Night falls in the city and you need yourself a drink.

Noon comes to a sleepy little town and you’re too broke to buy lunch.

It’s morning in America, do you know where your dive bar is?

American Dive Bars has saved you the considerable trouble of tracking down this elusive beast, as we maintain the most extensive catalogue of dives from North American coast to coast. But now that you know where the dive bars are, what does a dive bar mean (to the great people of this frenetic North American scene, as it were)?

ADB put a pencil in my hand and kicked me out the door saying, “Go get us answers. Ask the people. Do some damn journalism.”“I’ll need a retainer,” I said.

It was a bold request, but the mean streets of the Southland are not known for dispensing wanton charity to petty journalists.

I received my answer in the form of a deadline. God have mercy.

I went on an odyssey of sorts. An odyssey in the sense of Odysseus, voyaging home after a long, long day at the office. But along the way, as I usually am, I was sidetracked. Somewhere on the edge of Rosecrans or Signal Hill or Beach Boulevard or Crenshaw I fell into a bar and into a slapstick conversation. “What’s a dive bar?” I heard myself ask. “Gesundheit,” I heard. There were faces of long dead vaudevillians spooking me in the mirrors like the animatronic muppets in Disney’s Haunted Mansion. Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton were at my elbows, the bartender a former Hell’s Angel named Puck. “You born with that name?” I asked.

“I am that merry wanderer of the night,” he said, his gray beard turned black from cigar burns and axle grease. “And stop hitting on the customers, mac.”

I recoiled. Buster and Charlie turned out to be two off-duty nurses with sixty years between them and I’d already bought them both a drink. I decided it was going to be a long time before I saw home again. As more faces appeared in the mirrors, the tall and the small, the odd and the upright, I pulled out my pencil and my tape recorder.

What is a Dive Bar?  Asked and Answered!

American Dive Bars canvassed readers up and down the West Coast to find out just how they define the term “dive bar.” We asked them point blank, “What is a dive bar?”

Below are the 18 best answers from pub patrons and tavern trawlers across Southern California...

#1 "Dive bars are seedy places that transport one back to the glorious days of the past when heroic figures like Charles Bukowski trolled the seedy underside of urban Los Angeles just trying to get drunk or inspired or both."

The light is dim, the cushions on the seats are ripped, and a grizzled man who looks like he was just released from prison this morning does a shot at 10:00 AM. This is a place to get buzzed or drunk or plastered without anyone paying much attention. This is a place where the drinks are cheap and so is the décor. This is the modern definition of a dive bar. I’ve known several in my time, and while I found them to be repellent places, I also found them to be a source of comfort, kind of like a dysfunctional home away from home.

There are times in one’s life when just such a bar is called for. It’s definitely not the kind of place where you would bring a date, unless of course he or she was already drunk, or raised in a trailer park. Instead, it’s a comfort zone. The dive bar is an alternative to the fern bar or the yuppie bar or the sports bar. In many ways, it’s the last bastion for those of us who still cling to the way things used to be before corporate America took over everything and cleaned it all up.

Dive bars are seedy places that transport one back to the glorious days of the past when heroic figures like Charles Bukowski trolled the seedy underside of urban Los Angeles just trying to get drunk or inspired or both. Set in this historical context, the dive bar can be seen as a fixture on the American landscape. I’d be willing to bet that nearly every town in this country has one. I was recently in a small town in Idaho with a population of around 700 and, lo and behold, in that isolated place I found what I was looking for… a real dump. I went inside and proceeded to tie one on. The people were low down and dirty and so was I. Why wouldn’t I be? I was in a dive bar after all, a place where nobody knows your name.

- Jeffrey

"Dive bars of today are still usually small but they are often swanky, artistic, neighborhood pubs"

I would have to say, the idea of a Dive Bar has changed a dramatically within the last 20 years or so. It used to be a small, dark, dilapidated bar, overran by burly males that were the local alcoholics or stressed out blue collar worker. Overtime this concept has changed. The dive bars of today are still usually small but they are often swanky, artistic, neighborhood pubs. They offer some simple bar food, have a juke box playing and often by 5 PM filled with local professionals enjoying a “signature cocktail” after a long day... This is not to say one cannot find an authentic dark watering hole these days; it's just that our contemporary lifestyle has made it a little harder.

- Renee

#2 "There is a lonely man in his forties finishing off a PBR tall boy."

Twenty-year-old wooden floorboards...coolers stocked with an endless supply of aluminum cans. Thirteen sparsely seated bar stools in front of a bearded bartender who plays in a local metal band. In one dim lit corner there is a 53-year-old man sitting on a bar stool with an unwashed black Rottweiler at his feet. He peers out of the one eye that is unobstructed by his gray, greasy hairs dangling down as he lifts his mug and takes a sip. He has a hook for a hand. There are two bearded hipsters hovering over the jukebox exchanging, or contesting, the depths of each other’s musical knowledge. Someone walks into the bathroom with one urinal and two stalls. Only one of the stalls lock and only one of them has toilet paper. Above the urinal there is handwriting that covers the entire wall and ceiling. He zips up, reaches into his back pocket, and puts a sticker of his band on the wall. There is a lonely man in his forties finishing off a PBR tall boy. He catches the bartender’s eye and the bartender nods. The bartender comes back with two shots of Jameson in his hand. He drops one off in front of the man, and the other in front of the guy from the bathroom. The man holds up his shot glass, and the two take the shots.

- Joseph

#3  "To the left are the regulars, the men flirting with the bartender (who is a 10 on their scale)."

A claustrophobic’s nightmare is what a dive bar is. The woman next to me is giving me the eye; she probably just wants another free apple martini. The place looks like a museum. Each part of the bar is a different exhibit. In the middle you have the dancers, women wearing short skirts, dresses, corsets, trying to show off their bodies to all the horn dogs in the bar. To the left are the regulars, the men flirting with the bartender (who is a 10 on their scale). The right side of the bar is for the newbies who have never been and are testing the waters of their new-found bar. In this museum you can learn so much, because each exhibit has its own lessons to be taught. How to act, what to drink, when to touch, how to touch; the very edge of the bar of course is another dance floor in itself. This dance floor is full of women who have clearly had too much to drink. Some of the women are seriously thinking about dipping into an alley and washing the streets with their urine.

- Raymond

#4  "And the bartender, Bill or Bob or Hank, will likely be an unkempt, turnip-shaped drink slinger who looks like the caricature of a roadie for some long-forgotten heavy metal band."

The dive bar is not a nightclub or a brewpub. It's not a restaurant (although they might serve deviled eggs and fun-sized bags of potato chips). It's just a bar, an old-fashioned, unapologetic watering hole where folks go when they don't want to go anywhere. There's booze-addled harmony inside its fabled walls, a feeling of membership to an unestablished club. The guy slumped at the far end, his clenched face brooding over his brew and his jackknifed body spent, he might've been a truck driver with a quiet wife pining at home while he arrowed across the country in the articulated womb of his big rig. Maybe this was a favorite stop of his. Maybe he kept a snapshot of his wife clipped to the sun visor. And the bartender, Bill or Bob or Hank, will likely be an unkempt, turnip-shaped drink slinger who looks like the caricature of a roadie for some long-forgotten heavy metal band. His nose might balloon from his face like a deep sea creature, and his complexion could be aged and textured itself like the ocean floor. And, barnacled there behind the bar, Bill or Bob or Hank will seem like an organic extension of the actual place, of those cloudy bottles and that rickety furniture. You might imagine (after a couple cold ones) that shutting down each night involves an unseen employee shuffling in there and tucking Bill under the floorboards. But the bartender, whatever his name is, will be the kind of unnaturally punctual bartender too good to be true, and after a while your drinks might appear to be filling themselves.

This is a dive bar, and sitting within the quivering halo of light beneath those ancient neon signs for Pabst and High Life, a potent nostalgia might break over you, the old thrill of a shared experience that transcends every known and unknown separation.

- Andrew

#5  "There are no DJs spinning eardrum splitting, earth shattering songs that are more base than music."

The green on the pool tables is aged and scratched up to the point where it looks more like cheap Astroturf. The sign name is in desperate need of an update - it looks like a relic of the ‘70s. It’s Cheers without the theme song. It’s a place where all the locals go to unwind, badger the bartender and to get a good buzz going. Modest, unpretentious and almost kitschy – dive bars are the opposite of what a club should be. There are no DJs spinning eardrum splitting, earth shattering songs that are more bass than music. Instead there’s a jukebox that gives the option of playing the top Billboard hits of past decades – from Bohemian Rhapsody to a once popular Gwen Stefani song, now long forgotten. There’s no dance floor to grind on but, if you’re lucky, there are pool tables to do some hustlin’. There’s no glamour, no sleek aesthetics that many hip places try to pull off. Sometimes you’ll find a place that looks like its being held together by Elmer’s school glue. Yet there’s a reason why it’s still being held together.

Nobody goes to dive bars because of its fancy interior design or architecture. You have the people who go for the cheap beer and the Tequila Tuesdays, and then you have those that go for the run-down charms of a dive bar. A dive bar is about the community and their love for alcohol.

- Henry

#6  "In my opinion, a dive is an informal local establishment that houses cheap (stiff) drinks, bar games and unpretentious people."

Oh dive bars, the splendor of cheap drinks, bad deco and weird patrons! What does it take to qualify as a dive? Music playing on the Jukebox? A dimly lit creepy room? Dingy old battered bar stools? I’ve realized that people are pretty passionate about their local neighborhood hangouts, but dives are slowly disappearing and being replaced with the new modern “faux dive bar” trend. You know what I’m talking about…those hipster craftsman hangouts that pop up and aesthetically look old - but it’s actually new. “What is a dive bar?” In my opinion, a dive is an informal local establishment that houses cheap (stiff) drinks, bar games and unpretentious people. A couple of my favorites are:

1) The V Room: Located in Long Beach, CA. The epitome of creepy dive bars. I love how I can always count on this dive to have a slew of people from bikers to hipsters to the occasional LB gangster killer (literally!). Offering very strong drinks and a jukebox full of Punk Rock music, this place is sure to stay on my list of classic dives. 2) Naja’s Place: In Redondo Beach, CA. Over 88 beers on tap! It’s located in the marina, right on the water and almost always has a ton of people pouring out of the open windows. Okay, so I like this place because it’s a typical beach bar without the pretentious cool crowd and I also like a good beer once in a while - none of that PBR, Coors, Bud stuff. It’s definitely an older dad crowd but it is fun to stop here while on a bike ride. 2) Cha Cha Lounge: Located in Silver Lake, CA. this is one of those “faux dives” but I still like it. Younger cool crowd, cheap drinks, unique deco, and they have a photo booth, which makes for an interesting time. Best part is that they always have a taco truck outside on the weekends, yum!

So I’ve come to the conclusion that a modern definition of a dive bar is really only in the eye of the beerholder (pun intended)!

- Amanda

#7  "Its customers ranged from the loud and the young to handsome men and women in office attire to a small knot of male and female bikers, to a very passive elderly couple."

About three years ago, a flirt from a ragtag cluster of actors invited me to something called “The Fire Fox,” which she defined as a “dive bar.” I was curious what this would turn out to be. “Dive” was the word I had once heard for a cheap diner I knew to specialize in sludgy food, chiefly ingested by bitter ectomorphs who looked like junkies. Feeling adventurous, I followed the noisy tribe of stage artists to the Fire Fox. It turned out to be just a bar: nothing sleazy, just a less-than-expensive tavern with a surprising variety of clientele. Its customers ranged from the loud and the young to handsome men and women in office attire to a small knot of male and female bikers, to a very passive elderly couple. As to the fare consumed, I remember ordering a Long Island Iced Tea for only $6.00 and getting a small glass that contained more ice than anything else. If you ordered beer, of course, you got the standard amount. I didn’t spend much money in the dive bar, and didn’t drink much, but neither did anyone else. “Dive bar” drinks may be less expensive, but these days, drinks at any price are expensive, and a lot of us are more likely to socialize in a dive coffee shop.

- Ronald

#8  "Dive bars are the places that are absent the pomp and circumstance associated with the “club” scene."

The traditional notion of a dive bar being a dank, dilapidated, drunkard-infested place to get cheap, stiff drinks has changed. It is no longer a seedy place, but rather a home away from home - often referred to as “my bar” by its patrons. Dive bars are the places that are absent the pomp and circumstance associated with the “club” scene. A place devoid, often disdainful, of overpriced, gimmicky drinks and thumping subwoofers impeding customers’ conversation. They are the anti-scene.

Now, to be fair, just because “dive bar” has taken on a new feeling does not necessarily mean it can’t also be a dank, dilapidated, drunkard-infested place to get cheap, stiff drinks. Although dive bars may very well be a place where Pabst Blue Ribbon flows for two bucks and the wall-mounted jukebox only has songs worthy of karaoke night, many are associated with local craft beers and time-intensive cocktails. These “new” dives are a cleaner, more stylish definition of a dive bar, with the emphasis more on craft than drink. But no matter the type of décor or booze being slung, the definition of a dive bar has changed. Once a place you would only go to in order to find your alcoholic uncle, it has now come to mean: Your favorite neighborhood bar.

- Raymond

#9  "That bar was well-lit, had a friendly bartender, nobody ever got drunk there despite massive consumption of alcohol, and everybody knew your name."

Let’s start with what a dive bar is not. It is not that bar you see on reruns of Cheers. That bar was well-lit, had a friendly bartender, nobody ever got drunk there despite massive consumption of alcohol, and everybody knew your name. Also, neither Diane nor Rebecca ever took their tops off and started dancing on tables. Carla may have once or twice. It is not that bar that Billy Joel sings about in “Piano Man.” That bar could afford Billy Joel, and even if he worked free because it was a great place to get piano practice he would have elevated it above dive bar status. Also, that bar had white collar drunks in it. Only blue collar drunks hang out in dive bars or white collar drunks pretending to be blue collar drunks. Most people in dive bars don’t even wear collars (unless it’s a B&D dive bar, but that’s a completely different topic and a completely different type of collar). At a real dive bar, the bartender will not look you in the eyes when you order a drink. The waitress will not look like Diane Chambers, though she may look like Carla. The lighting will be insufficient for reading the menu - if, for some reason, they actually have a menu. And any drink you order that doesn’t have beer in its name will be watered down to the point where it can be legally consumed by 15 year olds. This is why the floor will be so sticky with spilled beer that you will have trouble lifting your feet. On the plus side, you will also have trouble falling down.

- Chris

#10  "The evolution of dive bar positioning coincided with the increase in dive variety, making the requirements to jump over a given bar height somewhat obsolete."

The first dive bars were placed in dangerous positions relative to the location of the diving board. While this provided for a more entertaining experience for spectators, it put the divers' safety in jeopardy. The evolution of dive bar positioning coincided with the increase in dive variety, making the requirements to jump over a given bar height somewhat obsolete. Today's divers have the option of using the dive bar to raise the starting difficulty standard or to eliminate the dive bar and let their dive stand on its own merits. It's clear that as the overall athleticism of divers continues to increase, the dive bar will eventually go the way of the dodo bird.

Oh, wait, you mean THAT kind of dive bar? Oh, okay. The modern definition of a dive bar can be best described by sharing a slogan I saw on a t-shirt during a recent visit to a dive bar: ONE TEQUILA, TWO TEQUILA, THREE TEQUILA, FLOOR.

- Anonymous

#11  "Bars that serve exotic beer and cocktails that take an hour to make and are served by bartenders with advanced degrees in mixology."

Dive Bar—I love that expression. It invokes so many different responses. If I tell my girlfriend I am taking her out to a dive bar, she suggests I find another girlfriend. If I take my Uncle John, chances are he has been there before and associates it with good times. But this raises an interesting point. A generational gap in expectations is responsible for the creation of the modern dive bar. Older generations do not distinguish between bars. To them, the best bar is the one closest to home serving the cheapest beer. That probably has a lot to do with a lack of options. Older generations did not have the kind of choices we enjoy today. For example, before the micro-brew revolution, beer drinkers generally had three options: Budweiser, Miller or Coors. At the same time, artisan cocktails had not come on the scene so your options were the usual Old Fashioned or Tom Collins. Millennials and Xers with income to spare became tired of what had been served for years and demanded something different, something better, bars with character, ambiance and artisan flare. Bars that serve exotic beer and cocktails that take an hour to make and are served by bartenders with advanced degrees in mixology.

Bars that did not keep with the times soon fell from grace and became the modern dive bar. In their best light, they can be seen as a lowbrow hangout for locals who have no better choice. In their worst light, a seedy room where losers retreat. But one thing they share is a lack of artistic flare and character that keep them labeled a dive bar.

- Anthony

#12  "The smell haunted you as a child when you passed by the doorway while holding your mother's hand: a concoction of spilled beer, whiskey sweat, cigarette perma-ash and sin."

The smell haunted you as a child when you passed by the doorway while holding your mother's hand: a concoction of spilled beer, whiskey sweat, cigarette perma-ash and sin. “What's that, Mommy?” you'd ask. “It's a dive bar, sweetie. Keep walking.” Your mother's eyes might have strained, her fingers constricted tightly as the word, “Losers” escaped her teeth. If you were like me, you held to that definition as a kid. Losers go to Dive Bars, that will never be me.

Only as you break into your teens does curiosity re-bloom into fascination as you realize that all those older girls are going in there – the ones in the mini-skirts and tight tees. Suddenly, you are trying to reconcile how hot girls can be going into dives unless of course, mother was lying. Now you and your buddies will give your eye-teeth to get to the juke-boxed source of the Tom Petty and the sheen of the wooden bar in the holy light of the 1990s Zenith. Billiards crack. Laughter peels the sky. You become aware that the dive bar is not some rat-hovel enclave of godforsaken ingrates: it is a RIGHT OF PASSAGE.

In your twenties, you not only frequent dives you make the biggest mistakes of your life in their hemorrhaging restrooms. You acquire a poetic appreciation for the works of Tom Waits and Charles Bukowski and tingle with joy when the round toothless faces of the barflies howl approvingly at your karaoke face-plants. The leather-skinned bartender/owner lady might be a broken-down alcoholic but she has the best rack in the room and a heart twice as big.

As you leave college and discover more upscale joints, the dive bar loses its romanticism. It occurs to you the barflies will never leave. After marriage and kids, you tend to walk a little quicker as you pass the cigarette-laden howls in the doorway. You can try to discourage your child, but it's only a matter of time. Dives are the most abundant of bars in America: Texas, Hoboken, DC, Hollywood... The Right of Passage awaits.

- Michael

#13  "One walks into such a joint looking for the bowling alley that used to be attached to it somewhere along with a greasy spoon coffee shop with old, surly waitresses that generally ignore you."

A generation back, a dive bar was a mongrel little backwater tavern with disheveled, scarred furniture and dim lighting to match the clientele. Fetid scents of stale cigarettes and flat beer mingle beneath musty, classic, Tijuana velvet Elvis portraits sweating on the walls. One walks into such a joint looking for the bowling alley that used to be attached to it somewhere along with a greasy spoon coffee shop with old, surly waitresses that generally ignore you. The sticky floor squeaks and lends sucking noises to each hesitant footfall on the undulating tile floor.

Ah, but that was all in the past, a retro version from the glorious Rat Pack days of Sinatra and Sammy Davis, Jr.

What does the modern Dive Bar look like? Simply read the above paragraph and add these enhanced improvements: The bar is no longer dim, except for the drinkers, thanks to the big, flat screen TV on the wall, replacing Elvis who has moved to the women’s restroom – where it will never be seen by anyone. The TV has had one too many drinks flung at it during disagreements over referee calls and now carries a slightly blurred, green tinged line that undulated up and down diagonally on most channels. The bottles look lighter against the back of the bar because they have been watered down a bit more these days. The partially broken and blinking neon sign at the door states “Wi-Fi here” which works about as well as the sign promoting it. Oh yes, and it should be mentioned that, although the bar still wreaks of stale smoke, the partially burned and pockmarked sign next to the tiny parking lot reads: NO SMOKING. This is a smoke free city. You may only smoke in designated areas. The designated area is under a formally bright patio umbrella next to the parking stalls. It is now brown with nicotine stains. Empty beer bottles and cans clutter its base, right next to a dented waste basket labeled: recycle.

- Scott

#14  "A dive bar isn’t at all akin to a swim-up-bar at a fancy resort; there might be a bikini contest, but ordering a frozen-fruity-foo-foo drink is going to get you some strange looks."

So you wanna know about dive bars? Well, let’s get a few things straight to start: You’re not going to need scuba gear, but you might be able to drown your sorrows with a few stiff drinks and some good conversation. A dive bar isn’t at all akin to a swim-up-bar at a fancy resort; there might be a bikini contest, but ordering a frozen-fruity-foo-foo drink is going to get you some strange looks. There’s no need to put on that slinky, black dress or the jeans-dress-shirt-loose-tie combo you might wear to a hot dance club. And you won’t have to wriggle through a packed sardine can of phonies to order an overpriced drink while being hit on by sloppy drunk college kids, not being able to find seating, or hear your friends yell in your ear. Cover charge? Save your money for a beer and take a seat at the bar or in a back booth at your local dive. It might have inadequate lighting, questionable characters, and eyebrow-raising inspection ratings, but there’s space, a slower pace, and you don’t have to pretend you like anyone you don’t actually want to talk to. Wanna shoot pool? They’ve got it. Need a place to watch the game? Boom, it’s there. Gotta unwind at the end of a rough day? Order a cold one, and whether you go solo or meet up with a few friends, you’ll be saving money and staying sane at your local dive bar.

- Daryl

#15  "The bar in the show, Paddy’s Pub, is a cheap, dirty and dark hole-in-the-wall joint somewhere in Philadelphia, PA."

The modern dive bar is hardly any different from the dive bars during the time of notable “divers” like Charles Bukowski and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Dive bars were, and still are, local gems that have certain quirks about them, which are appreciated by a very specific crowd. For example, the bar in It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. The bar in the show, Paddy’s Pub, is a cheap, dirty and dark hole-in-the-wall joint somewhere in Philadelphia, PA. The patronage is faithful and correspondingly dirty and dark. There is little or no dancing. The bathrooms are gross. The bartenders are just as rowdy as the drinkers. And everyone has a great time! The “fun factor” is likely the most consistent theme among modern dive bars. Sure, people go to dives when they’re depressed and need to get out of the sun for something alcoholic. But when several people caught in the doldrums of life chance upon a meeting in a good dive bar, anything can happen. Drinks meant to drown out depression can open the floodgates of conversation in a dive bar. Troubles with an ex-wife can be a common talking point with a neighbor or a lost job can become a new opportunity in a dive bar. And of course, everyone there will love whiskey.

Clubs and popular nightlife venues get popping on weekends, but these crowds are constantly recycled and refreshed. They come in and go out and have little or no concern for the personality of the bar they drink at. Dive bar patrons revere the bars they frequent and thus treat them and other regulars with respect (and free shots of whiskey). It doesn’t matter if it’s 1913 or 2013, dive bars have always been the most sacred of all watering holes.

And getting drunk on a Wednesday afternoon is not looked down upon.

- Eric

#16  "One could go to a dive bar dressed in any type of clothing and be accepted without one judgement from the bar staff or patrons."

What was once considered a bar solely for truck drivers and country men, the "dive bar" has now become a hangout for city dwellers and young, hip adults looking for cheap drinks and a good time. Often decorated with antique wall art, wobbly stools and well-worn wooden floors, the dive bars of today have a cozy and welcoming feel. The style of a dive bar is so laid back that it evokes a feeling of freedom, a feeling that anything goes. One could go to a dive bar dressed in any type of clothing and be accepted without one judgement from the bar staff or patrons. Dressed in cut-off shorts or a dirty t-shirt, a person could walk straight to the bartender and ask for a drink without once feeling that they were underdressed. And the drink that person orders is likely less than $10, as most dive bars offer the cheapest drinks in town. It is for that reason alone that the dive bar attracts a wide variety of patrons. Though a younger crowd is often seen in dive bars located within and around larger cities, dive bars outside of town see many walks of life step through their doors. From lawyers and doctors to janitors and housekeepers, all find comfort in the ever-accepting dive bar.

Whether it be in Los Angeles, New York or somewhere in Wyoming, a dive bar is a place where people can come in stressed and come out relieved. A dose of loud music, cheap beer and a game of pool or darts is capable of making even the most unhappy visitors smile, if even for a moment. For in a life full of judgements, deadlines, traffic and monotony, sitting on an unstable chair in a dimly-lit room is akin to a short vacation.

- Ashley

#17  "But, as with “geek” and “nerd,” the term “dive bar” has transformed in the past decade from anathema to accolade."

Once upon a time the term “dive bar” was a pejorative epithet. It conjured images of twitchy lighting, grungy booths and the sneaking suspicion if not outright evidence that a patron was recently stabbed. Or about to be. But, as with “geek” and “nerd,” the term “dive bar” has transformed in the past decade from anathema to accolade. How often have you heard, “I love dive bars” when courting a hip member of the opposite sex (or scanning theironline dating profile)?

Dive bars have become a symbol of character, a measure of familiarity with the local scene. In part this may have to do with the Great Recession. Though it technically ended in 2009, the downward mobility experienced by a broad swath of America brought with it not only a need to find drinks that aren’t priced at the rate of a small bungalow but also a reactionary flip away from status. Sure, the bars with the sweet blue icicle facade and the clean cut bartenders with all their teeth may brim with the downtown elite, but inside a bordertown dive bar you’ll find people who are as far removed from Wall Street as quiche is from tuna casserole.

Now, as for the modern definition of “dive bar,” it certainly is not a place where you can get a free stabbing. Technically that would be a “bad bar you won’t bring a second date to.” Today, a “dive bar” is a bar that doesn’t put on airs, that has drinks at modest prices (though in California the definition of “modesty” varies from San Diego to Lodi), and is a little off the beaten path. Most importantly, it’s a bar you’ll remember and secretly hope the locals will remember you too. We are all, after all, looking for a place where everybody knows our name.

- Pierce

#18  So now that you know what some other people think, what is a "Dive Bar" to you?