Whether you are a graduate student or a freshman, if you go to Duke then you are well familiar with the western-style saloon “Shooters.” The love affair between Duke students and Shooters has been going strong for years now, and much of that is due to the woman behind the magic, Kim Cates.
The club saw a lot of history before Duke students hopped on the Shooters bandwagon (to the tune of Wagon Wheel of course). The Morgan Street location is actually Cates’ beloved club’s third home. The first location was burnt down within only a month of being open and Eckerds bought out the second. Shooters opened in its current location on New Years Eve 1998 and has remained there ever since, but it wasn’t until around 2004 that Duke students began to start frequenting the venue.
Cates says that the Men’s Lacrosse team was the first group of Duke students to regular the club. She recounts fondly how they supported her, so she supported them, especially through the 2006 lacrosse scandal. The Shooters buses that we students now recognize as our ride from pregame parties to the club were used to drive parents to the courthouse to support the lacrosse players during the scandal. As Kim, or Kimi as she is fondly known, grew closer with the Duke community, Blue Devil attendance at the club grew as well. Now it is impossible to go to Shooters on a Wednesday or weekend and not find a line of Duke students out the door.
Kimi says a typical work night for her focuses on “making sure things go smoothly,” but her favorite things to do is chat with her patrons. “I love to talk to people as long as they want to talk to me,” she said, laughing, and who wouldn’t want to talk to her?! The friendly club owner says her favorite nights at the club are the busy nights because they go fast and she gets to talk to more people. “I want to make people feel comfortable,” she says, “like they’re family!”
Cates does admit that this year has been a little tougher on her than others. The freshmen were rowdier than they have been in past years and she had to get a little ugly which is clearly very out of character for her. “I try to be as nice as I possibly can,” she says, “I just ask that everyone try to be patient.” With thousands of dollars of damage every weekend in the first weeks of school from customers tearing up the club, it was no surprise that the owner felt pressure to raise the cover charge. Cates loves her Duke students and wanted to give them the best night out experience that she could, but it became too much trying to handle the freshmen going “buckwild” from being away from home for the first time. She says that it “made her feel bad the way they were feeling bad” in response to the price change, which is why she was eager to change it back to something else. The Shooters membership change actually came from management higher above the owner, not from her own doing. Management required her to institute the new policies in her private club.
The Shooters membership process isn’t the only change we are going to be seeing this month. The club is going to be decked out in full theme for Halloween, which is Kimi’s favorite holiday. Come check out the decorations on October 31st at the Shooters Halloween party. Although there will be a lot of celebration festivities going on that night, Cates is confident that Shooters will be “the place they come to afterwards.”
It is because of all the hard work Kimi puts into the club that we find ourselves at Shooters every Wednesday and Saturday night, no matter where the night has taken us beforehand. All our crazy and fond memories of bull-riding, cage-dancing fun are owed to her, and we are thankful for that through the good, the bad, and the ugly nights. Thanks Kimi!!