Welch Ave Station

Great deals on certain days, free pool Monday and Tuesday (and most days before 8pm), great relaxed but fun crowd, lots of professional bartenders and waitresses so I‘m never waiting for a drink for long. Plus, you can order food from Pizza Pit to be delivered to your table! Good place to watch any kind of game, too.

Welch Ave Station isn‘t the usual College town bar. You can go in either by yourself or with a group of friends and still have a good time. You can sit down, not have to yell over the usual "Good Music" that‘s blasting in other bars and you can be waited on. You get your money‘s worth when you order shots, aka not in the shitty little plastic cups. Everything is served in actual glasses.
Not to mention it‘s the only place to be on game days. Food delivered directly to the table, waitress there so you never have to get up and miss something happening in the game, and there are T.V‘s EVERYWHERE!
If you like shitty music, drinks, walking on peanut shells and drunk bartenders that can‘t mix a whiskey coke correctly then Welch isn‘t the place for you. Welch Ave is by far the best bar in Ames, IA. I wouldn‘t go anywhere else.

One of my top two favorite bars in Ames. Here it‘s actually possible to sit with a group of friends and have a conversation.

Great staff and great drink specials for a college bar!

More restaurant than bar. The waitstaff is picky and annoying and the place seems too snobby to be located on a college bar street.

I love this place! It is a great place to relax and the staff is super friendly!

A bar where you can be yourself and enjoy some brews with friends in a setting you choose. Your group can get wild n crazy or just sip some beer and play pool....awesome. Also any bar that plays southpark and has $1 pint night of Olde Main beer gets two thumbs up in my book.

I visited Ames for business with CyRide and I read the review here and I checked out this place. Great drink specials, cool staff, and an alright crowd considering school wasn‘t in full swing.

Mario S
Montreal QC

Their wait staff was very attentive and quick to keep you with a drink. Very fair pricing on beers as well. There were plenty of TVs around so you can watch pretty much anything from where ever you are in the bar. I gave it a 3 star bc it did seem a little run down inside but I‘d give the service 5 stars anyday.

One word to the previous poster about this bar... BORING. Kids in college want to party not go to a bar where there parents would fit in better!!

Now that every bar is non-smoking, there is one reason this isn‘t the best bar in campus town. Drinks are affordable, and you don‘t have to listen to crappy music blasting. Wait staff and bartenders have a sense of professionalism that isn‘t found elsewhere in campus town.

Really cool place. I am from Turkey and spent 2 months in Ames for an internship project. Welch was the best option to have a great time at weekend nights. I miss Welch a lot. I miss Ames more....

Love this place. Real relaxed atmosphere. It‘s not the cheapest bar, but the specials are good, and the prices are pretty reasonable. It‘s a great place to go if you just want to hangout with some friends, drink some beer, and play some pool. It‘s definitely not a wild crazy, stereotypical college bar

I used to work for WAS and I must say that I loved to work there. There were the days that you had some bad eggs come in, but for the most part, everyone was always a blast to ‘hang‘ (or work) with.
Even when I wasn‘t working, I would love to go.
Best place ever! I moved to Dubuque and can‘t find any bar that compares!
I MISS YOU WELCH!

Best Bar in Campus town by far. The bartenders are great and will mix about whatever you like. I have never seen them cut someone off for the night who wasn‘t acting like they needed it.

its actually more laid back, not layed back.

While studying at ISU, this was my very favourite watering hole- perfect for a pleasurable evening featuring a polite waitstaff, an incredible selection of liquor, and the freshest (and tastiest selection of) draft beer. I‘ve since graduated and moved on, but I miss it dearly. Then, this past July I found myself back in Ames and just had to initiate my girl to the WAS experience. She was absolutely giddy with delight as Brian was able to serve her any cocktail she wished, well, except for a Rock Hudson! There must be something about a campustown bar where you can walk back in the door after nearly three years and still find it being staffed by the friends you had made years before! Oh, and, quite possibly the best thing? NO smoking! I need to find adequate reason to return to Ames for graduate studies!

I can‘t believe Welch Ave is rated below Club Element and Chasers... Something tells me that somebody associated with Element/Chasers is juicing the ratings. Welch Ave has good drinks at a fair price. The staff is much more appreciative than the guys you‘ll find on chamberlain and stanton.

It is the cleanest bar in Ames especially for a campus bar. The management goes above and beyond the call of duty to make people feel at home. Thanks for being top notch.

Playing pinball and pool at Welch Ave Station is, in my opinion, the best time you can have in Campustown. Unless you like having to pay overpriced covers and tripping over/being run into by drunken students.

Plus, you can get food from Pizza Pit. What more could you want?

Awesome laid back bar. I have never had bad service or unfriendly attitudes from the bartenders.

Great place to relax and watch some baseball. They get every game and I can drink what I want without going broke.

This place blows. The doors guys definitely suck. They wouldn‘t let my friend in cause he had spilled beer on himself at a previous bar and the door guy goes "looks like you‘ve had to much to drink already." And I‘ve heard this same kinda story from several other people as well. I‘d go here if I didn‘t like having fun when I drink.

Welch Ave is the only place worth visiting in Campustown. The bartenders are cool, the table service is prompt, and being able to get more than just standard bar food is a plus. Laid back crowd, people who go there are there to have a good time without the drama of the frat bars.

I‘ve been frequenting this bar since for almost 3 years now and I can only think of a couple times I haven‘t been extremely happy with the service and atmosphere, and even those occasions were very busy nights for the bar when they had to hire on extra help. The regular waitresses always keep my table happy and have even taken a buck or two off my drink if the wait was unacceptable. It would be nice if the smoking wasn‘t quite as heavy, but as it stands, this is one of the few bars in Ames I‘m happy to be a patron of.

I totally agree with the last post from November 11th. Acting like you don‘t want business wont keep people coming back to the biggest ash tray in the Midwest

The bartenders and door guy are complete assholes and need to figure out that acting VERY rude to the customers is not going to ever bring them back in. People don‘t want to go to a bar and have it‘s staff be rude to them. So they all need to change there attitudes or find a different job, maybe with the IRS. If they were my employees I would fire them in a heartbeat.

great range of drinks that you cant get in other bars in campustown

I love the drivers from upstairs, they are just all so cute, just now to find a way to get there attention that this brunette and her friends are always down there waiting for one of them to get the balls to say hi, and ask us to wait till they get off work. *giggles*. Now if WAS would do something bout the smoke in this place, guess gives a good reason to take our pizza boys home and shower off prior to the hot tub.

Welch Avenue Station has become the default bar in Campustown among my friends. It‘s one of the only places on this side of town that isn‘t a total meat-market, where you can sit down and have a comfortable conversation over beers if you want; but the place is big enough that you can still play pool with strangers or get a little rowdy watching sports and not be out of line straight off. Great place to grab a pint from the ample selection of beers on tap or to spend the night going through the liquors.

W.A.S. is the only bar I frequent in Campustown as an ISU alum. A previous poster commented that Welch is the no B.S. bar. I couldn‘t agree more. They have calm, level headed help, good tunes at a level you don‘t have to yell. Beer pours better with class pitchers people. I know that W.A.S. is know for grad students and other non-traditional types, but this is my idea of should I wander back to Campustown.

It is somewhat smoky, but it also has a distinctive odor that I‘ve only found at this bar. Smells like cleaner, grandma‘s attic, and smoke. I always have the trademark WASTINK when I get home.

To the post on May 12, W.A.S. is the smokest bar i have
ever been to in ames. At least they can do is get some
sort of exhaust to pull the smoke out. I‘m not saying to
have no smoking but, you go down there on a weekend
after 9 and it looks like you‘re at a rock concert and the stage hands are operating smoke machines.

I think it is a really good chill bar and i love south park, but
i think its the the extreme amounts of smoke that pushes
people away.

great place to go if you don‘t want to put up with all the other campus town b/s.

It‘s an ok bar. I think the long islands are terrible as well- I felt like I was drinking all sour mix. The place is weird about cutting people off and or kicking you out. My friend was told once that she was cut off because she was ordering too much water! Yeah, no joke! And she had only had maybe at most 2 beers in the hour she was there. I like that there is always a place to sit down though!

Good bar but the Long Islands really do suck. Twins are always on, so that is why I go.

Decent beer prices and specials, but I will never return to this smoky hole. My girlfriend got kicked out because she had her face down and was rubbing her eyes due to the smoke. We were asked to leave because she was too drunk and passing out. She had drank all of 3 beers in an 2 hours. Wait staff was rude and full of idiots. Bartenders were also rude. I will never go there again.

they have the best long islands ever, if you don‘t smoke then stay out of bars, thats the stupidest thing ever to make a bar smoke-free its for drunks, great attentive staff and i‘m going tonight

The bartenders there are a joke...complete asses. The atmosphere is ok, especially on the weekends.

fun times. good beer. but don‘t have the long islands

Its great to go here but the smoking is ridiculous. Its worse than a VA hall

The drinks are cheap and good, and it‘s a great place to catch a game. It has some very sever problems with smokiness though, and I can‘t spend more than an hour or so in there unless I‘m too hammered to care that my eyes are burning.

When the weather isn‘t good enough to tailgate, it‘s a great place to watch some football before heading over to the game. I only wish it would open earlier on gameday Saturdays when the weather turns cold.

Nothing like having a friend from Germany told that they mispronounce Weiss when they use a "V" and not a "W"... get over it, bartender;YOU‘RE wrong!

Best bar in Ames -- By far.

I think this place sucks. The bartender‘s attitudes suck and I hate going there now because of them. They need to suck it up and smile once inawhile and not be so damn grouchy!

If another pinhead behind the par tells me Weiss beer is pronounced with a "W" and not a "V" I‘m going to vomit on the bar.

This is by far my favorite bar in Ames. It‘s comfortable and relaxing. You don‘t hear the bump of a grinding bass and you don‘t have to worry about drunk frat guys spilling their beer all over you on the floor. The staff is friendly and accomodating. It‘s a great place to get a drink and actually get to talk to someone and not have to rely on your lip reading skills since it‘s not too loud. There is always great music playing and always toilet paper in the girls‘ room. I love this bar!

I‘ve been graduted and moved on from ISU and Ames for a few years now. My work takes me traveling through the Midwest on regular occassions. As a general rule, I make it a point to stop by my old haunt for a martini and a moment.
I spent a good part of my Freshman year putting myself through college upstairs at the Pizza Pit, and had the pleasure to work for Jim Z., and Tom N., the fellows who own and manage this place. Jim and Tom, I try and say hi whenever I pass through whether you always remember my face right off hand or not.. doesn‘t matter..., but I always have a good time. I frequented this place in college, because it has other people

Best place in Ames, hands down. No arrogant pricks or no snooty bitches, cheap drinking, and they have every bar game (cept shuffleboard.) Boozing and bantering. This is the way a bar should be.

Welch Ave. has been the bar I most frequent in campus town. They the most bartenders and fastest service in town. They also have some great drink specials during the week (the ones above have changed). The bartenders do a great job coming up with original shots and drinks, I recommed a pissed-off japanese minnow farmer. They also have the largest variety of beer and liqour. The bartenders and servers are a great mix of personalities that make the experience even better (although the servers can be really rude sometimes.) Generally most people in the bar know each other and it is one of the busiest bars during the week. They take excellent care of the equipment they have (especially the pool tables). They have all the social sporting games (Golden tee, silverstrike, pinball, etc. ). The thing I like best about the bar is the DJs. They have several different ones, depending on the night, who range from punk and grudge to funk and classic rock. It is not the bar to go to if you want to hear rap, dance, or country. The downsides to the bar are definately the smoke problems and sometimes the common patrons don‘t like new people. It is definately the best bar to sit around with your friends and drink.

The bar is nice, I think the bars smells musty and like an old basement. It brings back memories of ISU of old where Johnny Orr ruled the hardwood and football helmets were yellow. Decent music to listen to. Bar is too smokey to have a beer or two and go meet the in-laws.

Welch Avenue has one major advantage over the other large bars: You can order off of the Pizza Pit menu and eat it at Welch Ave. Also, Welch Ave is the place to catch any football game aired on Sundays, since they have Sunday Ticket. If not for the South Park crowd, Welch Ave would be a fantastic sports bar. This is also one of the few bars in Campustown that opens early in the day, and that‘s when I enjoy going to Welch Ave.

Common place where grad students frequent.

Fun place to play pool, though the pool tables are a little crowded. I‘ve had some great bloody marys there. Welch Ave Station is for fun college drinkers who want to avoid the typical bar bimbos and get drunk with a free-spirited crowd.

Traveling Wildberry=MmmMmmGood

Great atmosphere -- just friends hanging out and talking, not a meat market. Mostly students, but a slightly older or more mature feel. Very large, good, and nicely-priced selection of daiquiris. Tasty mixed drinks, and they know the local favorites that other bars haven‘t heard of.