An Eye on I-Drive: Beer for a nickel

PUBLISHED: December 12, 2014 at 5:02 PM CST | UPDATED: October 23, 2019 at 11:32 PM CDT

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A dollar will get you 20 beers at O’Shucks Pub. Two dollars will buy you so many drinks, you’ll forget that beer cost 5 cents.

It’s Wednesday night at the International Drive dive bar, Foreigner’s “Juke Box Hero” is playing on the sound system and the beer is flowing. From behind the bar, owners Richard Dorsey and Bob Orlando are filling red, plastic mug after red, plastic mug with Bud Light

This is Nickel Beer Night, and it may be the happiest happy hour in all of Central Florida.

“It is kind of a gimmick to get them in the door,” says Dorsey. And it works, judging from the cast of regulars who show up every week from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. to drink on the cheap.

“You had me at nickel beer,” says John Snowden, a regular at O’Shucks Nickel Beer Night. Almost weekly, Snowden, 28, of Orlando and a group of his friends meet at the bar for drinks and to play beer pong. They arrive early, bring about a dozen mugs and stay late.

The only reason Snowden wouldn’t be at O’Shucks on a Wednesday is if “I had to get a leg amputated,” he says.

There is one catch at Nickel Beer Night: Each customer must first purchase the 14-ounce, plastic mug, which is decorated with an image of Thomas Jefferson, for $5. After that, mug refills of Bud Light – and only Bud Light – are only 5 cents.

“We have an O’Shucks cupboard” at home, says Karen Smith, who’s on vacation from England with her husband, Jeff. Every year for more than a decade, the Smiths come to Orlando, and they stay for three weeks. One of the highlights of their trip is Nickel Beer Night. They even book a hotel near the bar in order to make for an easy walk back.

Asked how many beers he’d drink before the end of Nickel Beer Night, Jeff says: “I don’t count.”

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