Talking and laughing above the chorus of ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ by Queen, Gokhan Savas, a Syracuse University graduate student, and his two friends were upstairs having a beer and playing pingpong during a recent Monday night, waiting for dinner at their favorite place on campus, The Inn Complete.

Downstairs, there was a chatty group of girls eating. At the table next to them was a family of three finishing up their meal.

The clientele at The Inn Complete has expanded in recent years to include undergraduate students. But the management at the bar and restaurant has been brainstorming ways to bring the focus back to graduate students with events like speed dating in November, aimed only at graduate students.

The Inn Complete was first conceived as a graduate student hangout, said Monica King, the manager. It opened in 1987 in the basement of the South Campus Sky Barn in response to years of graduate student complaints about the lack of a place to hang out, King said.

‘After some planning, there was a huge pull from the (Graduate Student Organization), who decided they wanted to put some of their student fees to use,’ King said.

When The Inn Complete first opened, it was open only to graduate students, and an ID was required for entry. In addition, if people brought guests, they had to pay a fee. In 2002, SU Food Services combined with GSO to co-run The Inn Complete, and it gradually became open to all students, King said.

‘Before then, even grad students didn’t know about the place,’ King said. ‘It was almost like a club for the cool crowd.’

The Inn Complete does not advertise, so knowledge of it is spread completely by word of mouth, and many students who live on South Campus do not even know it exists, King said. She said that makes The Inn Complete special for those who do know about it, especially those who come for Trivia Night every Thursday.

Paul Preczewski, current president of GSO, said The Inn Complete gets a fairly large undergraduate flow, but it is still mostly graduate students because that is its focus. Graduate students also receive the added bonus of a 25 percent discount on food at The Inn Complete, Preczewski said.

Savas, the graduate student who was playing pingpong, is in his fourth year of working on his doctorate in sociology. He discovered The Inn Complete after a kickoff barbeque was held there a few years ago. Since then, he said he and his friends have been coming about once a week to play pingpong, have a beer and eat.

Savas said he has noticed a change in the demographic of people who come to The Inn Complete since he first started coming four years ago. He said it has gone from mostly graduate students and people over 21 years old to a mix of both undergraduate and graduate students.

But he said it does not bother him if undergraduate students hang out at The Inn Complete, as long as they are not too loud.

‘I don’t like when they have big parties or loud music,’ he said. ‘Quiet is what we prefer.’

Michael Izzo, a junior magazine major, was shooting pool with his friends while they waited for their order to be ready. Izzo said they discovered The Inn Complete for the first time almost two years ago, and since then he has been coming regularly once or twice a week.

‘It costs exactly the same as other places on campus, and you get a better atmosphere,’ Izzo said. ‘There’s TV, pool, pingpong and good food.’

Izzo said he does not feel he is intruding on graduate students’ space. 

‘We come here so often that when we come up and there’s other people here, we feel like they’re the ones intruding,’ he said.

Because of the gradual change in the people who come to The Inn Complete, King said the managers have been trying to hold events that are for graduate students only, so after 8 p.m. they can still have the bar-like atmosphere free of undergraduate students. The management hopes events like Trivia Thursdays and live entertainment will be effective in bringing graduate students together, King said.

Most recently, The Inn Complete has been planning a speed-dating night for graduate students only, which will be held in the beginning of November. 

‘We just want to put it out to grad students and see where it goes from there,’ King said. ‘It was suggested by grad students as a means of meeting other grad students.’

King and the GSO Executive Board plan to have 15 men and 15 women at the event. The women will sit, and the men will rotate every seven minutes. The Inn Complete will charge $3 to $5 to cover the cost of the event, and King said the management plans on having raffles throughout the night, as well as music entertainment.

King said if speed dating receives a strong response, it may become a regular event.

Luke Murphy, a fourth-year graduate student at SU, goes to The Inn Complete specifically for Trivia Thursdays and said he might be interested in speed dating if he received more information.