Celebrating 25 years, this Wilmington bar is famous for film and a Donkey Kong record

For longtime Wilmingtonians who don't necessarily consider themselves old, news that downtown bar The Blue Post turns 25 this fall might come as a bit of a reality-check moment.

Since opening in 1998, the cavernous, multi-roomed bar, located on Wilkinson Alley off Front Street, has served both as a laid-back neighborhood pub and a packed-out hotspot, depending on whether it's a weeknight or a weekend, not to mention a film set many times over.

Patrons have plenty of room to ramble, from the main room with a large bar and multiple pool tables, to the narrow, more intimate "alley," to the game room in the back, which has such diversions as pinball, air hockey and video games. The crowd is mostly younger (20s, 30s) and always has been, with up-and-comers cycling in every few years, although you'll also spot a codger or two reliving their glory days.

With The Blue Post, aka Blue Post Billiards, set to celebrate a quarter-century on Oct. 1 with a birthday party, let's look at some of the things that have made this long-standing, still-popular bar a downtown staple.

It's had continuity of ownership

The owners are, and have always been, Gil Johnson, Harper Peterson and Barbara Weetman. Johnson and Weetman, who used to be married, are also film and stage actors with multiple credits who used to be active in Wilmington's theater community. Johnson has had a hand in numerous downtown businesses, including the old the City Stage at Level Five bar/theater combo, now known as The Rooftop Bar at North Front Theatre. Peterson, of course, is a former Wilmington mayor and a former state senator.

It's the 3rd (?) oldest bar downtown

By my count, the only bars downtown older than the Blue Post are: The Barbary Coast, which opened in the mid-1940s, and Lula's, which opened in the early '90s. Elijah's, The Pilot House and Paddy's Hollow have all had bars longer, though all three are mainly restaurants, but when Paddy's opened in the 1980s it did have an active bar crowd (and even a darts league!) at one time. The Rusty Nail, which is on the outskirts of downtown, opened in the 1950s, so maybe they should be in the conversation.

There are folks who want to say Orton's is the oldest bar downtown, and while they've got an argument (it opened as a pool hall in 1888), it has operated under several different names and is currently closed anyway.

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It's a billiards destination

If you see someone walking down Front Street carrying a pool cue in a case, chances are you know where they're headed. Yeah, there are other places to shoot pool downtown, but the Blue Post has several regulation-size tables for rent as well as a smaller coin-op table in the back game room. This is where the serious pool sharps play. They've got darts, too.

The jukebox still plays CDs, as it should

Part of the old-school charm of The Blue Post is that they have not acquiesed to the soulless, expensive convenience of TouchTunes and keep their famous jukebox well-stocked with CDs: three songs for $1, eight for $2, bills only like God intended. An antique that used to play 45s before it was retro-fitted for CDs, the jukebox has been there from the start, and so have some of the CDs, like The Stone Roses' classic self-titled debut. More contemporary selections are added every few years or so ("Onion" from Shannon and the Clams is one of the newer ones), but it's mostly the classics: Rolling Stones, '80s favorites, even a little honky-tonk country in the form of Conway Twitty.

They've been in pictures

Perhaps most famously, Danny McBride's raunchy HBO series "Eastbound and Down" rechristened the bar Shaboom's. (Maybe don't tell the bartenders it was Shaboom's; they know.)

ABC's "Secrets and Lies" and TNT's "Good Behavior" filmed here, as did "Under the Dome," "Revolution" and Melissa McCarthy's film comedy "Tammy," which re-imagined the bar as a barbecue restaurant.

So many movies and shows have shot there that "honestly, I can’t even remember half of them," said co-owner Barbara Weetman.

The Blue Post at 20 As downtown changes, The Blue Post maintains

They've hosted a famous guest or two

Befitting a bar that's been a film set many times, plenty of famous faces have been seen in the Blue Post when they weren't even working.

Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams played pool here during their "Dawson's Creek" days, and Sophia Bush, Hilarie Burton and other "One Tree Hill" cast members hung here as well. Kris Kristofferson drank here, as did actress and screenwriter Lake Bell, and Will Forte of "Saturday Night Live" got his name in the record books on the old Donkey Kong machine (which isn't there anymore) when he was here making "A Good Old Fashioned Orgy."

Annals of the Blue Post Will Forte's Wilmington stay was on like 'Donkey Kong'

The Beer Club is still taking members

Wanna join the beer-drinking legends of the Blue Post Beer Club and have your name immortalized on the bar next to folks like Sophia Bush? You just need to drink one of every beer on the bar's beer list. No rush, they'll keep track for you.

The decor has stood the test of time

If one could sum up the decor of the Blue Post, it might be, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Movie posters for documentary "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" and "Emmanuelle" ("X was never like this") have been there for at least 20 years. A whimsical painting of the Blue Post's interior by former Wilmington artist Jon Wink has been up for a couple of decades as well, while Wink's painting of a former Blue Post bartender named Maureen is more recent, though it's probably been there a decade and a half.

But even the Blue Post has to add something new every now and then. In the game room in the back, a recent addition in the corner is a chalk drawing of Bert and Ernie, of "Sesame Street" fame," by Wilmington artist HP Fangs.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Downtown Wilmington NC bar Blue Post Billiards turns 25