You walk into your local bar and order a beer. Your server brings your order, along with a few snacks to nibble on while sipping your brew: dates and some dried fish.

This was likely the experience for patrons at what might be the world’s oldest-known bar.

Archaeologists recently excavated a site in Iraq dating to around 2700 B.C. in the ancient Sumerian city-state of Lagash that they think could contain the oldest tavern ever discovered.

“We found the remains of a public eatery, the earliest that we are aware of in one of the first cities of southern Mesopotamia,” said Holly Pittman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and project director of the excavation.

An international team of researchers from Penn and the University of Pisa announced the discovery this month. The site was uncovered in the fall at Tell al Hiba, in southeastern Iraq, about 150 miles from the modern port city of Basra.

Archaeologists found a seven-room structure featuring an open courtyard with benches and a large open cooking area with a 10-foot-wide mud-brick oven. They also discovered a primitive refrigerator. Known as a “zeer” in Arabic, the device consisted of two bottomless clay jars that used evaporation to help cool perishable items.

In another room, the team discovered a large quantity of conical bowls that held ready-to-eat food and jars that the archaeologists think contained beer.

“We’re trying to find out now through lipid analysis what was in the bowls or the jars,” said Pittman, who is also Near East curator at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. “But it looks like this was kind of a McDonald’s with prepared food for fast service.”

Lagash was once a bustling community with a thriving commercial district in southern Mesopotamia, known today as the “cradle of civilization.” Lagash was one of the oldest cities of the Early Dynastic period, about 2900-2350 B.C.