Shooters II. It’s sweaty. It’s sometimes dead. The music doesn’t always hit. But it certainly feels like home.
“This is us. This is you guys,” Kim Cates, the owner of Shooters II, tells me with pride during our interview in a dimly lit bar booth. It's a bar meant for Duke students, and she intends to keep it that way. Her eyes light up as she speaks about the students who've made this place their second home over the years. Even through the challenges of the pandemic, the bar has remained a constant in student life, adapting but never losing its essence.
Someone once told me that humans carry some sort of “ordinary magic.” We do these insane things for people we love, and it's second nature. The more we love, the more wizardry we take part in. It's in the small gestures, the quiet moments of care that often go unnoticed but mean everything.
I see this magic in Kim's heart when she leaves my interview a handful of times to answer her team's questions, apologizing each time but unable to ignore their needs. I see it in the Shooters buses she arranges to campus on nights she knows will be busy, ensuring all her kids get home safe. These aren't just business decisions — they're acts of love disguised as logistics.
The scary part of college for so many of us is that we are no longer home. Laundry doesn't get magically done and the only person who cares if you had dinner is you. The independence we crave as teenagers suddenly feels heavy when we realize what we've left behind.
This feeling crept up on me in the fall of my first year when I got “The Cold.” A cold that would remain my most constant companion, weathering the fall, winter and spring with me. A cold that polluted the ECON 101 lecture hall with echoes of coughs. I woke up on a Wednesday morning, just in time for my COMPSCI 101 midterm, with nostrils clogged and the driest of throats. At that moment, the distance from home felt infinite.
There was no one to, unprompted, heat up a bowl of soup and start me a warm shower. These small comforts of home became precious memories rather than daily realities. It's in these moments of vulnerability that we realize how much we need others — not just for the big things, but for the small gestures that make us feel cared for.
Perhaps that's why Shooters feels different. To Kim, it's about creating a space where she meets wonderful people and where these wonderful people meet each other. Her eyes soften as she explains how she was shy as a girl. Hard to imagine the owner of Duke's favorite bar as a shy person, isn't it? However, she explains how the students have helped her become a more confident person. “These kids make me feel special,” she says, quickly correcting herself, “and I hate to say kids, but the students make me feel special.” The transformation in her voice is palpable — from uncertainty to assured warmth. Like chicken soup for a cold, sometimes the medicine we need most is simply being seen and cared for by others.
That's the beauty of it all. For all those biology majors out there, it's a symbiotic relationship. That's how the best ones are. Kim gives us a home, and we give her purpose. She looks out for us, and we help her grow. Life gets more colorful when you have someone looking out for you, and somehow, it gets even more radiant when you have someone to look out for. It's a cycle of care that grows stronger with each rotation, each late night, each moment of connection.
The way I see it, that's what we all seek: someone else. Someone who peers over their shoulders to see if you are doing ok. Kim embodies this perfectly: “I see somebody up here to the side that don't look like they're happy or they're crying. I want to find out what's going on. Can I help you with it? You know, it's important to me.” Her words carry the weight of countless nights spent watching over her student family.
Kim runs Shooters the way I think we should all approach relationships: with intentionality, gratitude and love. “I will fight for the Duke students,” she declares, and you can hear the fierce protection in her voice — the same tone my mother uses when speaking about her children. It's a familiar sound, one that echoes across generations of caregivers.
In an ultra-sappy way, I find the utmost comfort in this: how, as a species, what we love most is each other. I often say it doesn't matter if there are 30 people or 300 in Shooters; as long as my best friends are breaking a sweat on the dance floor, it's a successful night. It's the instant connection you feel when you run into someone you’ve never met and scream the lyrics of “Love Story” to each other. The magic isn't in the crowd — it's in the connections.
Sometimes, it takes us leaving our childhood homes to understand how special it is to be unconditionally cared for. Now that we know, I implore you to find people to care for. Build your own networks of ordinary magic, one small act of kindness at a time.
At home, it's my mom, and in the corner booth of Shooters II, it's Kim Cates. Different spaces, same love.
Shruthi Narayanan is a Trinity sophomore. Her column typically runs on alternate Fridays.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.