Early on a weeknight, customers come through the backdoor entrance of Night School Bar to grab a drink at the end of a long day.
Then students take their highball glasses to a mockup classroom across the room. Salvaged lockers lean against the wall next to posters of the periodic table of elements and botanical drawings.
There, bar owner Lindsey Andrews is at the center of the room leading a discussion on art and labor.
Students sip their cocktails and get into a heady debate about art in the age of late capitalism.
This is what Andrews had in mind when she first envisioned Night School Bar.
“I worked in restaurants for forever, and I've been in school for forever," Andrews says. "It seemed like a good idea to bring them together."
Andrews previously taught English classes as an adjunct instructor at North Carolina State University by day and poured drinks for customers at night at Arcana, a bar she co-owned in downtown Durham.
Andrews says she'd often get in conversations with customers at the bar about the classes she was teaching:
"They'd say, 'Oh, what do you do at N.C. State?' And I would say, 'Oh, I'm teaching a class on science fiction, but we're reading all women writers. It's all feminist sci-fi,' and they'd be like, 'Whoa, I never had a class like that,' or 'That sounds really awesome.'
"I would think, this would be really, really fun to talk about with you — the person who's here in front of me — but we would need to read it first, right?" Andrews says.
Andrews had a hunch that more people would feel that way, and maybe even pay for it. Sebastian Elios has. He's now a regular.
“I didn't realize until after college how unique those spaces are,” Elios says. “That kind of stimulation and conversation is really enjoyable to me, and I've missed it a lot since then.”
It's all in good fun. There are no grades and no credit. Classes at Night School Bar are pay-as-you-can for students, and all the revenue is split evenly between instructors and staff.
“Sustainable, living wage, fair jobs — that is the goal of what we're trying to create,” Andrews says.
When Andrews was an adjunct instructor at N.C. State, just making ends meet was a constant struggle and source of frustration, she says.
"When I was an adjunct, every single other adjunct professor that I talked to had a second job," Andrews says. "Mine just happened to be bartending."
She designed Night School Bar to provide more equitable job opportunities and pay for instructors and bartenders — as well as more accessible classes for curious adults.
“You can get a very long explanation about the deficiencies of traditional academia,” says Night School Bar student Luke VanderHart, “but really, at the end of the day, it's an interesting, intellectual way to spend an evening.”
Night School Bar also fundraises via crowdfunding websites to help cover costs for both students and the business. It's not quite covering the bottom line yet, but online classes began months ago, and the brick-and-mortar bar just opened in October.
“We're also hoping that the bar will stabilize us," Andrews says with a smile. "So, drinks are not pay-what-you-can."
