Examining the best features — and worst — of dive bars

A few of us got to talking about dive bars the other day and how fun they can be, and someone asked for my definition of just what a dive bar is, exactly. How do I differentiate between a dive bar, and, well, a regular bar that wouldn’t quite qualify.

“Easy,” I told them. “A dive bar is a place you wouldn’t take your mom, and a place you wouldn’t want to see with the lights on.”

Simply one man’s definition, and I’m sure as you think about it, you’re busy formulating your own.

“A dive bar has to be gross in some way,” said my friend Eric. “Has to have a couple deplorable qualities.”

Indeed. We could have left it at that, but what fun would that have been?

Dive bars are dark. Usually so dark, in fact, that it takes several seconds for your eyes to adjust to the lack of light when you walk in. And when that door swings open and your eyes finally do adjust to the cave-like ambiance, it’s a virtual certainty that nearly everyone’s head will turn toward you to see just who it is that is gracing them with their presence. Their reaction would probably be the same whether it was their brother, the neighborhood drunk or Bill Clinton entering (or all of the above).

A dive bar will certainly have a smoke haze, at least until January. There will be a lot of upset folks at dive bars once the smoking ban is in place.

You sometimes have to walk down a few steps to get into a lot of dive bars. Not all of them, but many of them. Something about the patrons being the salt of the earth, maybe.

A lot of dive bars have a pool table, and that pool table will have at least one sizable stain, likely from a spilled beer, possibly from something else you don’t want to know about it if you’re racking the eight ball.

There could be duct table holding something important together as well, and the presence of outdated video games like Galaga or pinball or Golden Tee — the 1997 version of the latter. There’s also a good chance that there are other games, foreign to a younger generation that instead settles on hip, college drinking establishments. Games like shuffleboard with the sand you sprinkle on the wood surface, a dart board that has seen better days or a card game between some serious old-timers in the back.

As far as beer goes, there won’t be many fancy, foreign options to choose from, but you will be able to order most everything in a can, especially Schlitz and Old Style and Pabst Blue Ribbon, often for cheap, and they’re certain to offer you a small glass with it. This ain’t the place to order an apple martini or a margarita and keep your dignity, honey. And don’t worry about the spotty glasses. They add character.

The collection of patrons in the bar, often no matter what time of the day you venture in, can look a lot like that of the Creature Cantina in Star Wars.

Some dive bars aren’t that bad, but others can house what looks like a convention of science experiments gone wrong — a real Maury Povich special.

There is always the guy who talks to much, be it about politics, television or the girl in the skirt who just walked in. You can’t shut him up. And there is always the guy who never says a thing, maybe doesn’t even look up if a tray of glasses crashes to the floor next to him. He looks like he’s a pillow and 10 seconds away from a serious slumber. And we can’t forget the grizzled local with a beard and a flannel, regardless of the temperature outside, who looks like he hasn’t left the stool since the Nixon administration.

Dive bars would be the perfect place for psychologists and screenwriters alike to set up one seriously fascinating test market.

A dive bar won’t have many special amenities, unless you count a flickering Busch Light sign as an amenity. You want flat screens? Go to that fancy sports bar down the street and have yourself a chicken caesar wrap, Sally. Here, you get the type of TV you had growing up, if there’s even one at all.

And speaking of grub, well, there usually isn’t any. Makes it an easier, more streamlined business. Some dive bars may have take-out menus from local restaurants, others will have a few variations of potato chips that hang on a rack behind the bar, no doubt well past the expiration date, or possibly a bowl of popcorn or peanuts that your hand should go nowhere near.

The service? It may not always be with a smile, but if it is, it may not always be with a full set of teeth. I don’t know what it is, but an older woman, or maybe an older couple, is usually a constant behind the bar at a dive. And it’s a pretty safe bet that every customer seated at the bar calls the bartender by name and vice versa.

“You ready for another one, Al?”

And they know what their customers are drinking and often have it out on the counter before they sit down. Now that’s service.

Dive bars have bathrooms that would make fraternity house facilities look like the Taj Mahal. And they more men than women. Sometimes staggeringly so. It’s just the way it works.

So you want to know what my definition of a dive bar is? Hard to explain, really, but I have a feeling you’ll know one when you see it.

For readers’ favorite dive bars in Chicago, check out this month’s Chicago Speaks.

Trent Modglin
Publisher
The Real Chicago
Trent@TheRealChicago.org

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