By Hannah Kremer, Editor-in-Chief  

A new student-run bar, The Mile Marker, will take over the former University Eatz space at the corner of Montgomery Road and Dana Avenue. The new entertainment venue is anticipated to offer numerous amenities, including pizza by the slice, free darts and pool, drinks and good music.  

Intended for students 18 and older, the bar will be easily accessible and within walking distance of campus. This project, inspired and envisioned by an undergraduate team from the Sedler Center, aims to cultivate a more vibrant off-campus nightlife scene made for students by students.  

Blake Wyatt, a junior economics major and a founding member of the Sedler Center’s enterprise MIX Events, was one of the primary business majors leading the project. He, along with a coalition of other Sedler Center student employees, was asked to develop ideas to revitalize the space after University Eatz failed to gain traction after its opening in last September.  

“It was completely thought up by students, student-led and student-run,” Wyatt said. “We recognized the need, not just from the team I work with, but from other people on campus, who were noticing a lack of nightlife activity. That just blossomed into a super cool experiential learning entrepreneurship initiative we have today.” 

Since then, students have been put in charge of almost all operations involved in setting up The Mile Marker. Undergraduates have run all of the social media networking, painted the interior, planned what the inside would look like down to the type of lighting and organized the mural competition that will become part of the interior design. Even the staff they plan to hire will be students.  

As students inevitably explore the bar as a new facet of their nightlife and experience at Xavier, the bar will stand out by taking student feedback and curating an experience fit forthem.  

“There are spaces for students commercially all over the place, right? But those have commercial interests, and their reason for doing it is to make money,” Wyatt said. “The core reason we started this was to better the student experience here on campus, so that they can experience a space that’s meant for them.”  

Promotions for the bar’s opening have already begun on social media. As of now, The Mile Marker is expected to open in time for Family Weekend, when it will host a bingo event. Both families and alumni will have the opportunity to experience the newest addition to the Xavier community.  

“I think it will be good that there will be an additional bar option for students near campus, without needing to find transportation to get there,” senior Philosophy, Politics, and the Public major Megan Cooper said. “I think it will also make for a great venue for basketball game days.”  

The bar’s official opening date is still tentative as students put the final touches on The Mile Marker.  

“The feedback we’re hearing is so exciting, and I think it’ll just be so cool to see how it turns out for students,” Wyatt said. “Everyone at the center of this project is super excited about it. I think we truly have a great opportunity to make something that will be a lasting pillar in our community.”