Best Dive Bar In Your Town

Coldwater, MI. It's Omar's. Darkly lit classic dive bar. Decor hasn't changed much since the 60's/70's. Red, the owner took over the bar from his mom when he got back from vietnam. Good cheap drinks. Cash only.

Kalamazoo, MI. The Sugarbowl. Another relatively unchanged classic dive bar. Used to be a good place to get stabbed. New owners turned it around without erasing It's charm. They make the best burgers in town, serve Hamm's with a pickle, and sometimes host punk shows. I occasionally DJ there along with Goner board veterans Useless Eater, Blackjack and Dutch Hercules

Emil M. Antonowsky There's still a good handful of old places here where nothing seems to have changed the last decades.

Ended up reading and drinking beer into the early hours in Tjili Pop in Nørrebro when working in CPH last year. Liked that place a lot.

terminalsunset Work brought me to Albuquerque last summer. It's a cool city, but I was stunned at how dead everything was by 10pm. I couldn't find a latenight spot during the week that was open for a beer or two.

Does the Sil in Allston, MA still give out free popcorn?

Ben Lyon if you ever find yourself in Muskegon Michigan, I’d recommend Mike’s Inn

nonsenseorgan Good call.
There is also some deal where you can get a rat+hotdog tat, and then eat free hotdogs there for life. They have shows on Tuesdays lately too.

Sukebe_GG Oh shit, the owner probably lives there too, right?

Poorcow in Tokyo. Fifi from Teengenerate/Tweezers/Firestarter owns it. He has a few thousand records there to listen to and it basically makes you feel like you’re visiting his living room. It gets super smoky in there and it’s on the 4th floor with no elevator, but it’s worth it. Fifi makes good stiff drinks. Just be really careful with those steps carrying your drunk ass down the steep narrow steps. My husband fell off it twice, ended up in the hospital for 2 weeks the first time, and a visit to the ER the second time

dr_chile The fact that it's pretty shitty is a draw for me lol

Always amazed at the vast assortment of dives there are here in Dartmouth compared to what's left across the harbour in Halifax. My favourite is place called Staggers (or "Stabbers" as I've heard it referred to). Almost nobody under the age of 50 hangs out there, except for when they have drag shows. Karaoke night is like stepping into a Tod Browning movie. My kinda place!

Ruby ever been to the wheel club in Montreal? not really a dive, more of a legion atmosphere, but they have a blue grass karaoke night with a songbook that ends in 1960 and a really great backing band who could have feasibly been grandparents by the same year. popcorn, pool, etc.

paperhose The Sil and O'Brien's in Allston are both divey and institutions in the neighborhood. I guess the Model but I don't go there much.

Charlie's still technically exists in Harvard Sq but has been sold. RIP Whitney's. Paddy's is still there.

Michael's in Somerville is the true definition of a dive. Some questionable clientele in there.

The Tam downtown is still there. I think both Foley's locations are still open.

The Behan and Midway in JP.

Lots more I'm just not thinking of, but we've definitely lost a bunch of classics over the past couple years (Sligo, Newtowne, Courtside). I'm still pissed that the Courtside has sat empty for over 5 years.

Portland has too many to count. Haha!

Hercules Rockefeller
Crawl on down to Galway House after Behan's last call on the weekend. Fond memories. Now I want some Food Wall.

ExpKind I would agree that O'Reilly's and Dick's Den are proper neighborhood dive bars. I'd say Eldorado's also fits this bill. I feel like Bobo is mostly open for shows now. Back when I worked there 20 years ago or so it was a proper neighborhood dive bar where you could hang with friends if there was no shows. I would say Bob's is a good one, too.

Hercules Rockefeller Amazing rundown, thank you!

Moving here in my 30's, I go out a lot less than I should. Some of your suggestions I have not yet even set foot in.

11th hour stubble omg well now I have a new 2025 goal: get Rach singing Bill Monroe at the Wheel Club!

Another local profile to add to the pile: I live right where the only remaining strip club in NS was (closed in 2019), so just a few hundred meters from my house there's a conglomeration of dives leftover, the biggest one being this roadhouse sort of place called Dave Doolittle's. It's comically oversized and almost always nearly empty after 8pm despite their 1pm closing time. Cover bands every Saturday playing at brain rattling volumes. Best of all, several times a year they have live wrestling matches right in the bar (Teddy Hart made an appearance in the previous decade). We've also been asked by the staff multiple times to buy the place, so if anyone wants to have a go at running an r'n'r venue on the fringes of North America, that'd be the place to do it.