Bomb shelter

An underground structure that protects you from bombs and other bad things. Often concrete boxes or steel tubes. Bombshelters were popular back in the 50s because of the cold war. In theory, one can survive a nuclear holocaust or even the Everything Turf War in one. However, in a nuclear attack a bomb shelter that's poorly designed or just too close to ground zero would just be an oven in which you would be cooked alive.

A place to go for shelter from the bombs of bombing in times of war. In the 50s, in the United States, bomb shelters were a growth industry, due to the widespread belief that Nuclear War was possibly nigh; they were stocked with survival gear and rations for The Day After the Russkies dropped the H-Bomb on your patch of suburbia. There was a "socialist" version: public fallout shelters in cities. Shelters never got much use; the Cuban Missile Crisis was as close as Fear got.

The student pub at the University of Waterloo (Ontario, Canada). Almost buried underneath the Student Life Centre, the pub is named for its resemblance to a bomb shelter. Concrete walls and floors emphasize the effect, though the exterior wall opens onto a smallish excavated patio. The idea of partying in a underground bunker may seem great, but in reality the reflected sound is deafening, and the pub swelters in the summer.

The Bomb Shelter (or Bomber) is semi-famous for a few reasons, one of which is that it is the location for a key scene in the novel Microserfs by Douglas Coupland.

The University of Waterloo has a renowned Computer Science program that used to have a huge hire rate for Microsoft in Redmond. Bill Gates used to (perhaps still does) have a annual barbeque at his home for newly hired UW grads. Microsoft, Corel and a number of other large software companies have held open bar nights at the Bomb Shelter for graduating students.

Wednesday is the traditional "Bomber" night.

The patio was recently more than doubled in size, but a failure to secure a liquor licence for the expanded space has left the patio divided by a steel barrier.