Georgetown University students pushed back on a new cover fee at a local bar and beloved student spot, starting a petition and boycott to get the fee removed.
The Tombs, a restaurant and bar near Georgetown’s campus, implemented a “cover fee,” which requires all patrons to pay $5 to enter the bar after 10:30 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, when the restaurant offers a DJ and dance floor and is closed to patrons under 21. As of Sept. 11, over 680 students and graduates have signed a petition to remove the cover fee, which was first implemented by the bar Sept. 4.
Sreya Patri (SFS ’26), who signed the petition, said the cover fee presents a cost barrier for some students and makes Tombs feel like less of a familiar spot.
“I’m sure that it could pose as a financial barrier for many students, but I also think that Tombs is the closest bar on campus, and it’s supposed to be an easy place to gather together with no financial barrier, no accessibility barrier,” Patri told The Hoya.
“But with the cover, it’s obviously just a little bit annoying. And it kind of takes the fun out of celebrating together,” she added.
Erin Claire (MSB ’12), the general manager of The Tombs, who worked at the restaurant while studying at Georgetown, said the restaurant added the fee to pay for additional costs of turning the restaurant into a bar and clubbing spot on weekends.
“This place is incredibly special to me — it’s not something that we just were like, ‘You know what, let’s just try this,’” Claire told The Hoya. “It was really like, ‘We think that this is the experience that the students want on the weekends. And how can we make this make sense for us to keep doing this?’”
Claire said the weekend night demand for entry was so high that lines out the door piled up quickly and students started acting rowdy.
“We were trying to hold to capacity, which then made the line longer and unrulier and sort of out of control,” Claire said. “There was a lot of pushing, a less of a line, more of a mob of people trying to push towards the front, which then pushed the line out into the sidewalk, sometimes even almost into the street.”
After the situation started becoming dangerous, Claire said, she realized the restaurant would need to hire additional security.
“We had security already, but we had to change how they were operating and we needed to increase the number of security that we had in order to prevent the line from, and inside from getting out of control,” she said.
Meghan McGorty (CAS ’26), said she was unsure why The Tombs added the fee if patrons already regularly spent money at the bar.
“Every time I go to Tombs, I do spend money,” McGorty told The Hoya. “So it was definitely a little bit confusing to see that they also wanted us to pay to get in.”
In addition to the petition, an Instagram account with the username @tombs_cover_boycott was created to encourage students to boycott The Tombs until the management repeals the policy. The restaurant has also seen backlash on their own Instagram page, with more than a dozen users commenting “not my tombs” under a Sept. 6 post.
McGorty said she was likely to avoid The Tombs while the fee was in place, especially because the environment in the bar has become more tense with the new rule.
“I think my friends and my roommates would be more willing to seek out other options because there’s an automatic cost for walking into Tombs without a guarantee of a positive experience,” McGorty said.
Patri said she has also noticed that students in the Class of 2026 have felt less enthusiastic about the bar with the upcharge.
“I think even part of my senior class signing the petition has had a huge impact on people’s willingness to go to Tombs and kind of their perception of how fun it will be,” Patri said.
Ethan Henshaw (CAS ’26), president of the Georgetown University Student Association, Georgetown’s student government, said his administration has met with Tombs management to address the cover fee issue, where they discussed other options besides the cover fee.
Henshaw said students should behave better during the weekends, which would alleviate the need for more security.
“This is a terrible predicament, where some students are ruining the experience at Tombs and making it more expensive for others,” Henshaw wrote to The Hoya. “In response to this, I’d like to urge students to just be normal and not be terrible to the staff of the bar.”
Claire said she understands The Tombs’ importance to the student body and Class of 2026, and is willing to make changes to the policy.
“We’re right at this juncture — we’re really just listening and waiting for the students to sort of make known what it is that they most want to see,” Claire said.
Patri said she hopes the cover fee is removed so students can enjoy their “Tombs nights,” the Georgetown tradition where students go to The Tombs on the night of their 21st birthday.
“If the cover continues, I do feel like my class’ relationship with Tombs will be damaged, because all we want to do is celebrate people’s Tombs nights,” Patri said. “This is kind of one of your last major milestones birthday-wise in life, especially being in college. The goal is just to celebrate something big in your life and celebrate the important people in your life.”