Redbone Alley draws the crowd with good food, cold beer and intellectual game of team trivia

~ Traci Bridges

Do you know who won the Stanley Cup in 1972?
Can you name the five “Brat Pack” members who starred in the “Breakfast Club”?
How about the notorious serial killer know as the Son of Sam? Know his real name?
If the answers to any of these questions come easy to you, you need to head to Redbone Alley Restaurant and Bar in Florence on Wednesday nights for “Trivia Night.”
Though some other local bars feature individual, computerized trivia, Redbone is the only Florence establishment that has a “live team trivia” night during which teams of friends put their thinking caps together to win a cash prize of $50.
Jason Purvis, who runs trivia night along with good friend Robbie Richards, said the idea came about during a conversation with another old friend, Redbone Manager Alan Hyman.
“Alan and I were just talking one night about how there wasn’t much to do in Florence. Basically, if you’re not going to the movies, the bowling alley or a bar, there’s nothing to do,” Purvis said. “I’d lived in Charleston and Athens, and there was always live trivia at different bars. When I moved back to Florence, nobody was doing it. So I said, ‘Let’s do it at Redbone.’ Alan said, ‘Will you run it?’ I said, ‘Sure,’ and that was it.”
Purvis enlisted Richards to help, and they began researching questions and came up with a points system. The teams come up with their own names — some of which are just silly and bizarre. Each team gets a stack of small note paper and a scoring sheet. Purvis announces the category and question, and each team has the duration of a song to confer on an answer. The team writes down the answer on the note paper, then chooses a number of points to wager based on how confident members are in their answer.
During Round 1, which consists of three categories and nine questions, teams can bet one, three or five points. In Round 2, which consists of the same number of categories and questions, teams can bet two, four or six points.
If the answer is right, the team wins that amount. If it’s wrong, the team loses the allotted amount. There is a bonus question between rounds, and a final question at the end of the night during which teams can wager anywhere between zero and their total amount of points. The team with the most points at the end of the night wins the $50 prize.
“In the beginning, we really didn’t know how it was going to work, and neither did Redbone,” Purvis said. “It’s always kind of hard gauging what people are going to know and what they’re not going to know while still making it challenging. We try to look for questions that are interesting but not so difficult that nobody can figure them out. Nobody wants to sit around and play trivia and not know anything. That’s no fun at all.”
For Hyman, trivia night has been a great draw for customers.
“We started out just getting the word out by word-of-mouth and through social networking on Facebook,” Hyman said. “Now it’s really taken on a life of its own, and the bar is packed every week. Everybody knows Wednesday night is trivia night, and it’s the starting point for their Wednesday evening activities. This was kind of Jason’s little baby, and he’s really grown it.”
Many patrons, such as Josh Groome, look forward to Wednesday night trivia.
“All of my friends go, and it’s something different to do,” said Groome, who along with Brian Charboneau and Mark Allen, make up the core of team Crazy for Patrick Swayze. “It’s a good way to break up the week and just do something different. It’s a lot of fun.”

If you’re going
What: Live Team Trivia Night
Where: Redbone Alley, 1903 W. Palmetto St., Florence
When: 7:30 p.m. every Wednesday
Info: (843) 673-0035