He's Not turns cups pink for breast cancer research

For over 40 years, He’s Not Here has been the home of the Blue Cup — but this October, the cups changed for the first time.

He’s Not made their signature Blue Cup pink to raise money for breast cancer research.

Matt Mehok, one of the owners of the bar, said a percentage of proceeds from each Pink Cup will be donated to breast cancer research.

“Part of our mission when we bought the bar was to give back always,” he said. “With October being breast cancer awareness, we thought it could make a real nice impact by changing the cup for the first time in 40 years to the Pink Cup. We thought it would get a big following behind it, and that’s why we did it.”

The proceeds from the Pink Cups will be split between two organizations — 1in9, a charity based in Raleigh, and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

There are a limited number of cups, and the sale will go until the end of October, unless they run out first.

“We are at least gonna give a couple thousand dollars, depending on how it all goes, but we expect the cups to go pretty quick,” Mehok said. “We’re gonna be in the thousands providing for those two charities.”

Mehok, who graduated from UNC in 1993, said he’s been very pleased by the support He’s Not has received from the community and students.

He said the reception for the color change of the cups has been great, as they have gotten a tremendous response on social media.

“The pictures, the spread and the likes on all platforms of social media has been outstanding,” he said.

Mari Norcross and Mary Anne Kavjian, both UNC alumni, said they saw the Pink Cups on Instagram and drove a combined three and a half hours to He’s Not to celebrate the birthday of Porter, a Bernese Mountain Dog.

“We decided we wanted to throw Porter a birthday party,” Norcross said. “We were thinking Raleigh first, then we saw these on Instagram and then we thought ‘hmm, let’s go to He’s Not instead.’”

Porter was celebrating his second birthday on Sunday night.

Kavjian said she was surprised He’s Not made the color change for the cups because the bar has not made many changes over the years.

“It’s a cool idea, but it was even more surprising just because it was the only change they’ve ever made to their cups at all,” she said.

Kavjian said she was curious about future opportunities for multi-colored cups at He’s Not.

“We were talking about it earlier, are they going to do this all the time now with different colors and different things, or is this a one-time thing?” Kavjian said. “It opens a lot of doors for things to do in the future.”

@erin_kolstad

city@dailytarheel.com