I love this bar! OU senior Dan Shank, 22, screamed out over the rowdy crowd at Buck's Bridge Inn in Nelsonville.
It is Thursday night in the country - time to feed the snakes.
Three Burmese pythons stare at the patrons as they walk by the glass wall that separates them from the snakes, which are housed in an adjacent building.
The snakes are fed every Thursday night at Buck's Bridge Inn, a bar located at 15100 State Route 278 NE, Nelsonville, where there is no cover charge.
Tired of the Athens scene, OU junior Kris Ruggles, 21, said he likes to get out away from the Athens crowd and see what the rest of the world is doing.
Buck Pickett, 54, of Meigs County, has owned the Inn since 1987. Pickett attended OU in 1968-69 before joining the Athens County Police Department in 1970.
I just bought the bar to re-sell
Pickett said. But then I got to know the people. It keeps me young. It keeps me on top of things.
Now all it costs me for Thursday night's entertainment is a chicken or a rabbit.
The Hocking County Health Department told him he was not allowed to feed the snakes any domesticated animals, Pickett said.
Ray Dennis, an administrator for the Hocking County Health Department, said the department has been watching the Inn for years and because the animal doesn't enter the bar it is not a health code violation.
Pickett takes volunteers from the crowd - dressed in everything from cowboy hats and Confederate flag belt buckles to Abercrombie & Fitch - to feed the snakes.
You go to the back room you grab the chicken by its feet and you throw it said Hocking College student, Mary Klaas, 21, of Nelsonville. The snakes have eaten it every time I've done it.
The entire bar gathers around the glass to see if the chicken will meet its end.
The most exciting thing is the first strike
Shank said. Then it's just slow suffocation.
Unfortunately for the crowd, the snakes were not hungry. But it does not take long for the crowd's spirit to lift - there are still plenty of beer and pool tables to go around.
Nancy Butcher, 49, of Carbon Hill, has worked for 13 years as a bartender at the Inn, and said it's packed wall-to-wall on Thursdays with an average crowd of 60 to 80 people. Originally, the snakes were just a gimmick to attract customers.
Pickett got the idea to bring the snakes to his bar from a neighbor.
A neighbor had Ginger (the oldest python)
and she kept getting out of her cage. He had a 2-year-old girl. And I told him
she could eat your daughter.
Pickett traded a load of gravel for Ginger, and the bar's trademark began. Ginger is now 22-years-old and 22 feet long, and has two friends: Thurman, 10, and Jake the Snake, 7.
Hocking College student Bobi Sherman, 21, of Nelsonville, said going to the Inn is a tradition.
Every Thursday
we're out here. I like everything about this place.
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Megan Cotten
