I want to be completely fair about this review. I personally do not ever want to go to The Loft, but this is my boyfriend's favorite bar, so I will give both sides. Why I don't like it: dark, dungeon feel to it, everything's made out of wood and looks outdated. The seating is all restaurant booth style tables so you cant really hang out in large groups. Why my boyfriend likes it: glass mugs (what can I say? He's easily impressed), cheap pitchers of beer, small tables for small groups that want to have conversation, quieter than most bars, and has free peanuts. This bar is good for low-key people trying to have a chill night. For example, the best time I ever had at the loft was after my boyfriend and I got drunk at a laundromat in our PJs and thought it would be so fun to go to put our clean laundry in the car and just uber to the loft for the rest of the night. read more

Went there with a friend from Iran. The bartender would not take our order. He served people on left and people on right and ignore us like we don't exist. I had to wave him down after waiting for 30 minutes. The man yelled at me and said he won't serve us and posted us to the manager if we had more to say. The manager was no help. He blamed it all on saying that I should not have ever waived at a bartender as it is rude. What was I supposed to do after waiting thirty minutes, start dancing or something. Don't go there if you don't fit in the crowd. Definitely stay away if you look middle eastern. They don't like us there read more

Rude bartenders that really don't care about customer service. I'm sorry but I won't come back to this bar after experiencing rude and disrespectful bartender. Drinks taste like they water it down. Don't leave your drink on the bar if you not completely done with it. One of the bartenders ( short male with pony tail and a little bread ) took my drink when I wasn't done with it and tossed it. One of the ladies I don't even know stood up and told the bartender why you took her drink if she wasn't done. He then proceeded to say "there was nothing in her f**king drink". Just totally rude like I came for the band not for the rude service. He then proceeded to make a joke by making me a tiny drink with sprite and blue syrup and put a shot glass in it and said here your drink. Like sir I spend my money here and for you take me as a joke is not right. The other bartender that wear glasses replace my drink " thank you" but wouldn't give me the rude guy name because I was going to report him to the manager. Then the guy with the glasses saw me writing a review on my phone then started being rude telling his friend next to me " why is she sitting here if I'm going to write a bad review" and started to laugh. First why are you all in my phone. I came to support the band that is why I'm sitting here. SMH I wasn't going to write anything about glasses until he started talking about me. I just hope something change out of this because you can see by the reviews that the bartenders just doesn't care about the customers. Pro the band was amazing even tho you couldn't see them. It was like a wood door covering them while they played. I honestly just came to support the band. read more

I have a soft space in my heart for the Loft. My friends are known here. I'm not sure if that is wonderful or kind of horrible, but either way, it usually means the bartenders gives my friends good deals or free drinks which trickles down to me. They have regulars - and they know them well. On Fridays and Saturdays, this place is infested with college kids, which I hated even when I was in college, but it's usually a better crowd than some of the other Kent bars. It's super dirty. There are free peanuts. I always drunkenly eat too many. There are really gross bathrooms. IT's the epitome of a dive bar in Ohio. The drinks are actually cheap and decent. Try a Rocket Pop or a Hulk. They are mostly sugar and delicious. Their rum and cokes are strong. They have decent, cheap beer. I can give this 5 stars because it's special to me. I think 90% of people would hate this place, but it's consistent, great, and terrible all at once. I also really enjoy the huge booths for hanging out with friends. read more

I miss the happy hour pizza. Other than that and the atrocious bathrooms, this place is pretty much unchanged. They used to have the worst bathroom ever. The only bathroom I have ever been in that was worse was in Edinburgh Scotland. When you walked into the bathroom it was a tile floor with a drain. You slowly realize that you are standing in the toilet. I enjoy all of the carved up wood. Like cave drawings from a long lost culture. read more

$4 pints of IPA, lots of wood, old school registers, fun bartenders. Kind of divey but this place has been a go to for a long time. It has stayed the course as the downtown around it has massively grown. read more

We're from out of town and dropped by The Loft around 9:30 on a Saturday Night. We were big fans of the whole in the wall atmosphere of the bar. The drink menu was quite impressive and the prices were great. We had asked some friends where to go to beat the "usual" college crowd. The Loft didn't exactly do that, between 11 & 11:30 the place filled up rather quickly with tons of students, but we weren't exactly surprised. read more

Damn I miss The Loft. The weird wood inside reminded me of the Mine Ride at Cedar Point. This was one of the worst urinals ever. Reminded me of the urinals at the old Municipal Stadium. Nobody wants to be elbow to elbow with another dude peeing in a shared trough. Especially if you then get stage fright. Or if there is some spray back. It is all bad in the Loft Bathroom. There were a lot of good memories here including when my good friend got kicked out and we were outside the main door when they kicked out the guy he was fighting inside. I was so mad because I had a Yungstar cd in my pocket which got broken in half. If you don't know who Yungstar is, he is the dude from Wanna Be a Baller with the best verses. I bust a left, a right. I'm out of sight. I'm throwed! read more

Ohhhhhhh the Loft. There really isn't much to say about this hole-in-the-wall other than it's a Kent State staple! This was one of my favorite bars during my undergraduate years, so I was stoked to walk back in this homecoming. It's literally the same place for the last 8 years, which is great to see. With downtown Kent changing so drastically, it's great to see some of the old school feel. The cheap beers and peanuts will keep us coming back for years to come. read more

Love the loft... Got plenty of my money back when I was at Kent... It still has that ageless college feel that we all know and love a regarding a place where you go and everybody knows your name!!!!! read more

Favorite bar of all time. Hulks are amazing. Rocket pops are amazing. Orange crush's are amazing. Beer is stupid cheap. Peanuts are great. Jukebox is always on and bar games in the basement. Will keep coming here when I'm in town for sure read more

It was a Saturday night, a girls night, you know how it be. The well vodka drinks were great. Things to improve upon is less country music and more Nickleback. read more

the short penis bouncer on 1/29 threatened to call the cops on my friends and I over our IDs. our real IDs. we moved here from WV and this mf looks at our IDs so hard and said in his chad voice "y'all mind if I call the cops real quick" I said ya pls do because that's my only fucking ID and I need it back. we told him never mind and we would just go somewhere else and he still was looking at them so hard. zephyrs and water street did not give us any trouble, and actually it appeared at waterstreet a girl was being trained and the bouncer stated "see how the black light on the back works? that's how you know these are real." Find a new bouncer that isn't chad who gets his rocks off trying to intimidate people lmao. We are all 23-25, and if I was underaged I would never try to sneak in there anyway. was my first time there and thoroughly unimpressed and will not be back lmaooo read more

Bar tender tried to pull a fast one on drinks. Plus over charged the bill so be careful and double check. They are sketchy Micheal is the most. He's the ones that did this all and wouldn't even try to make it right. Terrible service but good drinks would trust them. read more

First, to clear things up, "Loft Pizza" no longer exists, hence my adding a new business. Loft now exists solely as a bar. Loft is....a special place. It's one of the more laid-back Kent bars with a much lower DB ratio (although, DBs do still come here....it is a college town, afterall). The place is usually packed on weekend nights, as to be expected. Normally, I avoid overly crowded bars, but for some reason I like the vibe of this place. For starters, there are tons of booths to sit in. The place is really designed to hang out and have conversations with your friends. There's no dance floor and the music volume is generally kept pretty low. The drinks are cheap (but most bars in this area are), but the best part about this place is the free peanuts. Why don't bars have free peanuts or pretzels anymore? When I'm hanging out with friends drinking cider, I usually want something small to nibble on. I don't need pizza or a huge order of fries....just something to keep my tummy happy. As far as I know, Loft is the only bar in the area to offer this option. There is some debate over how hygienic said peanuts are (they're kept in a huge box at the back of the bar, and everyone just scoops out what they want). Obviously, any smart person knows that this doesn't matter because booze kills germs. Duh. If you find yourself in this dive, you must try their famous drink "The Hulk." I can never remember what's it in, but it tastes really good (think sweet tart). Seriously, let me know when you're in the area and I'll buy you one (mostly because it will give me an excuse to have one, too). read more

Cheap drinks and great service! Matt, Meg, Ashley, Byrd, Brew, and Frank are all fantastic! The Loft is my go-to bar in Kent.

Cheap booze. Usually quiet. Kind of a hole in the wall. Not bad if you're looking for a dive bar to put down a few.

The Loft is an ancient prototypical college dive: windowless, musty, filled with lacquered wooden booths (eerily shiny even in the half-light), blinking neon cig/alcohol signage, and weeklong $2.50 well drink specials of the watered down variety. A smog clogged foyer where a door person lurks with a peculiar yellow ID-scanning machine gives onto a bar that doesn't look like it has changed since 1975. The cheap drinks are probably the prime attraction as a shot of Jose Cuervo will set the thirsty patron back only a modest three bills. Loft also hosts karaoke on Wednesday night and the DJ is adequately verbose, capable of enlivening even the most lachrymose of midweek drinkers. Expect at least a few regulars with varying abilities to commandeer the mic, though newcomers are welcome and the songbook is nothing if not comprehensive (they even have TV Show jingles--one young man was heard jauntily shrieking his way through the theme to Gilligan's Island late in the evening). The bartenders are courteous and capable of making strong, tasty drinks like Moscow Mules should you request them in lieu of the $2.50 thimblefuls of gin. There is no food aside from the requisite column of dangling potato crisps and massive, staggering scoopfuls of shell-em-yourself peanuts from a fathomless barrel in the back. In sum, despite its faults, Loft attempts to be nothing but what it is: an affordable, wood-walled throwback, a time capsule made of gin and domestic pilsner pitchers. Worth a look for any dive enthusiast. read more

Worst bar in Kent by far, price is doubled on drinks. Bouncer is unfriendly, shouts obscenities at guest. Kicks people out claiming underage after they've been allowed in the bar and have already been served three or four times. read more

Awful service with staff that is completely uneducated. Have been going to this bar for over 2 years yet for some reason today they believed I had a fake ID? Let me in after I showed multiple forms of identification yet 10 minutes later they kicked me out? As someone who has lived in Kent for 20+ years I regrettably will never go back. My mom always had great stories about this bar when she went to Kent State in 1976 yet this bar clearly doesn't resemble the same qualities. read more

Just witnessed a man with a medical condition get assualted by a bartender after asking about peanuts. Sickening. Clock at bar ran ten minutes fast. Just sickening to see an employee behave like that read more

Don't waste your time at loft, with all of the other options in Kent, Loft should be at the bottom of the list, seriously... Staff is rude, unprofessional, and improperly trained. The "Hulk" and "Rocket Pop" is their go-to drink yet contain very little alcohol. I prefer a Tito's and Sprite and plenty of other bars offer a far better option. If you are looking for a specialty drink Ray's long island, as well as the Golden Flash from Water Street are far better options and offer much more alcohol for the same price... read more

this bar sucks. the younger dude bar staff are douche bags. the older guys that work there are cool, but the frat boy idiots that serve there are rude. acted like it was a real chore to pour 2 beers when there was only like 12 ppl in the bar. i sat down to meet my friend and the bartender ignored me. several minutes later some of his bros came in and sat right next to me. they got served right away. so lame. seriously, the zephyr is always crowded because it doesnt suck like this place does. if you want to go to an institution of kent drinking, this is not the one your looking for! read more