(CNN) — The happy hour regulars were already gathering at Stooges Bar & Grill less than two hours before tip-off at Tuesday night’s University of Kentucky men’s basketball season opener.

About 30 or so customers occupied the wooden stools of the old-school, salty hangout in an industrial strip a few miles from downtown Louisville. Only the University of Louisville Cardinals draw a larger pregame crowd.

Surrounded by big-screen TVs and signs for the domestic beer buckets and other specials, the no-frills, family-owned watering hole near Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport is popular among workers from the nearby United Parcel Service package handling facility and the Ford SUV assembly plant.

For the Kentucky opener, Stooges was offering 59-cent shrimp all day.

“I had just ord

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