Crowds Rush to Marshall Street as Barstool Hosts Best Bar Town Celebration

The crowd at Orange Crate Brewing Company during the Best Bar Celebration was one of the largest that the establishment has seen. (Credit: Matt Zumbolo)

The journey started in March. BarstoolCuse President Sam Holland was notified that Barstool Sports would be holding a competition -- summoning suggestions for America's "Best Bar Town."

This was a social media competition, where Barstool-affiliated university accounts across the country, like BarstoolCuse, would take part in a March Madness-style bracket where the last town standing would win a bar event sponsored by Barstool and hard seltzer company High Noon.

This competition required social media posts with a specific hashtag, which generated points depending on the type of post. For Syracuse, it was #SyracuseBBT.

Tweets, Instagram posts, and TikTok videos that were posted with this hashtag all played a part in bringing the event to Syracuse.

Syracuse won the Best Bar Town competition over Pullman, Washington. Barstool kept its promise, and students packed Marshall Street to celebrate last Friday.

"It was a fever dream," Holland said. "I woke up Saturday morning just thinking, what just happened."

Orange Crate is calm on a Monday afternoon, nothing similar to what it was during the Best Bar Event. (Credit: Matt Zumbolo)

It was a great event for BarstoolCuse itself, but it also turned into a positive event for the plethora of businesses on Marshall St.

"The BBT competition itself gave us national coverage, social media attention, and all these amazing things that really helped to support the business," said Orange Crate Brewing Company Bartender Amelia Reis.

Orange Crate was the main point of the Best Bar Celebration. Barstool's Dave Portnoy, Josh Richards, and Brianna Chickenfry were at the bar celebrating with students, only adding to the national coverage and social media attention.

Holland thinks the publicity will only help the Marshall Street bar and food scene, which has shifted over the years.

"I think in the future just because of this event the perception around Syracuse bars is going to change and it's going to help those businesses in the future," said Holland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EeGzDjggnY