Athens, Ohio is a college town with many bars dotting its streets. The Smiling Skull Saloon is not your average bar. Its founder, Chris Wolf, started the bar with the itnetnion to create a home for locals. For many of the locals the Smiling Skull is just that, a home.

The bar is open 365 days a year. Chris prides himself that even in level three snow conditions the bar was still open at its normal time, 10 am.

From the outside many classify the bar as a “biker bar”. Once one looks past the skulls, posters, and nostalgia the typical “biker bar” fades. The bartenders are always friendly, the locals enjoy a great conversation and fights are a rarity. One of the locals more accurately describes the bar as a “working man’s bar”. But with the unemployment rate in the region even that title is slightly skewed.