DEFINITION OF A DIVE BAR
by Jim Slimedog
(The following is about a bar I knew in California when I lived there for a couple of years, I’m sure plenty of you folks have your favorite dive bar. Write about it and send it in and we’ll buy you a drink the next time we see you at thrashnbang@gmail.com Cheers!)
There seems to be some confusion regarding what constitutes a dive bar and I’m here to clarify. I think the most important element is that the bar has to look basically the same as it was in 1974 or even 64-and what that means is you could transport the bar, in Sherman and Mr. Peabody’s way back machine ( a reference you all probably don’t know) and no one would notice the difference. Yeah, they can have a video game thing on one end of the bar and a draft Sierra Nevada spout, but basically things have stayed the same from 35 years ago including the clientele. Also, below the top shelf of liquor you can see bottles of crème de cocoa, crème de menthe and the reason you see them is because folks use to order drinks like Grasshoppers and Pink Squirrels and these were the ingredients for such drinks-and maybe the bartenders still have to make them as some of the clientele are still drinking them and they really haven’t left the bar in the last 35 years. Well, they have-for a change of clothes or whatnot.
There’s a bar I know in Boston and the beers they serve are Budweiser, Miller, Heineken and Michelob. Why? Because those are what they typical bar served in the early seventies or before and they are keeping with the fine dive bar tradition.
Another important aspect would be the percentage of people being shattered (drunk) and most importantly if the bartenders are allowed to drink shots with the patrons.
I’m very proud to say The San Juan Club in Fair Oaks, Calif. meets all this criteria and the added bonus of people falling down while dancing, on a Tuesday night, is a bonus indeed.
So if you want to take a step back in time, when things were simpler, where ladies too large topple over in the aisles as bands played sandwiched in between old Budweiser signs and dartboards. Where a bartenderess whose seen her better days does shots of tequila with people who never got to see their better days-come to the San Juan. I’ll be waiting.
