1947

79 years of USC tradition.

901 Bar & Grill opened in 1947, and it has been part of USC life ever since.

Students call it the Nine O, or just the 9-0. It is the bar you end up at midnight on your twenty-first birthday, the one you land in after a home game, and the one you stand outside of in a cardinal sash the week you graduate. Fraternity and sorority tables, engineering study groups, the film school, the marching band — on a busy night none of those groups have a separate room to sit in, so they end up at the same bar.

Nothing about the place is polished, and that is largely the point. Brick walls, a wall of screens, a neon sign on Figueroa that has been buzzing over the arch longer than anyone currently enrolled has been alive.

The 901 numerals on the shirts, the hats and the frosted mugs behind the bar are the same block letters as the sign. People keep the shirts long after they leave.

How to get here

The lit 901 Bar & Grill frontage on South Figueroa at night, with a line of people waiting along the barricades outside — Figueroa, after dark

Graduates in cardinal sashes posing outside the closed roll-up gate under the 901 Bar & Grill sign

The interior of 901 Bar & Grill packed with people beneath a row of screens, in black and white

Still here. Still open late.

Same sign, same wings, same room. Come see it while you are still in town.

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