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Thinkin’ while you’re drinkin’
At trivia nights, players can meet their match, making friendships that go beyond the game
BY GINA GALLUCCI-WHITE
Special to The News-Post
Can you name two countries that start with the letter A but don’t end with the letter A?
Out of Snow White’s seven dwarves, which ones are alphabetically the first and last?
You have around 90 seconds to write your answers.
The answers are Afghanistan and Azerbaijan, and Bashful and Sneezy, respectively.
If you answered these correctly or just liked learning something new, consider heading to more than a dozen breweries, distilleries and bars in the Frederick area for weekly Pour House Trivia nights, hosted by a Mid-Atlantic trivia company. These events have become so popular, some venues even host them on multiple nights.
Patrons can test their mental smarts in a variety of categories — history, geography, pop culture, movies, current events, literature and TV. Pour House also puts on theme nights, with questions focusing on specific interests, like Star Wars and Harry Potter to TV shows like “The Office” and “Friends.”
Trivia is “a great way to connect with friends and group up and have a good time,” said Denny Grizzle, founder of Pour House Trivia.
Tackling questions not only brings fun and camaraderie to tables but often serves as good conversation starters — like, “How did you know the answer to that question?!” — as well as ice breakers for people wanting to make new friends.
Grizzle founded Pour House Trivia in Frederick in 2010. A professional musician, he had gone to venues in different states and witnessed the popularity of trivia nights firsthand at venues where he gigged. During a doctor-mandated, eight-week rest period for his vocal chords, he found himself looking for a way to make some money. He contacted a friend at Il Forno Pizzeria in Frederick about hosting a trivia night. The event was well received, and by the end of his vocal rest, several other bars had reached out to him, wanting to host trivia, too.
Pour House Trivia has since expanded to six states.
“Just to see people enjoy the game is the biggest reward,” Grizzle said. “When I walk into a venue and I see 50 people coming out just forgetting about life for a little while to play a trivia game that we put together is very rewarding.”
At a typical trivia night, teams are given sheets of paper to write their answers on, as a host calls out questions for five rounds — while also trying to keep the energy level up as players answer the questions. Most hosts have experience being in front of crowds; most have day jobs as actors, lawyers and teachers. If a team places in the top three, many venues give a percentage off their tabs.
Pour House also continues to offer a once-a-week virtual trivia session on YouTube, which started during COVID-19 lockdowns.
Dragon Distillery, a Dungeons and Dragons-themed venue in Frederick, offers Pour House Trivia every Friday. Their regular trivia nights are a popular event among regulars, and when they host specialty nights with themes focusing on Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and Stranger Things, a whole new crowd discovers the distillery.
Ashley Perez, director of marketing and events, said trivia is a way to offer a different activity and engage with others. People often try their hand at axe throwing and board games before and after the trivia game.
Belles’ Sports Bar & Grill hosts Pour House Trivia on Wednesdays and Saturdays with anywhere from 5 to 15 teams regularly competing. Owner Pam Belles likes hosting the trivia event because the gathering is open to all ages. “You can get a group of grandparents, parents, 20-year-olds in there,” she said. “There are questions for everybody.”
Belles said they keep the same staff each week for the events, so folks will be greeted by the same people every time they come.
“We want people to feel like it is not a big com-
Thinkin’ while you’re drinkin’
petition but more a friendly game,” she said, adding that people who come for trivia also spend time playing pool, darts, corn hole and Keno.
Rockwell Brewery in Frederick holds its trivia nights Mondays. On nice weather days, guests can either play inside the taproom or outside in their biergarten.
Trivia “gets people out of the house on a Monday night,” said Jess Fynn, director of sales, marketing and events. “It gives everybody a break. You don’t have to come here and already have a team. If you don’t have a team, they will assign you to somebody. It is a really great way to make friends, and it makes it easy to start a conversation and bond over something and have a good time on a weeknight where you don’t have to wait until the weekend to go out to the brewery.
“Here we treat everyone like friends and family,” she added, “and you can expect to make new friends or have that go-to place with the friends you already have.”
Staff photos by Katina Zentz ABOVE: Trivia host Sarah Delise makes an announcement during a trivia night at Belles’ Sports Bar & Grill on July 27. LEFT: Members of “Team Tokyo” participate in a trivia night at Belles’ Sports Bar & Grill on July 27.
Staff photo by Ric Dugan Freida Simmons, left, Gina Grider and Lynne Saint cheer on their correct answer during Trivia Night at Dragon Distillery.
If you go
Mondays
Bushwaller’s, 209 N. Market St., Frederick Il Forno Pizzeria, 1035 W. Patrick St., Frederick Rockwell Brewery, 880 N. East St., Suite 201, Frederick
Tuesdays
Distilled, 221 Shorebird St., Suite B, Frederick
Wednesdays
Belles’ Sports Bar & Grill, 1202 E. Patrick St., Frederick Idiom Brewing, 340 East Patrick St., #104, Frederick
Thursdays
Champion Billiards, 5205 Buckeystown Pike, Frederick Olde Mother Brewing, 526 N. Market St., Frederick Smoketown Brewing Station, 223 W. Potomac St., Brunswick
Fridays
Dragon Distillery, 1341 Hughes Ford Road, Suite 108, Frederick South Mountain Creamery: Frederick Ice Cream Shop, 50 Citizen’s Way, Suite 101, Frederick
Saturdays
Belles’ Sports Bar & Grill, 1202 E. Patrick St., Frederick
From left, Christopher Madden and S. Manya Stoumen-Tolino. Meet the November featured artists at TAG
Courtesy photo
If you missed the artist talks by Christopher Madden and S. Manya Stoumen-Tolino at TAG/The Artists Gallery, you’re in luck. The artists will be in the gallery on Nov. 25 during Frosty Friday in downtown Frederick.
Meet Stoumen-Tolino from 9 to 11 a.m. and Madden from 5 to 9 p.m. Extended hours will be from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. TAG is at 501 N. Market St., Frederick. Call 301-228-9860 for details.
Frederick Arts Council awards grants to 22 arts organizations and programs in the county
The Frederick Arts Council has awarded Community Arts Development grants to 22 arts organizations and arts programs throughout Frederick County.
The recipients include Calvary UMC Community Concert Series, Choral Arts Society of Frederick, City Youth Matrix, Clustered Spires Chorus, Delaplaine Arts Center, Downtown Frederick Partnership, Emmitsburg Community Chorus, Endangered Species Project, Frederick Book Arts Center, Frederick Children’s Chorus, Frederick Regional Youth Orchestra, the Frederick Chorale, Frederick Symphony Orchestra, Fredericktowne Players, Maryland Ensemble Theatre, Maryland Wind Festival, Other Voices, Potters’ Guild of Frederick, Global Z Recording Project, National String Symphonia, UnShuttered and the Weinberg Center for the Arts.
The purpose of the CAD grant program is to allow high-quality arts programming to be available to as many community members as possible. FAC’s CAD grant awards are supported by the Maryland State Arts Council and Frederick County.
“The past few years have been challenging for these organizations, but these exemplary groups continue to be leaders in Frederick’s arts community,” said Gabriella Smith, FAC director of operations. “FAC is honored to continue supporting their important work through the CAD grants.”
CAD applications are evaluated by a dedicated CAD Committee, which includes representatives from the FAC staff and board, as well as the local creative community. Serving as FY2023’s CAD committee chair was artist Griff Garwood.
For more information about FAC’s CAD grants, including grant guidelines, visit frederickartscouncil.org/ what-we-do/grants-scholarships/ community-arts-development-grants.
Courtesy photo “LORE” is a multimedia art exhibition that reimagines traditional folklore and explores contemporary original myth. The show is on view through Jan. 8 at Gallery 115 at the Y Arts Center, 115 E. Church St., Frederick. Shown here, “How Can I Trust You,” by Robert Zurer.
What they get right — and wrong — in the new ‘Blockbuster’ series
BY CRYSTAL SCHELLE
Special to The News-Post
There was a time in the mid-’90s when my closet contained several pairs of khakis, blue longsleeved oxfords and a collection of silly men’s ties.
Yes, my friends, in my 20s, I was a proud customer service manager at Hagerstown’s only Blockbuster.
And those clothes?
That was my uniform.
So, you can understand my interest in Netflix’s new comedy series “Blockbuster,” released Nov. 3. I wondered if it would be nostalgic — or triggering — for my years behind the counter.
“Blockbuster” stars Randall Park as Timmy Yoon, who is the franchise owner of a Blockbuster in Michigan that suddenly becomes the last one of its kind in the world. (Actually, the last Blockbuster still open is Bend, Oregon, which earned that title in 2019.)
Timmy is surrounded by his crush, employee and cheerleader Eliza (Melissa Fumero), and the rest of his ragtag crew, Connie (Olga Merediz), an older motherly-type; Carlos (Tyler Alvarez), who wants to be Quentin Tarantino; and Hannah (Madeleine Arthur), a homeschooled young woman who doesn’t watch movies and is extra thrifty. The cast also includes Percy Scott (J.B. Smoove), who is Timmy’s best friend and owns the strip mall, and Percy’s daughter, Kayla (Kamaia Fairburn), who also works at the video store.
The show follows Timmy as he tries to make a go of it with a video (or, technically, DVD) store in a digital world and the sacrifices and lengths he goes to in order to ensure his business stays afloat and his staff has jobs.
When I saw the first shots of “Blockbuster” on the screen, it brought back all the feels. The store’s setup of video racks and counter were the same, as was the signature color scheme, blue and gold. I could almost hear the whirl of the video tape rewinder and smell the ACT II Movie Theater Butter microwave popcorn packets.
Season one of “Blockbuster” is very much cast-driven. I would love to see more interaction with the customers. From customers quizzing us on movie trivia, insisting we were purposely putting videos back in the wrong places so “other people” could get them, and getting upset because the last copy of “Ernest Goes to Jail” was already rented out (the Ernest line was by far the most popular video series) to our crew’s informal competitions to see who could get enough customers to buy the popcorn, I witnessed enough bits to last a couple seasons.
What I loved the most about working at Blockbuster was recommending movies to customers — a great date movie, an action flick or the scariest horror film. Or correctly guessing the answer to questions like “I’m looking for a movie with that guy that was in that commercial that played opposite that girl with long hair.” Remember, this was the mid-1990s, before Google or Internet Movie Database were even a thing. Although the show is modern day, I would expect the customers to still be asking the same type of questions.
Also, in “Blockbuster” there is no mention of the “sharks” — the customers who would impatiently wait by the counter to see if a new release had been watched and returned. It didn’t matter where they were in the store; they could hear that video drop in the return slot over the buzz of a crowd and instantly be at the counter asking what movie was back.
When I worked at Blockbuster, there also was a slight misunderstanding of the type of movies we carried. I can’t tell you how many times people would stop us while we were putting away returned movies. They would look around like we were a couple of spies, ready to exchange classified documents, then whisper if they could get into the “locked room.” The conversation on my end typically went something along the lines of, “Sure, sir — it’s the bathroom” or “No, sir — we are a family video store.” They’d usually bow their heads and sulk away, until I directed them to the foreign film section.
One thing that annoys me about the series? The cast is constantly quoting TV shows, when I feel they should be using more movie quips. In my experience, we were movie geeks who knew great one-liners and would often talk to each other in movie lines (some of us had whole scenes of “Clerks” memorized). We had a few regular customers who would quote a line and see if we could guess the movie.
And that uniform. In the series, staff members don deep blue company shirts with the logo. I would have loved to wear those shirts instead of the oxfords. When the franchise owner made his “surprise” visits, they included an inspection. If you didn’t have the top button of your oxford shirt buttoned and your tie neatly knotted, you would get reamed out. Yes, when you spent your own minimum-wage dollars to purchase your own uniform, you would be yelled at, often in front of customers. That’s the triggering part I mentioned earlier. But I digress.
In addition to free rentals, Blockbuster had some great perks. I still have a few mementos from my Blockbuster days that I hold dear to my heart. One is a replica 1940s tabletop radio and cassette tape player that was a publicity item from 1994’s “The Shadow” when it released to video. It was given to me because I willingly came in every time someone called out of work (which was A LOT).
The other is a VHS release poster for Jimmy Stewart’s “Vertigo.” The 1958 movie gained a new fanbase when it was released on VHS in 1995.
And, finally, my Blockbuster nametag, which I’ve kept all these years.
I also won trip to fly in the Blockbuster blimp, but it was called off due to high winds and never rescheduled.
What the new “Blockbuster” show does get right is the hodgepodge of staff members. I got along great with my assistant managers and manager, as well as the rest of the crew. Our group was a collection of high school, college and post-college kids, alongside adults who made Blockbuster their third or fourth job. From the outside, we didn’t look like we had anything in common, but we did: We loved sharing the movies we loved.
Crystal Schelle is an award-winning journalist whose work has been published locally, regionally and nationally. She enjoys trivia, cats and streaming movies.
Courtesy of Netflix
Melissa Fumero, left, and Randall Park star in Netflix’s newest comedy, “Blockbuster.”
