By now, UIS students generally know Crows Mills Pub as a party bar for the 21-plus-year-old crowd. Located at 1220 Toronto Rd, which is on the outskirts of the UIS campus, Crows has garnered a reputation as the gathering place for students every Thursday night.

As part of their marketed College Night, Crows’ plethora of price-friendly drinks, an outdoor patio with a basketball court, a birdhouse for smokers, and in-house DJ usually brings people out in droves, which has its obvious pros and its dubious cons.

More often than not on College Night, Crows can have a packed crowd, rendering it an adventure in of itself to navigate around. It can even be worse when you’re ordering drinks.

Take it from personal experience, there have been times where one has to wait for up to ten minutes to buy a drink, and 20 minutes to close a tab, a testament to the overflowing traffic the bar can endure.

Given the popularity of College Night, the perception of Crows is significant enough that many people, myself included, didn’t know that the pub fancied itself a restaurant as well.

Upon traveling to Crows on Feb. 10, I got a different experience of the pub, yet a pleasant one altogether. When I got there, the crowd consisted of a modest amount of middle-aged patrons with plates of food on the counter, a stark contrast from the Thursday night atmosphere that many UIS students have been accustomed to for the past few years.

The menu offered a plethora of items from onion rings, pizza, wings, and burgers. I ordered their daily special, the half-price wings, a cheeseburger, fries, and a Pepsi on tap with free refills, which came out to just under ten dollars.

Usually, this kind of pricing in a town where I feel top-of-the-line restaurants could be a little more generous to the consumers’ pockets, the old jargon of “you get what you pay for” in the sense of low prices will bring low-quality food, would apply.

However, the food at Crow’s was an exception to this rule. My ranch-dusted wings were fried just the right amount such that they weren’t difficult to consume.

The dusting had a flavored zing to it, and the fries were just as good, so much so that I didn’t need any condiments or seasoned salt to enhance the taste.

The same could be said for the burger, loaded with Angus beef, a host of condiments, and a sweet rolled bun.

Indeed, the perception of Crows as a nightlife attraction will still be prevalent to the point that Crows will be seen at least to the given UIS student as a trendy hotspot to get drinks and hang out.

However, with good food at a reasonable price, it shouldn’t go unnoticed that the restaurant side of Crows is formidable in its own right.