Surviving the Zombie Pub Crawl

On Saturday, as they've done every year for the last five years, the living dead will rise up and walk the streets of Minneapolis, hungry for brains ... and thirsty for liquor. The Zombie Pub Crawl expects to attract 5,000 shambling, costumed fans of the George A. Romero oeuvre to the West Bank this weekend, with more than a dozen bars throwing open their doors for "zombieoke," horror-themed drink specials and other flesh-crawling fare. But as you'll remember from Shaun Of The Dead, a bar is not necessarily the safest place to wind up in the event of a citywide horde of carnivorous corpses. Just how defensible would the bars of the Zombie Pub Crawl be in the event of a real zombie outbreak? The A.V. Club runs the numbers.

Gold Medal Park
When the Zombie Pub Crawl outgrew its original Northeast base and moved to the West Bank, it found a natural staging point in Gold Medal Park, overlooking the Mississippi River next to the Guthrie Theater. Spacious and easy to find, it's a good place for those who want to gather early, meet friends, and trade costuming tips before turning zombie for the evening. But if it were a real zombie attack? While the high ground would be helpful, it's also completely open territory. Once untold numbers of the undead begin to descend upon the unsuspecting city, it would be wise for the living to quickly make their way to one of the many nearby hiding places, preferably those with alcohol and fried food.
Survivability rating: 0

501 Club
Noise-rock duo Gay Witch Abortion will be holing up at the 501 Club, doing their best to destroy the zombie herds with their powerful onslaught of mind-melting punk.  Try to hide above  the stage on the second level, but if the band's high-decibel weaponry is of no avail, you may well be zombie-bait.
Survivability rating: 5

Grumpy’s
Grumpy’s is prime zombie-fighting territory.  With plenty of pool cues, darts, liquor bottles and bar stools to use as makeshift weaponry, this would be an ideal place to camp out, throw some Queen on the jukebox, and kill zombies on into the night.  (You may have to provide your own Winchester.)
Survivability rating: 7

Maxwell’s
This pocket-sized locale, one of the three ZPC bars (with 501 and Grumpy's) on the north side of I-35, might make for a cozy drink, but that just means there's no place to hide from the zombie hordes. On the other hand, the bar's website refers to it as downtown's "best kept secret"—so maybe the real zombies wouldn't find out about it.
Survivability rating: 3

Preston’s Urban Pub
While Preston's massive "Fish Bowl" cocktails may leave you throughly anesthetized, the horde's butchery will be streamed live over the internet on Preston's bar cam to the horror of your Facebook friends. (And that open patio facing out into Seven Corners? Total kill-zone.)
Survivability rating: 2

Bullwinkle’s Saloon
Potentially, Bullwinkle's could be a fortress: The narrow space and lack of outdoor windows at this Seven Corners mainstay would help keep the undead out, and even if they got inside the second tier and balcony here would help snipers set up a defensible vantage point for shooting. Plus, zombie fighters could take inspiration from the bar's namesake, cartoon moose Bullwinkle, who triumphed every week over the scheming spies Boris and Natasha. If a moose and squirrel can keep international communism at bay, you can defeat the creeping horde of the undead.
Survivability rating: 9

Minneapolis Town Hall Brewery
Town Hall's corner location doesn't make it all that safe (that's a lot of windows to board up), but the nearby Southern Theatre has the potential to hold zombie-on-zombie caged death-matches, which ought to provide some entertaining distraction before your imminent death. 
Survivability rating: 4

Corner Bar
The question here is: Do zombies like to sing? (Bub, the tame zombie in Day Of The Dead, learns to enjoy using a Walkman, so the answer is probably yes.) The Corner's "zombieoke" may attract the zombie hordes, and besides, anyone who drunkenly belts off-key Bon Jovi probably deserves to be eaten.
Survivability rating: 5

Acadia Cafe
With a prominent location on Cedar Avenue and Fourth Street, a frequent lack of cover charges for live music (real zombies often forget to bring cash) and—worst of all—a long row of tall windows facing the street, Acadia would be a veritable brains buffet for the staggering undead. Plus, they're offering "barbecued limbs" to hungry bargoers—turkey legs, not human ones, but would real zombies be able to tell the difference?   
Survivability rating: 0

Red Sea
Irony has been called history's tastiest dish, and you'll get a full helping as this aptly named restaurant and bar is filled ankle deep with the blood of your friends and loved ones. Like the Ethiopian cuisine the Red Sea specializes in, brains are also a finger food.
Survivability rating: 4

Nomad World Pub
The tagline of Dawn Of The Dead was "when there's no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the Earth"—so who better to stand with than Lusurfer, the self-proclaimed "world's most satanic surf-rock band"? Then again, devilish tunes like "Hang 10 People" and "Surf Bloody Surf" may just get the zombies' energy up. The Nomad's "you-bring-it-you-grill-it" policy on the outdoor patio either presents survivors with a novel cooking opportunity (filet le zombié?) or a huge dose of irony (zombies perfer their meat "rare"). The bocce ball court offers outdoor weaponry, if you're caught before you can escape behind the safety of the walls. And the Nomad's pet-friendly policy means your beloved Fido (not this one, we hope) can escape the apocalypse with you.
Survivability rating: 9

Palmer’s
With no windows and a well-caged patio area, Palmer's should provide decent zombie protection. Once the zombies find a way in, the intimate setting might not be so ideal, though the backyard fire pit coupled with the highly flammable drinks might hold zombies back momentarily.
Survivability rating: 6

Bedlam Theater
The Bedlam's rooftop patio is a definite plus, as height is not a zombie's friend.  Party like Nero fiddling on the deck of the Titanic on a sea of mixed metaphors, watching the city below drown in its own detritus. 
Survivability rating: 8

Triple Rock Social Club
A true anti-zombie stronghold. Not only is the Triple Rock staffed by tattooed no-nonsense punk rockers, but the main concert area features a hallway killzone, no windows, a concrete floor (for easy cleanup) and a $10 cover charge for the Big Quarters show.
Survivability rating: 9

Whiskey Junction and The Joint
See all those Harleys parked outside? In the event of a zombie apocalypse, bikers are good to make friends with. (And bad to make enemies with: Remember, it was a roving gang of bikers that loused everything up for the heroes in the shopping-mall-turned fortress of the original Dawn Of The Dead.) If things turn bad, a motorcycle is your best mode of transport for escape, too: Small, maneuverable, and fast.
Survivability rating: 7

Cabooze 
The crawl will culminate at the Cabooze with a performance by MC/VL and a DJ set from Solid Gold. As the evening's endpoint, this is usually the site with the highest concentration of zombies—so in a real plague of the undead, if you wind up here, you've probably already been bitten. Might as well hook up with the rest of the living dead and devour whatever brains remain, then hop the light rail and spread the disease to the rest of the Twin Cities.  
Survivability rating: Braaaaaaaains