What is your favorite dive bar?

In your town? In the whole wide world?

Also, what is the diviest bar you've ever been to?

Li Po on Grant Ave in SF

also Specs' on William Saroyan Place

Li Po is great. But I can't believe they still let people party in that basement, absolute death trap.

anecdotes characterizing the hyperspecific strain of proprietary scuzz that makes your dive your dive, please

I saw a Rudimentary Penii cover band play in the Li Po basement

Right around the corner is the Red Derby, next to Lyman’s Tavern, two great DC dives.

My favorite overseas dives are a couple of places I went to in Osaka. One of them had a big friendly dog who would run up to the door and look out the window whenever a regular left.

There used to be this tiny 'alcoholic' bar out of Barfly on Kirkwood in Bloomington, IN. that opened up at 6am and closed at like 3pm that was a crazy sad place at times to get drunk back in the early 90s (that had probably been around for decades). It wasn't a particularly dirty place or anything, but you could buy shots of stuff like Ripple and Manischewitz which were basically a glass of wine in a jelly jar. I went there partying after work in a bar a few times, but they had a series of regulars that would be lined up like the DMV before opening.

Cleveland's Spitfire Saloon (RIP) was the coolest punk dive bar we played a gig. People got loooooossee in that joint, especially down in the basement.

Melody Inn home of Punk Rock Night every Saturday night for about 25 years in Indianapolis is an awesome place too.

The Buccaneer
https://patch.com/california/sierramadre/the-buccaneer-an-appreciation

The bar in Bloomington was like in the same side of the street, next building over from the Irish Lion, which is still there (and a good place to eat/drink) for those that know the town.

I also do dearly love Li Po, and its basement is a indeed death trap.

1. Ontario Bar, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
2. The Alibi, Fort Greene, Brooklyn
3. The Bushwick Country Club, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Those are my favorites.

The diviest bar I’ve ever frequented is called Mama Ventura’s in Gettysburg, my college town. The smoking! The fights!

35+ years ago in SF, Mabuhay Gardens would have been it, it was an amazing place

I have played in the Li Po basement (not in a cover band though). Buddha Lounge and especially Bow Bow are also A+ dive bars. Ugh I miss SF so much.

Anyone know any good dive bars in Atlanta? I don’t think I know of any I like. Everywhere’s like “try our pork nachos!” Only bars I can think of that don’t serve food blog food are venues.

My uncle's band played for years at The Howling Dog in Fairbanks, Alaska, which is technically not in Fairbanks but in Fox, the next town over. It's huge and drafty and impossible to heat, so it generally closes for the winter right after Halloween. It's a longish drive, and you risk hitting a moose every time you drive out there on a dark icy night in late fall. I miss it a lot.

It kinda looks like a huge ramshackle cabin with a stage and dance floor, and it's got the usual dive bar decor - bras, signed dollar bills, album covers, weird-ass art projects - but the centerpiece is the red carpet on the stage, which was originally rolled out for a historic meeting between the pope and the president at the Fairbanks airport in 1984. I asked my uncle once how the carpet got to the bar, and all he said was, "My buddy Steve. He lays carpet," which didn't really answer the question.

former sf-er here. li po is a great spot but i thought they finally closed the basement some time ago. i could be wrong.

it’s now burned down, but the 3300 on mission and 29th was a fantastic place. clooney’s on 25th was a similar vibe.

xp Lily Dale, it sounds like the dive bars I can't name but that I went to in my youth, that I now realize were Lynchian cabins in rural areas near my home in upstate NY

the big hunt

it has multiple sides and levels and i have wrecked myself in all of them

Seems like Covid will kill off a lot of these places... The "mixology" bars have been able to pivot, doing pop-up food pairings and premixed Mason jar cocktails for takeout. But the real dive bars, the ones whose fanciest cocktail is maybe a screwdriver - they seem to all be closed right now and not bringing any money in. (Kaye's in Oakland falls into this latter category.)

i live in a small city and i think at least 10 or 12 bars here have been closed by the health dept or had their liquor license pulled over the last 6 months due to ignoring covid restrictions - masks, capacity, being open at all during full-lockdown periods.

one of them got busted when a BLM march went past, and a packed-to-capacity barful of unmaksed staff and patrons crowded out onto the patio to yell racial slurs, moon, and wave knives(!) at the marchers. Place was boarded up the next day - lucky it didnt get torched tbh.

xp to myself - dive bars, im referring to, in case its not clear. the mixology/gastropub bars are all toughing it out fine