It has all the ambiance of derelict flophouse. If you did not know it was there, you would never stop or even slow down in this neighborhood. However, people know it is there enough that major websites like Thrillist rank it as the top (does that mean worst?) dive bar in the nation.

Craft cocktails and drop dead gorgeous ladies serving it up are nice and all, but sometimes you just want a super-still whiskey/Coke served up by a grandmotherly, lifelong bartendress with nicotine-stained fingers who calls you "Hon". Or maybe just hates you outright if she’s having a bad day.

Sometimes you want to sit in the dark, amidst the old, crushed out cigarettes and stale beer smells, nicotine stained walls, and a slightly tilty table, watching people endlessly playing video poker. Or see a fight on TV. With that in mind, we at American Bar want to bring you the best of the…ah, best/worst dive bar in the nation. This is a place where the drinks are as strong as the parking-lot brawlers, the prices are as cheap as the chick you made out with in the bathroom, and the lowest common denominator thrives.

American Bars hails the 2 Way Inn in Detroit. It is very old; the oldest standing bar in Detroit, dating from 1876. It survived riots and the collapse of MoTown, plus an endless streams of bar fights. The 2 Way has also doubled as a store, a jail, a brothel, and a dance hall — Very diverse for such a small dive. Today, it thrives as the Motor City's ultimate dive, with a bar as old as the building -- and it's owned by a dude who'll often fire up the grill after a few cocktails strong enough to level a building on Devil's Night. The patrons range from hipsters to old-timers, the bartenders are surly, and the interior is like a time portal into Detroit's heyday… right down to the dude at the bar who probably never left after his last shift at the plant.

The Two Way Inn has been selling spirits since at least 1876 without stop. It is also confirmed by the Detroit Historical Museum that they were a e speakeasy during Prohibition. The Two Way Inn surely has the longest run of legally and illegally selling drinks to the thirsty for over 140 years. That’s confirmed and it is history and we are the care takers of that history.

Mary Aganowski owns the 2 Way. Mary’s father, Harry Malak, bought the place in 1973 after visiting as a young man and promising to be back to buy the establishment. Decades later after Harry passed away, the bar was passed onto Mary as she had worked and helped run the place since she was 17 years old.

She might be that person who brings your drink and calls you “Hon.”

Don’t you wish there was a dive bar near you?