You know you’re in a dive bar when…

[rideit]

When, at 1:30;AM or so, a local ‘lady’ (possibly missing some teeth) gets up on the bar, and takes her shirt off, and everyone yells at her to put her clothes back on, throws things at her, and calls her a fat slut.

(Dive bar in Laramie, around 2002)

[BmillsSkier]

Your dive bar must be open on all major holidays from mother's day to Christmas.






Must have appealing drink specials.




And an appealing reason to drink there:

[liv2ski]

Now that is a funny sign. Holy shit if someone has actually had that thought.

[mcski]

There should be absolutely no window or way to see into the bar from outside. Preferably a heavy, weather beaten door w chipped paint guarding the entrance w a much ignored “No Minors Allowed” sign posted next to it

[teleee]

When, at 1:30;AM or so, a local ‘lady’ (possibly missing some teeth) gets up on the bar, and takes her shirt off, and everyone yells at her to put her clothes back on, throws things at her, and calls her a fat slut.

(Dive bar in Laramie, around 2002)

Bar tended there while going to college at UW, can confirm the dive bar status.


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[TBS]

More clues in names:

- Alcohol advertising in place of a name.
- Just "Bar".
- Someone's Place. Like, Dave's Places or Steve's Place.


Also, the number of windows seems proportional with the dive factor with less being more. Especially landscape windows.

Joe’s Place Portland OR
In a part of town with a heavily minority population at the time.
Sponsored my softball team, of which I was one of three white guys
Entire juke box selection was black artists
Walking in after games I could hear the Sesame St Song in my head “one of these people is not like the others…”

My favorite part back then was the Goldwing Honda half assembled in the corner. A black “motorcycle enthusiast club” hung out there a lot

Looks like Joe shut down and retired about 20 years ago and now it’s gentrified
https://www.wweek.com/portland/artic...g-goodbye.html

[AK47bp]

Oh man. I grew up in the dive bar capital, Pittsburgh. Too many to count.

Certain bars had regulars with their own seats and some of those regulars fought each other when wasted, the fight ends, they sit back at the bar and keep drinking. No cops, not thrown out, there every day. Funny shit.

My good friend’s uncle owns “Take A Break” dive bar in a section of McKees Rocks called “The Bottoms” because you had to go underneath a bridge to get there and it was along the river in a mostly abandoned section of town. Worse part of a bad neighborhood but was the best place to pregame before the clubs.

[MarsB]

Oh man. I grew up in the dive bar capital, Pittsburgh. Too many to count.

This is the truth. I'd include all of western PA.



A Morgantown Icon. Complete with feisty Irish bartender Lucy, day drunks, college students, and the Gene's special - a chili dog served using a pepperoni roll as a bun.

[AK47bp]

This is the truth. I'd include all of western PA.



A Morgantown Icon. Complete with feisty Irish bartender Lucy, day drunks, college students, and the Gene's special - a chili dog served using a pepperoni roll as a bun.

Used to drive to Morgantown as a teenager because you only needed to be 18 to get into bars.

[detrusor]

I can’t describe it I know it when I see it. My 2 favorites are both in Helena MT. The Red Meadow (kitty corner from the jail….danny took the liquor license to the new golf course) and Hap’s, across from the train tracks. Haps had (has?) 2 pool tables with 3 different balls (like 6’s, 8’s and cues). I was politely putting the peanut shells in a bowl and the bartender slapped both bowls off the bar and yelled “THE FUCKIN SHELLS GO ON THE FLOOR”. Good times and happy to be sober

[AK47bp]

The comments are hilarious.

“The building looks like it has Hep C”

https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/s/tzEhsDsVwU

[Name Redacted]

All of our dive bars have either gone out of business or been pushed out by development. One that recently closed its doors has been operating as a speakeasy till the property sells. Not sure if legal, but sure is fun.

The ODI was encased in steel and glass but has yet to reopen to the public. Pretty funny.

Cala is too expensive to be a dive now. Food is way better though.

Pub down Under was pushed out. Now some fuckin resort will be built in its place.

Only the Moosejaw survives. For now…

[MakersTeleMark]

The Mineshaft, Winnemucca, NV. Has never had a lock on the door because it has never closed. I've seen some crazy shit go down in there.

Read the reviews: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mikes-mine-shaft-winnemucca

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

E Clampus Vitus

Always some fun shit when clampers are involved.

[halliday]

The Mineshaft, Winnemucca, NV. Has never had a lock on the door because it has never closed. I've seen some crazy shit go down in there.

Read the reviews: https://www.yelp.com/biz/mikes-mine-shaft-winnemucca

I drilled out of Elko for quite a few years and of course the only other city in Nevada is Winnemucca. Mike's is not a bad place to have a few and shoot some pool, or shoot the bull shit. It can get a little tough in there but not a bad place at all. Thanks for posting this, it brings back memories. I read some of the reviews and my question to the reviewers is who the fuck goes there to eat? You go there to get fucked up and hang out. Then hit the McDonald's drive through on the way back to the hotel.

[2FUNKY]

E Clampus Vitus

Always some fun shit when clampers are involved.

We know how to throw down. [emoji6]


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[romeo tango]

The Pit
Seward, AK

[muted reborn]

I drilled out of Elko for quite a few years

Elko? It might have been Goldies where a waitress offered a friend a $5 blowjob in the parking lot after closing.

Some of these bars posted just look like local bars that locals hang out and probably think it's decent. Dive bars have to be more seedy IMO. Some of you get exactly what a dive bar is for sure.

[muted reborn]

The Pit
Seward, AK

they sell Dogfish 120 there.

[TBS]

I guess The Mint in Sheridan WY could count.
Been around since the turn of the 20th century
Great selection of stuffed dead animals, cattle brands and other assorted cowboy paraphernalia.
The usual assortment of local drunks.
Great beer selection when I was there - Coors, Budweiser, Miller and their light derivatives.

First time I walked in, at about 4pm on a Monday, there were two white women beating the shit out of each other with pool cues. And it wasn’t rodeo week.

About half my other visits also featured drunken pugilists.

https://www.mintbarwyo.com/take-a-walk/

[I Skied Bandini Mountain]

Back around 1990 my wife and I were coming back from TSV and stopped in Abe's in Arroyo Seco for a couple of beers. I don't know what it's like now, but back then it was kinda low. Not long after we sat down some guy came in the door wanting to use the phone. Obviously not local, he started complaining about his rental breaking down. Bartender rolled his eyes and asked what beer he wanted while he was waiting for the tow truck. Touron declined the beer and asked for a mineral water. Holy shit you'd think he asked to fuck the bartender's mom.

[XXX-er]

Great beer selection when I was there - Coors, Budweiser, Miller and their light derivatives.]

this statement puts your credibilty at risk

[TBS]

this statement puts your credibilty at risk

I guess I should have said “great selection of dive bar beer”

[ötzi]

I used to go to this place near where I lived in NE DC, it was a definite hole in the wall but we had fun and they let me run up a big tab over time because I had no money. I'd pay like $50 off the tab and they'd let me run up a couple hundie more on it before they started bugging me again. And then one day it was closed and that was it. Talk about mixed emotions.

[billyk]

In Texas, especially around Houston, dive bars are often what’s called ice houses. In the pre-airconditioned south, they would often be just a covered patio with plastic strip curtains instead of walls and a swamp cooler using a large fan blowing across a block of ice to cool the place down. A good place for a working man to stop off after work on a 110 degree day and drink a few cool beers.

Most of them have converted to air conditioning by now, but I remember at least one of them still using the swamp cooler method and plastic curtains when I was a kid working as a boiler maker along the ship channel.

My dad, who worked as an engineer at the Johnson Space Center, knew all the dive bars in the area and spent a lot of time at a group of bars up on stilts in Kemah, which could certainly qualify as dive bars. They were up on stilts to avoid flooding from hurricanes, plus the fact that the land was subsiding. They had boardwalks between the bars and the parking lots that they had to keep raising as the land kept sinking.

Looking at the map now, it appears they tore those bars down, and built a fancy waterfront complete with fancy steak houses and an amusement park. OK, I guess, but a little sad piece of lost history. Places where you were likely to find oil wildcatters shooting the shit with an astronaut over a beer or six.