thePULSEFrom end to end, Worcester’s Park Avenue offers night-time fun
Park Avenue in Worcester is hot for nighttime activities. Chances are you have been to a bar, club, or pub there. It’s a great neighborhood for a bar crawl. Everything is in walking distance, and you can sometimes avoid the inevitable cover charges that hit you on other Worcester streets.
The closeness of just about every single college in the city to Park Avenue is another plus. The average taxi ride to or from Park Ave., regardless of what school you go to, is a mere six dollars. From Assumption, it’s just a straight shot through Newton Square. From WPI it is a quick left from Salisbury Street. Holy Crossers just have to drive off May Street and there they are.
Below is a list to hit — going from the Webster Square end towards the center of the city — for your own Park Avenue crawl.
FooBar, 433 Park Ave., (508) 797-5622: The FooBar is a great dual personality bar. On crowded nights (Thursday-Saturday), the Foo is a sea of people. One room features a Cheers-style bar that occupies 85% of the area. The second room is spacious for the dancers of the night who enjoy R&B and Top 40 tunes and can take advantage of a small bar set in the back. In short, the journey to these bars is an adventure on a packed night. Quieter nights at the FooBar have an entirely different vibe. Once you’re able to see the walls, you notice Rothko prints and take advantage of comfortable spaces where you can pull up a chair and watch your favorite sporting event on a wide-screen TV. The FooBar also offers private party and function services.
Mahoney’s Pub, 413 Park Ave., (508) 755-8876: The door at Mahoney’s has a picture of a horse drinking a beer above it. This is the kind of bar that offers the kind of relaxed joviality that said horse must have been feeling soon after his drink. Casual and with plenty of places to sit, Mahoney’s is great for an after work beverage or post-softball-volleyball-any ball revelry. Mondays and Tuesdays feature free tasty buffalo wings.
Cactus Pete’s Steak House, 400 Park Ave., (508) 752-3038: Park Ave’s resident steakhouse restaurant is also a good nightspot. The ten-cent wings on Monday nights are a bonus. Being adjacent to the restaurant dining area, the bar is more on the tame side than your classic idea of a saloon, but often offers an interesting crowd none the less. It’s not an Irish Pub and it’s not a dance club, so it gives you a bit of relaxation in the often high-energy world of a night out. Things do close down a little earlier at Cactus Pete’s than at other bars (sometime around midnight), so showing up fashionably late is not the best idea. Better to show up early and chow down on Cactus Pete’s ribs or wings before heading out for the rest of your Park Ave. crawl.
Club 371, 371 Park Ave.: This is the spot where Worcester’s original discoteque was born. Club 371 offers a large dance floor, a light show, five pool tables and more. Top DJ’s are spinning here most nights for the 21-plus crowd.
Ho Toy Luau Restaurant, 401 Park Ave., (508) 754-4929: People love the bars in Chinese food restaurants because of the ever-popular Scorpion Bowls. The Ho Toy on Park is no exception. The kitchen is open late: 1 a.m., Sunday through Wednesday and 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. The Ho Toy is also good for its pre-game possibilities, where you can fortify yourself with a Scorpion Bowl and some soul-satisfying Chinese food to start the night and head either way down the street to continue your festivities.
Doherty’s Pub: The newest of Park Ave’s pubs, Doherty’s has been able to expand upon its blatant sports bar feel and attract a more diverse crowd. In other words, although the pub is ideal for watching the game on its beautiful televisions, there are more than drunk Red Sox fans crying in their beers there. Extremely casual, Doherty’s is another one of those places perfect for a night out, but not out of control.
Leitrim’s Pub, 265 Park Ave., (508) 752-0502: The atmosphere and prices at Leitrim’s, which has been voted Worcester’s “best college bar” lots of times in Worcester Magazine’s annual “Best of Worcester” Readers Poll, make it a place where you can’t go wrong. You can dance if you want to dance. Hang around if you want to hang around. Just about anything goes her. Leitrim’s is a bar for a long night out, or just a single drink to chill out. You are sure to see somebody you know. With cheap beers on tap, Thursday college nights, live entertainment on Fridays and Saturday nights, this pub style is one of Worcester’s best – and most popular.
On The Rocks, 258 Park Ave., (508) 754-2523: This is a classy joint that you might miss if you drive down the street too fast. Cruise into On The Rocks, though. It has a bit more of a lounge atmosphere than most of Park Ave.’s other establishments. The ambiance is a little dark and mysterious, where you can toss your most sophisticated look across the bar at the object of your affection. OTR is a good place for those who like comfortable, more upscale clubs, as opposed to loud pub-style bars.
