Kings Wine Bar Contest Seeks Trivia Royalty

“It’s 8:30, it’s me, Kyle, and we’re going to play some trivia now,” says trivia maestro Kyle Sommers, kicking off the Monday evening trivia night at .

Sommers, a general knowledge specialist in his personal sojourns into the trivial, has been reading the questions at Kings for the past two months, watching attendance taper off to about ten regular teams as the weather heats up.

The Kings contests are part of Chuck Terhark’s Trivia Mafia pub quiz empire, a series of trivia competitions at local restaurants started five years ago at the 331 Club.

Terhark, who started Trivia Mafia five years ago after moving to Minnesota, said it was a fun activity to do at a bar, something to “give you lots of fun watercooler conversation for the next few days.”

“I grew up watching Jeopardy, playing Trivial Pursuit—my wife will prob tell you I’m a know-it-all,” he said with a laugh.

In addition to regular trivia nights, Trivia Mafia holds special events, such as a food-based trivia night being held this Wednesday only at Kings in a partnership with the Wedge and Linden Hils co-ops.

The Mighty Ducks

Sommers is sitting at the bar, sipping a Surly, his questions arranged before him, his right hand clutching a hot mike.

“What two reporters shared a byline in the Washington Post yesterday for the first time in 36 years?” he asks.

In a booth on the south wall of the restaurant, The Mighty Ducks, a team of seven graduates of ’s class of 2011, contemplates the question but comes up blank.

“We have no idea,” Julian Esparza says.

“Well, we have a little idea,” Kelly Eide says. “Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman. We know it’s something and something.”

While the Ducks couldn’t summon the names Woodward and Bernstein, they made promising guesses later in the evening on the subjects of Russian prisons and the etymology of the term “kid gloves.”

“I come because it’s really fun to hang out with friends together and to test our knowledge out—to stay sharp during the summer—and there’s good food,” Eide said.