Demarest Hall coffeehouse brews faire amount of fun with Renaissance theme

Sitting squarely in the center of the College Avenue campus, Demarest Hall seems like a remnant of a past Rutgers — when campus life was organized primarily by students, for students. 

Here, hall residents create, set up and design their own programming — "We're essentially just students that gave ourselves power," said Ricardo Bravo, a School of Arts and Sciences junior and Demarest's co-president.

This past Friday, Demarest residents rolled up their sleeves again to put on their first coffeehouse event of the Spring 2024 semester, a themed "Renaissance Faire." 

Held in the famed dungeons of the House of Demarest, this coffeehouse featured the usual suspects: themed refreshments, a merchandise table and live music. 

Twelve music acts, comprised of local bands and individual student performers, packed the event's 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. runtime. One such act was Monarch, a folk rock outfit born out of Demarest itself.

Clad in a medieval blacksmith costume, Zach Soricelli, a School of Engineering junior and slide guitarist for the band, told The Daily Targum that this is his second year living in Demarest.

Before coming to Demarest and Rutgers as a whole, Soricelli had attended Ocean County College where the social scene was more subdued. Now, living at Demarest with its beautiful basement and its tight-knit community and its legendary drum kit, Soricelli said he has found it easy to make friends.

"It's a great community, and it made me feel very welcome at college," Emily Keegan, a School of Arts and Sciences first-year and another Demarest resident, added.

Good Demarestians, Keegan and Soricelli had both helped set up for the event and were able to enjoy the fruits of their labor as they watched bands like Bad Parenting perform.

Another merry band of musicians paying tribute to the lieges of Demarest Hall included Rutgers-originated punk rock group Rickety Cricket.

Luke Campbell, a School of Arts and Sciences junior and one of Rickety Cricket's guitarists, told the Targum that Rickety Cricket formed in December 2022 after Campbell sent out flyers on GroupMe looking for potential bandmates.

"I met three guys. We happened to jam well with each other, and we just started writing songs," he said.

Campbell, a former Demarest Hall resident, expressed his excitement to play at the coffeehouse, especially as the release of his band's debut single draws near.

One thing you did not find at this event was a suffocating horde of people sardining the Demarest Hall basement. The event organizers pulled off the amazing feat of effective crowd control at Rutgers.

The basement managed to remain reasonably walkable throughout, and attendees were actually able to mosh rather than being clumped together like a school of fish.

Bravo told the Targum the event recorded approximately 186 student attendees as of 10 p.m. A great crowd, Bravo exclaimed, arguably drawn in by the Renaissance fair theme.

Demarest Hall's coffeehouse themes, which have ranged from "Speakeasy" to "OG YouTube," have typically been workshopped and voted on by residents during hall government meetings.

This year, ye olde process was changed so that residents could vote on a theme via a Google Form open for 12 hours after a hall government meeting, a close race in which "Renaissance Faire" edged out its closest competitor, "Office Building."

With a theme chosen, Demarest's hall government began planning the coffeehouse two weeks out from its scheduled date, delegating out specialty tasks like selling handmade merchandise, checking people in at the door and serving up gruel. 

This hard work certainly paid off, with the event now a part of a long list of original and successful Demarest programming. In the coming weeks, Rutgers can hark and tune into the hall's Black History Month open mic event.