temporary driving certification and passport in hand on April 20, with strict instructions not to lose my passport while out. Determined to make up the 10 days I’d been sidelined on antibiotics, my plans and to-do list revolved around Tuesday night: I was finally going to go to Tony’s.
Tony’s is a rite of passage for Colorado College students. The bouncers are notorious for taking fake IDs and later stapling them to the ceiling. It’s widespread knowledge that you don’t go to Tony’s with a fake, it’s almost exclusively an upperclassman spot. I’ve been familiar with Tony’s Tuesdays since my first block at CC, anxiously awaiting my turn since.
My first Tony’s Tuesday was a chaotic and slightly overwhelming experience, but also a complete game changer.
My friends and I arrived at Tony’s at 9:45 p.m. on April 22, bright-eyed and ready for our night. The line, however, stretched down to Poor Richard’s Bookstore and Sushi Row, five or six students wide at points. Two of my closest senior friends were already inside and told us we could be waiting for upwards of an hour.
My friends and I decided to leave our spot in line to wander downtown, hoping to run into other friends for drinks at a different restaurant or bar. Our initial plan of waiting out the line at Blondie’s Ultra Lounge was foiled when we arrived at a closed bar. We stood outside, trying to regroup, when a girl taking her smoke break struck up a conversation with us, asking where we were heading in between puffs of her pink Geek Bar.
As we came to learn, her name was Madison, and she was halfway through her bartending shift at Gasoline Alley. Not Madi or Maddie, both two of her other co-workers. We’d never heard of the bar but wandered in behind Madison and sat down for a drink. After looking over our IDs, she served us each a Starburst Shot, a perfectly girly pink drink and even told me mine was on her as a belated birthday drink. I ordered a second and we headed out, gratefully bidding our farewells to Madison, promising to be back.
By the time we made it into Tony’s, the bar was packed. You could barely maneuver between groups of students chatting, and often found myself in the way of a pool game. I was elated, though: I was finally in Tony’s.
So is Tony’s really worth the hype? I believe it is.
Tony’s offers students a sense of camaraderie and culture only to be experienced in this niche dive bar. United by cheap drinks and the lack of underclassmen, Tony’s is a haven of Block acquaintances and colliding friend groups. The bouncers laughed when I handed my passport over, flipping through the pages before returning it. The staff is friendly, despite the hordes of students waiting at the door or ordering drinks.
Tony’s also opens doors to increased going out possibilities. Instead of heading back to campus or Sigma Chi’s roof following my sorority’s formal on Friday, April 25, I took an Uber with my friends to Tony’s, ready for the “afters.” We stayed out until closing, happy to be roaming the spacious bar instead of pressed against the majority of the underclassmen student body at Sig Chi.
In short, it’s a Packer’s themed dive bar. Drinks are cheap and food is greasy. CC students pack into the space in large groups, leaning over bars to flag down the bartender for another pitcher. The women’s bathroom line reaches towards the end of the bar, and girls pack into the bathroom to stand with their friends. Some reapply lipstick, hovering over the sink so they don’t bump into the pooling water. Athletes mingle with former classmates, and you suddenly learn how connected the upperclassmen are.
It’s quintessentially college.