Cav's and Shula's: Full of empty barstools

Chuck from Clifton Heights, Pa., makes a weekly visit to Cavanaugh's Restaurant on Sunday evening to catch the featured football game on TV.

He enjoys the camaraderie, enjoys bonding with people, but most of all, he just likes getting out of his house.

"The game isn't so important," Chuck explains. "I just need to get off my couch and express myself to people."

Yesterday at 8 p.m., however, Chuck sat alone at the corner of an empty bar.

As major professional and collegiate sports teams canceled this weekend's games amidst the tragedies in New York and Washington last Tuesday, the television at Cavanaugh's is tuned to a rerun of ESPN's SportsCenter.

Highlights of long forgotten games are being shown. The same Barry Bonds, "Will He Hit 70?" feature is being broadcast on the sports network.

"There's nothing to watch," Chuck says, motioning towards the SportsCenter anchor babbling about an inconsequential NASCAR race. "This is a big sports town and now there's nothing going on."

Empty chairs and empty tables.

Ordinarily, the middle of September would be a tremendous sales month for local West Philadelphia sports bars.

Baseball pennant races.

The beginning of the NFL and NCAA football seasons.

And this year is even more exciting for Philadelphia sports teams, as local professional teams are competing for championships in their respective sports.

The Phillies -- long the doormats of the NL East -- are in contention with the perennial division-winning Atlanta Braves for the division crown.

The Eagles, led by rising star Donovan McNabb, have been picked to contend for the NFC East crown.

And the bars are empty.

"Business has dropped big time," Kevin McCloskey, a bartender at Cavanaugh's, says. "Usually, if the Phillies are in the pennant race and the Eagles are playing well, this place will be packed.

"Now that there's no sports, there's just nobody here."

Three blocks away, at Shula's Steak 2, located at 36th and Chestnut, the same scene of despair exists.

"Since we haven't had sports since Tuesday, the week has just been real slow," Shula's manager Lennise Watson says.

Of the 80 television sets at Shula's, approximately half are tuned into the same SportsCenter highlights. The remainder are fixated on CNN's coverage of "America at War."

The drama unfolding from Miami focuses not on the completion of a TD pass by the Dolphins' QB Jay Fiedler or on a mammoth home run by the Marlins' Cliff Floyd, but rather on a vigil held earlier that day commemorating the lives lost in Tuesday's cataclysm.

It seems as if the mass of televisions are merely white noise, providing some form of vitality for the desolate bar.

"On an ordinary Sunday, we have 500 people coming into the restaurant," Watson says. "Today, we might have just 100."

Shula's patrons also reacted to the sobering atmosphere on a normally jam-packed Sunday evening.

"Usually, we have to fight to get a seat in this place," Penn Law student Lawren Briscoe says. "Tonight, we got to sit wherever we wanted."

Chuck, heartbroken and lonely at Cavanaugh's, best summed up the pervasive sentiment of University City restaurant managers and customers:

"I just can't wait for normalcy to resume and everybody to come back," he says. "It's just too darn quiet."

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