Our story
Six weeks, one basement and dozens of people from the student club who came down after lectures to paint, sand and hammer benches together. Without them this bar would not exist.
How it started
All three of us were active members of ISC, the International Student Club, which later became ESN. We wanted to run more events and kept hitting the same problem — there was nowhere to run them. Finding a room big enough held us back so often that we decided to get our own.
We went after a basement under Masaryk dorm at CTU, the building where most international students live. It took months of negotiating before we got it on a lease. When the keys finally arrived, the place needed rebuilding from scratch.
Six weeks
Stripped, patched, sanded. The dullest and longest part of it.
The whole basement, ceiling down to the floor markings.
The old lighting made it feel like a cell. We added tens of metres of LED strip and new fittings.
Benches, the bar and some of the tables. Not bought — made.
Before and after
Who built it
Six weeks was only possible because of an enormous amount of help from ISC members. They came after lectures, at weekends, wearing bin bags instead of overalls. Some painted, some sanded wood, some cooked for everyone else so the work could carry on.
Most of them still drink here. And on one wall it still says, in handwriting, who painted it.
This is not a bar somebody bought. It is a bar a community built for itself.
“painted by Otilia from RO” — a signature that stayed on the wall.
From the build
A 290 m² hall for 200 people in Dejvice. Training, parties, celebrations.
