Barcode – Dusk

York, as you were probably told off a script by your tour guide when you came to look round the University, is home to enough pubs and bars to allow you to visit a different one every day for an entire calendar year. Every single one is different, and only a select few see regular student visitors. Here York Vision gives a more experienced view of the town’s bars from those who’ve seen it, and drank it, all before.

Dusk – 8 New Street

Eternally popular for its cheap cocktails and buzzing atmosphere, Dusk offers all you’d want from a student bar. Its off-the-beaten-track location sees it rammed into a seemingly tiny two-floored building hidden between Coney Street and Davygate on a short strip of bars that also includes The Blue Fly and Vanity.

While cheap deals are offered on wine (£6 a bottle) and beer (a bottle of Stella is £1.80), the order of the day here is undoubtedly the cocktail menu, which offers two of their selection for just £4.90 from Monday to Friday.

Half the fun is in the struggle to choose a drink. I mean, at first look, how do you choose between a Britney Spears, a David Hasselhoff or even a ‘sugared-rimmed’ Graham Norton? Personal recommendations go towards the ‘Milky Bar Kid’ and the ‘Bertie Bassett’, although you’re sure to be visiting enough times to work your way through the menu…

Lively any night of the week, not as flash as Evil Eye, but without bar workers who fancy themselves quite as much, Dusk’s ground floor is noisy with chatter and music but not so much that you can’t hear yourself speak. Meanwhile the upstairs function room offers an escape from the noise if you fancy somewhere a bit quieter to share your couple of cocktails.

Dusk is also open ’til 2am most evenings so you’re free to stay a little later than your average bar, although you’d do best to avoid its not-so-much-famed relatively grim toilets which saw a student trapped in a flooded cubical as far back as 2007.

Ideal for a few cheap drinks before a more expensive night at Revs, Dusk is a student favourite with good reason and is probably going to be almost unavoidable throughout your 3/4 years at York.