In my opinion, Cafe 210 is the best bar in State College.

Cafe has it all: great specials on Monday and Thursday, a patio and deck that are incredible when the sun’s out, a comfortable bar inside, generally affordable food and drink, and an overall welcoming environment. There are few bars that can compete downtown.

However, it has one major issue. There’s nowhere to put your backpack. For a bar that’s a great place to do homework or grab a quick drink after class (or for a bar that encourages students to come every day for 55 days!), there is simply no room to stuff your belongings. Bouncers will make you leave your bag at the door or, worse, on the curb.

As a victim of the backpack conundrum, I’ve taken the time to help come up with ways Cafe can improve this issue.

Cubbies

This is the obvious solution. Cafe should simply clear at a little bit of space, say, one table at the corner of the bar, and install cubbies there. There don’t need to be too many — around 20 to 40 compartments would probably work. This provides an organized space for folks to leave their bags, and there’s limited risk of anyone tripping over a bag or losing it in a pile of other people’s bags.

Using The Foyer By The Bathrooms For Storage

When you walk into Cafe on the right staircase instead of the left door, there’s an open foyer that leads from the bathrooms to the patio and not much else.

I’m not suggesting closing this foyer and the pathway to the bathroom. It’s an important part of the building’s layout. However, there’s certainly some extra space here to work with. This might fit into the cubbies idea, but some sort of compartments or hangers here would probably get the job done.

Buying Out The Apartment Upstairs & Using It For Storage

I’m not sure who owns the apartment above Cafe, but it seems like a missed opportunity. There’s certainly at least one bedroom we could all throw our bags into, and the rest of the apartment could be an extension of the bar. Or it could still be an apartment, and the tenants sublet the aforementioned bedroom for backpack storage. It really doesn’t matter as long as I get my backpack in there.

A Secret Vault

If there was ever a point for a State College bar to have a secret vault, this would be it. If you brought your bag to Cafe, you’d have no concerns about someone stealing it. Cafe would just need to install this under the bar, complete with lasers, fingerprint and retina scans, and a guard who has a cyanide capsule in his teeth, and folks wouldn’t have issues with losing their bags again.

Using That Weird Middle Space Between The Bar & The Back Of Cafe That’s Kind Of Just A Dead Space Other Than When The Bar Is Packed & There Are Inevitably Three To Four Girls Standing Around There Holding Their Drinks & They’re Pretty But I’m Scared To Talk To Them For Storage

I feel like this is self-explanatory.

Just Letting Folks Bring Their Bags To The Table

Cafe, was it ever that deep? I’m not doing anything so stupid that I can’t bring my backpack to the table. Just let me put it under my seat.