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Dennis Allen, a worker uptown, attends Trivia night at Casa Nueva Restaurant & Cantina in Athens, Ohio on Tuesday, February 28, 2017.

Five years later, Casa Nueva’s Trivia Night continues to blend fun with a challenge

The ding of the bell at the pick-up window pierces the air, cutting through the clatter of plates, the murmur of voices and the music of The Who on the radio.

The crowd is not particularly large or small — it is no busier than one would expect at 8 p.m. on a rainy Tuesday in late February. At the bar, a cluster of college-aged women gaze at their smartphones. A table a few feet away hosts a group of well-dressed young people who eat tortilla chips and sip cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon while playing cards. In the corner, several young professionals, still dressed in crisp collared dress shirts and dark slacks, sit at their own tables on laptops, continuing work from outside the office.

It seems to be a typical weekday evening at Casa Nueva. But across the room, cursive letters on a large black chalkboard proclaim that tonight is Trivia Night.

***

Casa Nueva Restaurant & Cantina, located at 6 W. State St., is a bona fide Athens fixture — the Mexican-style restaurant has been serving up its local food since 1985 and remains a popular destination for both Ohio University students and Athens residents.

Trivia Night began at Casa Nueva in October 2012, according to a previous Post report. “With the eclectic and intelligent community that’s here, I feel like it’s something people would enjoy,” Marcus Carney, the event’s host at the time, told The Post.

Carney was right — by 9 p.m., there’s hardly an open seat in the cantina as the trivia-hungry masses congregate.

“(Trivia Night) is way more busy than typical weeknights,” bartender Christian Linker said.

Linker, a former OU student, said Trivia Night creates such a demand that three bartenders, instead of the usual two, are necessary. In between each of the five rounds, a throng of guests converges upon the bar, requesting cans of beer and $1-off martinis. The pick-up window bell begins to ring more frequently. This busier atmosphere enhances, rather than diminishes, the bartending experience for Linker.

“This is one of my favorite jobs I’ve ever done,” he said.

The bartenders are not mere spectators, though. They, too, listen for questions from the sound booth and scrawl their responses onto the paper answer sheets, all under the team name “We Serve You Drinks.”

Creative team names are a hallmark of Trivia Night. Other teams participating on the night of Feb. 28 included “Foxymorons,” “Trivial Pursuit of Happiness” and “Feminists Against Team Names.”

Traci Connor, the current host, is a member of “Tequila Mockingbird.” The veteran team, together since the event’s inception in 2012, is comprised of Connor, a student success adviser at OU’s College of Fine Arts, and five professors. Four of the professors are from OU, and one is from the University of Rio Grande, located about 40 miles southwest of Athens.

Tequila Mockingbird, which was previously called “the Yankees of Trivia,” is serving as this year’s hosts and coordinators, a change Connor said came about from a “friendly agreement.”

“It’s a blast,” Connor said. “It’s a pretty laidback, casual, fun night.”

According to Connor, Trivia Night has changed since it began in 2012, but all modifications have been for the better. One problem has been variety in songs during the crowd-favorite music round.

“The first three years, there was not one country song,” Connor said.

Connor noticed the lack of musical diversity, so when she became host, she decided to institute some changes, adding more country and hip-hop music to the mix.

“We pay attention to what people respond to,” she said.

Connor said she strives to be cognizant of diversity in order to improve the experience of everyone who attends Trivia Night.

“It’s one of the things I love,” Connor said. “It’s so Athens.”

According to Connor, the bulk of Trivia Night attendees are OU students.

Mara Siegel, a senior studying theater history and women’s, gender and sexuality studies, attended her first Trivia Night on Tuesday and described herself as “very excited.”

Siegel said she did trivia all throughout high school, but since coming to OU, she and her as-of-yet-unnamed team have been unable to participate for one reason.

“This is the first week we’ve remembered,” Siegel said with a laugh.

Siegel said she had heard Trivia Night is hard, but found the prospect of a challenge exciting.

Connor said she desires to keep the event difficult, but fun at the same time.

“That’s the name of the game: having fun,” she said. “It’s like a party every week.”

@alexmccann21

am622914@ohio.edu

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