The outlook for UCL’s most inconveniently located student bar seemed dire. Despite major marketing and renovation efforts - including turning the bar’s walls from garish green to depression blue and broadcasting live sports all day to lure in UCL’s aspiring young alcoholics - business at Phineas kept dwindling.
A sudden comeback seemed unlikely, with the bar’s despairing manager allegedly on the brink of packing it up and enrolling at the National Centre for Circus Arts.
But then, some three thousand miles away in the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts, a glimmer of hope reflected itself off of an ornamental carabiner clip: Last Ditch, a giant in the immunocompromised lesbian bar industry, found itself at the centre of an international scandal, becoming a target of scathing backlash.
As accusations of ableism and firebomb threats rained down in response to the bar’s newly moderated face mask policy, customer confidence was damaged irreparably.
However, what was a tragic death for Last Ditch turned out to be a potentially miraculous lifeline for Phineas. The struggling student bar’s manager, Lesley Mascon, saw an opportunity in the rubble of Last Ditch’s legacy: A space for Phineas to take its place.
“Last Ditch’s downfall has created a gap in the billion-dollar immunocompromised-lesbian market, and Phineas is ready to fill that gap,” Mascon said resolutely.
“With the biggest competition wiped out, leaving nowhere else for immunocompromised lesbians to go, we expect to see an exponential increase in footfall in the coming weeks
“We are prepared to give the people what they want: emotionally available lesbians who look like Conan Gray and twenty-four-seven mask mandates. And unlike Last Ditch, we are highly interested in revolutionary praxis!… We think? We’re not one hundred percent sure on what it means.”
Mascon quickly got to work, transforming Phineas from a hospital cafeteria-esque sports bar to a hospital cafeteria-esque immunocompromised lesbian bar, adorning the walls with the Chappell Roan posters leftover from the Fresher’s poster sale and a framed photo of Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer.
The rebrand has also included appropriate changes to the weekly events Phineas is offering: Monday’s ‘Jazz Night’ has been replaced with ‘Inclusive 432Hz White Noise Night’ and Wednesday’s infamous ‘Sports Night’ has been replaced with ‘Decorate Your Own Hijab-Inspired Secular Accessory Night’.
Ex-patrons of Last Ditch will also be pleased to know that the new schedule does not currently include any ‘mass-disabling’ events. “They are not very profitable”, a spokesperson from the Students’ Union explained.
Time will tell as to whether Phineas’ market repositioning will prove successful, but alongside The Institute’s recent repurposing as a bar-cum-abortion clinic, the change has left UCL students wondering as to what the fate of Mully’s might be.
When asked to comment, Mully’s manager declined to confirm anything but hinted that talks of a ‘nut-allergy-conscious Lebanese bar’ or a ‘pre-natal hobby-horsing studio’ are currently in the works.