Next Thursday Wubba Lubba Dub PUB, Washington D.C.’s new Rick and Morty -themed pop-up bar opens to the public. Today, though, Drinks Company is hosting an intimate preview for friends, family and media. One-off booze shops sometimes can be tacky attempts to separate fanboys and girls from their daily bread or do “Instagram marketing,” so we stopped by for an early look to see if it lives up to the hype.
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When she announced the bar last week, CEO Angie Fetherston told VICE that building an immersive space for fans of a show to get drunk is “totally an art form.” There are plumbuses, life-sized stuffed Meeseeks, Mega Tree lamps, a replica of Rick's flying car made from actual garbage, little details like an actual box of "Time Travel Stuff" and great big endeavors like an animatronic Cromulon head.While some fans channel their insatiable passion for the show into whatever this is (A prank? Performance art? An earnest yearning for sauce?), it’s nice to see how a competent and creative team like Fetherston’s engages with fandom. Fetherston, muralist Andrew Funk, “robot master” Andrew Herndon, artist Maria Aspiazu, and Special Projects team Matt Fox, Adriana Salame-Aspiazu, and Alisa Wyman imagined the ultimate experience to get fellow Rick and Morty lovers wasted, then made that vision real. “It’s a safe space for fans like us to come and enjoy themselves,” said Fetherston. Check out that space in the images below.Update: The opening of Wubba Lubba Dub Pub has been pushed back a week, to Thursday, August 16. This story has been changed to reflect the move.
Wubba Lubba Dub PUB will be open through October 6. Learn more here .Sign up for our newsletter to get the best of VICE delivered to your inbox daily.Follow Beckett Mufson on Twitter and Instagram.