Louise's Downtown

1009 Massachusetts Street
785.843.9032

Not to be confused with the infinitely more fratty/crappy Louise’s West, Louise’s Downtown may arguably be the best bar in Lawrence. Featuring two floors, five pool tables, a foosball table, and an eclectic and culturally-rewarding jukebox, Louise’s presents everything that is great and true about Lawrence, Kansas. The shining jewel in Louise’s drunken, rowdy crown is their Thursday night schooner special, which has reigned supreme over all other specials for generations. For the uninitiated, a schooner is a fishbowl-shaped beer glass with a thick glass stem for easy transportation and consumption. Four schooners equals one gallon of beer, and at $1.75 each, one will be tempted to drink five every week. The Thursday night outing to Louise’s is something of a religious pilgrimage, and thanks to an unusually strict personal identification policy, one’s first entry into the establishment represents, in many ways, entrance into adulthood. With the recent addition of an enormous heated smoking porch, the importance of this establishment has only multiplied. Basically, if you do not go to Louise’s, you do not live in Lawrence.