54 | October 2018
F E A T U R E
TRIVIA NIGHT
If you get the answer wrong but laugh, you still win
BY CATHERINE PRITCHARD | PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW WONDERLY
I
f it's Tuesday night, the Already Tired Teachers
are decompressing at a table at the Scrub Oaks
restaurant and pub on Ramsey Street.
If it's ursday night or Sunday aernoon, the
Ale Yeahs are yukking it up in yak shirts at Lake
Gaston Brewing Co. in downtown Fayetteville or
Dirtbag Ales in Hope Mills, respectively.
On other days or at other times or at other restaurants
and bars around town, lots of other strangely monikered
groups are gathered around tables for food, drink,
fellowship, fun and… hard-fought competitions based on
their members' knowledge of and ability to guess about
random subjects such as Disney movies, the Ryder Cup,
Fortune 500 CEOs and SpongeBob SquarePants.
"I know lots of useless trivia," reveals travel consultant
and Ale Yeahs charter member Heather Miller. Except: Is
such knowledge really useless if it helps your team win? Or,
at least, if it helps your team members to laugh themselves
silly in the process of competing?
Clearly, an argument is there to be made.
Trivia contests, sometimes mixed with bingo, have
become popular weekly events at numerous restaurants
and bars around town. Depending on the location, teams
compete for prizes like t-shirts, gi cards and ball caps.
Always at stake: bragging rights.
Scrub Oaks has been holding weekly trivia contests for
seven years, said Gwen Holtsclaw, who owns the restaurant
with her husband, Tim. For the first year, the restaurant
