Northwest Missouri State University - Tower Yearbook (Maryville, MO)

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Four students bring good times and good business to a bar called The UTBACK The atmosphere of the bar had changed from the night before when hundreds of customers had filled it. The beat of the music had grown silent and the dancing had ceased. In fact, the establishment was deserted except for four young men who were seated at the bar. One might guess these men were in for an early celebratory drink or were just regular afternoon barflies. But, in reality, the bar was closed and there were no customers at all. The four men were Northwest students and owners of The Outback, a Maryville nightclub. Over a year had passed since Jason Brown, Chad Jochims, John Wanninger and Scott Sadaro had purchased the defunct Power Station and revitalized it, fulfilling the lifelong dream of each of them to run their own business. Sadaro said the idea for the bar came one day when he and Wanninger were discussing the bar scene in Maryville. He said their discussion centered on the fact the town had a lot of taverns, but really did not have a good “college” bar. “A lot of students here would leave on the weekends,” Sadaro said. “They would go to places like Columbia, Lawerence or Iowa City and come back and talk about how a wesome the bars were there.” Jochims said there was skepticism at first. “The University and people in town didn’t think we could do it because we were in college and ina fraternity,” he said. “You didn’t have to be 40 to own a business—you just had to take a risk.” Pursuing business careers, they agreed owning the bar was a learning experience. “The classroom couldn’t teach you 10 percent of what you needed to know,” Sadaro said. “I had learned more in six months of owning this bar than I had learned in classes.” Sadaro said the mistake people made was calling The Outback a Delta Chi bar. “Delta Chi had nothing to do with this bar whatsoever,” he said. “That was the biggest misconception. They thought the fraternity was in on it. Delta Chi did not finance the bar; they did not have any say in what went on here.” One of the main areas they wanted to expand on was bringing in live entertainment. To accommodate this, they renovated the inside of the building. “Any other bar in town could only pull in a few hundred,” Jochims said. “Here, we had as many as 1,400 come through for one band on one night.” Sadaro said bands were drawn to The Outback due to its audience capacity. “The Outback became the only stopover for any kind of entertainment between Omaha and Kansas City,” Sadaro said. “We booked some big bands in the area. It got to the point where bands were calling us to play in our bar.” Sadaro said he wanted customers at The Outback to remember college. “Twenty years down the line when they were sitting around with all their college friends, we wanted them to say, ‘Yeah, remember the time we went to The Outback and saw that band?’” he said. “College was where their outlooks on life were formed, so in a sense we wanted to have a positive influence on them.” BY SCOTT ALBRIGHT HEY, BARTENDER. John Wanninger, Scott Sadaro, Jason Brown and Chad Jochims hang out in the breezeway of The Outback. Photo by Scott Jenson ATTHEOUTBACK. A student prepares for a night at a new Maryville nightclub. The Outback be- came a popular hot spot, especially on Over Under nights. Photo by Mike Fernandes