Bingo beats the weeknight slump, bringing new fans to bars and restaurants

The game has long been enjoyed in school classrooms, church basements, and charity drives, but this new version offers entirely different experiences

Halftime for the bingo game was signaled when the host, in a silver-sequined dress, hit a full split between two tables finishing dinner. When not reading numbers off of plastic balls that tumble out of a spinning cage, Mizery McCray manages the stunt in heels and a full head of blond hair wielded with the grace and gravitas of Dolly Parton.

Wolf whistles are as commonplace as vodka soda and novelty prizes at Monday night drag bingo at Club Café, a weekly mainstay of the South End cabaret and bistro. Find yourself shouting “Bingo!” at any point in the night and you’re as likely to leave with a bubble machine or pineapple-shaped candle holder as you are with a witty verbal jab for not paying attention to the instructions.

"[Bingo] has moved up," said McCray in an interview between performing and calling numbers.

Once a go-to in bingo halls and church basements, the light-hearted game of chance is now growing in popularity as a weeknight attraction at bars and restaurants. At these events, prizes are more of a bonus than a pursuit. The attraction is the game itself. This rejuvenated bingo shares the same DNA as the traditional game, where a host calls out numbers and the lucky players get to shout “bingo” when they match five in a row on a randomly generated five-by-five grid. However, it’s novel twists on the well-known format that has venues using the game to fill seats on slow nights.

Spinoffs include drag bingo — also a monthly occurrence at Time Out Market — a popular musical version of bingo being played weekly at Sam Adams Boston Brewery and across New England, and Ashland Public Library’s weekly book bingo that kicks off later this summer, no pre-reading required.

On this March evening, patrons had braved a rumored Nor’easter (that did not come to fruition for city-dwellers) for a game at Club Café, raising over $600 in voluntary donations for Mass General's pediatric cancer center. At one point, between games, one bingo-er tells McCray that they just beat cancer.

“It’s three to four hours for them to forget all their problems and the things going through their mind,” McCray explained. “When you come for drag bingo on a Monday night here, it’s literally just to let go.”

Thomas McNeil, the founder and owner of Good Thomas’ Entertainment, a Mansfield-based company that restaurants and other organizations can hire to put on games and karaoke, says bingo provided a break from old standby’s.

“I noticed that places were kind of sick of trivia,” McNeil said. “They didn't want it, they already tried it.”

In 2011, McNeil hatched an idea for music bingo. What if instead of listening for numbers, he mused one day in the shower, players were offered 45-second snippets of songs and then tried to find the titles on their bingo card? Formerly a one-man karaoke operation, McNeil has since grown his company to more than 50 hosts, taking his brand of music bingo to 120 restaurants across New England every week.

From Jimmy Buffett to Wu-Tang Clan, music bingo can be a fast-paced game. At Red's Kitchen + Tavern in Peabody, it's acceptable to collaborate with your opponents. One patron may know every country record on the “Dirt Road Special” card, but rely on another's knowledge for the next round's jam-laced “’80s Edition” card.

“It gets people talking. It gets people reminiscing,” said Thom Hogan, the host of Good Thomas’ Music Bingo at Red's Tuesday night games. With Hogan, a disc jockey of 35 years, each musical “call” is punctuated by fun facts or hints. “Are there any Deadheads in here?” he asked as the folksy, smooth strings of Jerry Garcia permeated the restaurant on one March evening. A raised hand turned heads looking for the fan to name the song.

Two patrons and Peabody residents, Jessica Hamel and Bill Barrasso, agreed that mingling with their neighbors is a winning technique. They're seated at the Red's bar for music bingo every Tuesday, even though Peabody residents get 50 percent off entrees the night before. As Hamel claims her second prize of the night, a $20 gift card, maybe the math still works out.

“When you first walk in, it’s an introverted bar,” Barrasso said. “Ten to 15 minutes in, these people haven’t said a word until, ‘Oh, let me see your card.’”

Music bingo changed him from a partner dragged to one too many outings to someone who rushes home from work when realizing it’s a Tuesday.

“A million games have been offered to me, I decline every time,” he continued. Unlike other weeknight bar games, music bingo allows the player to participate as vigorously or lackadaisically as they wish. Put your pencil to the sheet and your ear to the air for one round and kick back and enjoy your meal during the next.

“I’m not gonna sit there and play that number bingo, but music bingo? I'm there,” Hamel said in agreement.

The game brings in newcomers as well. Firsttime patron Sherry Hansen said she hasn’t played bingo in years and she had never been to Red's, but the allure of music bingo was an itch she had to scratch.

“I literally passed by here every day for 15 years. Music bingo brought me in,” says Hansen, who lives in Greenland, N.H., and works in Cambridge.

At Club Café, the game of chance is also effective at eroding stiff social barriers when a good caller gets you out of your comfort zone.

Patrons commended the way that their hosts have used the familiar game to create another space for celebrating self-acceptance.

“Seeing people so out and about, why should we be afraid to be so quiet?” says Trinity De Santiago, a Lynn resident who attended a Club Café bingo night with friends. “It makes us proud to be who we are.”

Bingo is everyone's game, and something about it sucks everyone into the performance. It's hard not to find some gravitas in the outcome, whether that's a pineapple-shaped candle holder, a new favorite song, or a much-needed laugh with a stranger. As Hogan puts it, “It’s not your grandma’s game, but she can come, too.”

‘It’s three to four hours for them to forget all their problems and the things going through their mind.’

MIZERY MCCRAY caller at Monday night drag bingo at Club Café in the South End