Since late June, the Ole Beck VFW Post 209 has hosted lively watch parties for the sun-baked, drama-filled episodes of hit reality show “Love Island USA.” On Monday evenings, the small bar in downtown Missoula fills with women eating takeout pizza, sipping fruity themed cocktails and analyzing the tawdry show, which airs on TVs mounted in between illuminated gun display cases. The bar’s usual poker games quietly continue just adjacent to all the “Love Island” chatter.
“It’s been remarkable,” says Josh Lovejoy, the VFW post’s house committee chair. “We had 35 to 40-odd people in here the other week. It changed our entire approach to Mondays. There’d been talk of closing on Mondays because it was so slow before this.”
“It’s been remarkable. We had 35 to 40-odd people in here the other week.”
The unlikely event represents a shift in programming at the VFW, which has long hosted arts and music to support its nonprofit mission to serve veterans. House Committee Member Jared Perkins says the organization is moving away from hosting late-night local punk shows to offer more sedate events such as the popular Tuesday night trivia contest. “We’re looking for new ideas to showcase our little dive bar,” Perkins says.
Still, the popularity of the “Love Island” nights surprised everyone, including Vanessa Little, the Reddit poster who started it all when she asked on the Missoula Subreddit about where she could watch her favorite show. (By day, Little is an operations manager at a cannabis dispensary.)
“I just wanted to know if a bar would turn on a TV, like even one TV, for me and my friends to watch the show together,” she says. “I’ve seen TikTokers in larger cities where bars host these watch parties like the VFW is doing now. I thought it looked so fun. People watch football or fights in bars to be part of a community, so why not this type of show?”
Perkins saw the Reddit post, and it got him thinking.
“I was like, well, guys can watch sports in bars, why shouldn’t women have something they like?”
He got in touch with Little to figure out a gameplan — “Love Island” airs multiple episodes a week, but they agreed the bar would show two episodes on Mondays — and a bartender devised themed cocktails, including the “Villa Sunset,” a concoction with tequila, pineapple and orange juice, and the “Mugged-Off Mule,” a tangy Moscow mule.
As a longtime “Love Island” fan, Little’s part of the obsessive community that’s grown around the show, which offers as many in-depth analyses and hero and villain narratives as any professional sports league. The tropical setting of “Love Island” also offers some sense of escape.
“It is so different than our normal day-to-day life here,” Little says, “and right now in the world we live in we need a distraction.”
She’s among the millions of fans who vote for their favorite contestants, and chose Iris and Pepe, in case you’re familiar with the show, for best couple — a safe choice at press time, but the tables can turn quickly.
The “Love Island USA” regular season concludes with a finale this weekend, so the VFW will move up the weekly watch party to Sunday, July 13 at 6 p.m. But the party isn’t over: VFW staff say “Love Island” night will continue through July 21 to air the post-finale episodes and “Beyond the Villa” spinoff series. Find details on the VFW’s Facebook event page.
After that, Perkins says the VFW welcomes input on which reality show to air next. Which delights Little, who thinks a small downtown dive bar and local reality TV fans are — unlike so many “Love Island” couples — a perfect match.
