No Diving.
Illustration by August Northcut
OK, look, I’d be the last person to call my place of employment a dive bar. It’s a bar that has dive-like tendencies, but it doesn’t go the full nine yards and I’m cool with that. I don’t need it to be a dive bar. There are some people who might call it that, and I believe they would be wrong. But that’s OK too. At least with me, because that’s a subject I would hesitate to bring up in a face-to-face interaction anyway. It’s touchy. People have real, visceral reactions. Emotional memories and legitimate feelings and all that. Merriam-Webster and Wikipedia have their say, but even they are quick to concede that the definition of a true dive bar is seldom agreed upon. It’s too personal. The rational starts flying out the window early. So let’s just drop the scientific approach and speak irrationally here.
I brought up my bar to begin with because of something my best friend said a few months ago after a few High Life bottles and shots of Cynar when the real wisdom began to flow. Sitting with his elbows against the red leather bar rail, he began to recall his first time ever coming in to have a drink there, noting that we had probably only been open a few days. He felt what he described as a “vibe.” A feeling that can’t be bought. A level of instant comfort. He knew immediately we would be the after work spot for pretty much every restaurant and bar around there, and he was mostly correct in his forecast.
(L) The backbar at The Nach Bar in the Germantown neighborhood in Louisville, Ky. Photo courtesy of Sara Fontaine for Neon Bites.
(R ) Ernest Grubbs Jr, Ernest Grubbs and Raymond Grubbs shooting pool at a dive bar in Moreland, Ky in 1948.
What constitutes that undeniable atmosphere is the $2 draft beer question. I would argue that the answer lies far beneath the surface of what the eye can see. No amount of new renovation, nor layers of neglected grime for that matter, can really communicate an order of essential detachment that we so often are dying to follow. There is a point where a place and its people together weave a living, breathing soul out of the day-in day out movements of operation. A cumulation of input from all parties. A Megazord built to combat real life. There is no one action or quality that defines it.
That’s why dive bars, specifically, are such a romantic and sometimes divisive subject. Their existence is, in a way, determined by an unquantifiable standard. They are the reluctant and oftentimes accidental masters of chill. The trickle-down effect of an unvexed and uncomplicated business ideal poured directly into the pint glasses of its everyday regulars. Cheap imitations are, and should be, outed and ignored. No one cares, no one worries, everybody gets it. They’re selling a feeling, not just a beer. It's just an added bonus that the beer is more affordable here.
There’s a few loosely tangible aspects I could nail down if I really had to:
These places are rarely, if ever, an extended arm of a bar or restaurant group. I’ve seen other bars or restaurants grow out of a great dive bar, but never the other way around. These are establishments all their own.
If (and that's a very strong if) the place has joined us in the modern social media nightmare world, their promotional posts on community and neighborhood facebook pages are solid gold comedy without even trying. Thank you for being you, Pop’s Place.
No one has ever, in a press release or in their own words, said they were going to open a dive bar and told the truth. The level of self-awareness involved defeats the purpose entirely. Around here, every other new bar, especially in this post-shutdown era of turnkey bar and restaurant openings, promises to be a dive bar. Good luck, dummy.
I wouldn’t go as far to say there's an age requirement to be invited to the club, but longevity helps. Time passes, tchotchkes accumulate, bartenders and regulars both come and go. Maybe (more than likely) the neighborhood changes, but the place stays a beacon to the old ways.
On the subject of bartenders, there’s pretty much only two kinds of dive bar employees. There’s the grizzled, grumpy ones and then there’s the nicest people on planet earth. The former will let you into the inner circle after you’ve proven yourself to not be a total asshole (which constitutes one of the greatest levels of satisfaction ever experienced by a bar guest), and the latter are just impossibly pleasant, a ray of golden sunshine. Mistreat either at your own peril.
We’re talking beers and shots here, folks. I think every place has its own unwritten way of making a Margarita, and I wouldn’t trust most of them.
Their only Yelp review goes a little something like this (courtesy of Daryl’s E.): “It's cash only, they serve beer out of an igloo cooler, there'a a stereo with a cassette deck in the back, they have pickles in a bag, the men's room has a big trough to wiz in, they have whiskey, they have a tv if you want to watch jeopardy. Depending on what you want out of life it could be the best bar ever but you'll probably hate it.” Five Stars.
‘Depending on what you want out of life...’ is the crux of every dive’s mission statement. There’s a place and time to put on something nice, have a cocktail, try to impress a date with something a little more… refined. But sometimes all you want out of life is a place to shed the conventions of refinement for the relief of raw relaxation. Something a little more in tune with just being and belonging and taking a load off. That usually feels pretty good too.
The Bite Back is an anonymous collective of service industry professionals sounding off about whatever they want. Got something to say? Holler at us.
Banner illustration by August Northcut