A downtown Chapel Hill staple long known for its appeal to both UNC students, Tar Heel fans and visitors recently landed on a national list.
The college football staff for The Athletic — a sports journalism magazine under the New York Times’ umbrella — named the 112 1/2 West Franklin Street bar He’s Not Here among its top 10 college bars for 2025.
“An unforgettable moniker for a place known for Blue Cups — 32 ounces of beer, cider or seltzer at $5 a pop,” The Athletic wrote about the bar. “No liquor, no food, just an enormous outdoor patio teeming with Carolina blue, popular bands, students, alumni and celebrities.”
The piece noted an urban legend about the origin of the bar’s name: that people called the bar looking for Michael Jordan, and the standard phone greeting became “He’s not here.” However, the bar actually opened several years before Jordan came to Chapel Hill. As The Athletic shared, though, the actual origin story is that the bar’s original owners were both going through divorces in the business’s early days, and would say “He’s not here” often when their spouses called.
“These are the places the college kids can bring their parents, grandparents and younger siblings,” The Athletic writes. “These are the places they pop in for a drink before standing in line to cram into a meat market with 500 other kids and try to talk over thumping bass that leaves them with headaches. These are the places they hit the next morning to nurse the headaches.”
Another bar in the Carolinas — and in the town of an ACC opponent — also made the list, as Clemson’s The Esso Club was recognized among the staff’s personal favorites.
To read The Athletic’s full top 10 college bars of 2025, click here.
Featured image via Chapel Hill Media Group/Brighton McConnell
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