“Dive bar.” I didn’t even know there was such a term until my mid-20s when I lived near Dive Bar in New York City. This sleek Upper West Side haunt featured a lengthy menu, including seven salads, a growler program and more than 20 wines by the glass.
While I knew Dive Bar was a blasphemous misnomer, I didn’t actually know how to define a real dive bar because, as it turns out, that was all I knew. Prior to my time in NYC, I had spent most of my drinking years in Kirksville, Mo. There, what I thought were just bars, most people would consider dives.
Since Kirksville – and 10 years of being legal drinking age – I’ve frequented plenty of bars, from the pinnacle of swanky to the epitome of trashy. But whether you call it nostalgia, rose-tinted glasses, or the amazing early-20s ability to never get hangovers, Kirksville bars (and, consequently, dive bars in general), will always have my heart.
Here, my catalog of why I love dive bars, compiled with the help of some seasoned friends. On this commercialized day of love, add your own odes as we celebrate what we truly adore.
• The smell. Tomes could be written about that aroma, and the description still wouldn’t get it quite right, but I’ll try: a perfect blend of spilled Schlitz, vomit, fried food (even when the bar doesn’t serve food), cigarette butts, Southern Comfort and a hamster cage.
• The hallowed walls. There are outlines where art or memorabilia used to hang because of cigarette smoke stains.
• Speaking of cigarettes, the laws, or lack thereof. Somehow there is smoking, even if the city or town abolished smoking two decades ago.
• The hours. The bar opens before the grocery store and is populated by a crowd of regulars who bring the bartender breakfast.
• The regulars. They make the bar. They also make fun of those who call themselves regulars.
• The wine list. There isn’t one. There are only three wine options, none are written down, and all taste like vinegar.
• The lighting. No matter the time of day, it’s dim enough so that even if there was a wine list, you couldn’t read it.
• The karaoke. There is no schedule as to when it happens, but you can always count on at least one couple slow dancing when it does.
• The jukebox. It’s the real-deal – none of that digital crap. Under the sticky, cloudy glass, there are also mixes available for play created by the bar’s owner and staff.
• The random animals. Maybe it’s a dog, or a cat or bird on a shoulder. Or if you’re in Kirksville, it just might be a horse drinking his own pitcher of beer.
• The bartender. There is no stereotype. He might be a 90-year-old gunslinger; she might be a 22-year-old hottie. Either way, they’ll probably wait until a commercial to get you a drink. Unless the TV is playing porn.
• The stuff. There’s a weird collection of objects on or behind the bar, all of which have stories, most of which are bullshit.
• The bathrooms. Even if they have doors, your friend can still talk to you while she’s in there and you’re at the bar.
• The popcorn. Nobody knows or cares if it’s free.
• The knowledge. The bartender knows who wants to keep his old ice in his next drink because it’s been marinating in Canadian whiskey all afternoon.
• The taps. They haven’t been cleaned, ever. Perhaps part of the smell?
• The drinks. Stiff is an understatement. There also are no actual instruments to measure a pour.
• And lastly, this bar, wherever it’s located, isn’t trying to be a dive bar. And that’s why we love it the most.
This article appears in February 2014.