Most Creepy and Disgusting Dive Bar

[WednesdayGirl]

Tuman's Alcohol Abuse Center in Chicago, Illinois. Total dive, but my favorite bar in the city. You can get tanked on a $20 bill there (think $2.50 pints of Guinness).

It's tucked away in the Ukranian Village - one time I tried to take a cab there, and the cabbie insisted several times that "there's nothing out there, miss!" The place always smells like a dirty ashtray, but after a few minutes, you get used to it. It has a jukebox that plays only old jazz or thrash metal. There's an Old Style neon sign in the window, and another neon sign hanging on an inside wall with a note attached to the pullcord that says "Do not Touch!"

There's a beat-up pool table near the back of the bar. More graffitti than I've ever seen in my life on the walls of the women's bathroom. An enormous painting of a naked, reclining woman centered over the bar. There are a few mismatched tables, with a few broken cafeteria type chairs, and a few empty kegs to sit on as well.

I think I'll head over there tomorrow night!

[g.johnson]

Will there be any bartenders up there in Heaven?

Will the pubs never close, will the glass never drain?

No more D.T.'s and no shakes and no horrors

Very next morning you feel right as rain.

O God loves a drunk, the lowest of men

With the dogs in the street and the pigs in the pen.

But a drunk's only trying to get free of his body

And soar like an eagle high up there in heaven.

His shouts and his curses are just hymns and praises

To kick-start his mind now and then.

O God loves a drunk, come raise up your glasses, amen.

Richard Thompson

[Nick]

This reminds me of a song by Webb Pierce (Pearce?) -- There Stands the Glass.  Probably the most misserable drinking song ever written, about the most miserable soul in the most miserable dive.  Check it out.

Ah yes, "There Stands the Glass" by Webb Pierce. "There stands the glass, fill it to the brim." After all these years I still remember it. I bought the record when I was somewhere around ten or eleven, on 78 if you remember those, and played it incessantly on my parents' record player. One day I came home from school and my mother (with no tears in her eyes) told me she had "accidently" sat on it, as it for some reason, lay in one of the easy chairs.

I've been in some dives, but the absolute worst was the "Golden Banana" north of Boston on Rt. 1. A stripper joint that a friend wanted to stop at for some reason unknown to me. I visited the "men's room" and thought that were I ever to get a disease it would be then.

[monkeymay]

There was a bar in Hollywood, the Firefly, gone now, that was good for a long time and was sorta ruined, as things get, by success, as it became a place for scensters.

We sound like we may have run around the Firefly at the same time Priscilla.

I always liked the bartender there because he had a standing gag with running lighter fluid around the well of the bar top and lighting it on fire (hence the Firefly) usually to stir the drunks sitting down at the end . I liked drinking there in the middle of the afternoon and this was one of the places my friends and I could count on being served.

Other lost lamented dive bars given over to hipster hell -

Boardner's-a great dump, now a hipster dump

The Formosa- I loved that bar -my boyfriend and I would go in and drink Brandy Alexanders (again in the afternoon) and have long discussions with the old studio guys from Warner Bros. next door.

Casblanca - a great Mexican transvestite bar on the corner of Hollywood and Western.

They had these cheesy floor shows on this tarted up little stripper stage and we would go in, watch the show and I would have deep conversations with some of the 'girls' at the bar about how to put on eyeliner...it's been torn down to make way for a giant urban renewl mall...

The really all time Bukowski bar I used to drink at was the Blacklite, on Western and Santa Monica. A classic rummy bar- opened at 6am closed at 2am. Not only was their juke filled with tons of Sinatra and one hit wonders, but they had a tabletop soccer game that was the source of a few brawls. The old drunks were okay, but after a while the place got too transient and scary. I keep meaning to go back and see if it's been gentrified.

The last remaining dive bar in the middle of Hollywood is the Spotlight on Selma and Cahuenga. At 5:45 am there's always a good sized creepy crowd lined up for the place to open. I don't think that place will ever turn into a yuppie bar.

The Valley is now the last bastion for cheap drinks, bad music and lowlifes

And there's usually a 24 hr. taco stand/roach coach nearby. What more can you ask for?

[nightscotsman]

Hey MsRamsey - what about the Comet? I think it used to qualify as really divey, but might it be a faux dive by now?

[Varmint]

Y'all haven't even ventured into the world of the southern redneck bars. You find at these a clientele mix of tobacco and pig farmers, bikers, truck drivers, and the unemployedwho live in the double wide down the street. What's great about these joints is that the Oly Light and PBR is kept frighteningly cold, no imports are available, and you'll never know what will come next: Fist fights, group singing (usually to Hank Williams Jr. or David Alan Coe), and frequent arguments about NASCAR.

The last time I stopped at one of these bars was when I was engaged to the soon to be Mrs. Varmint. She, my best friend and I pulled into one of these road side dives that make you a little nervous. Driving a Saab convertible certainly didn't make us any friends, to say the least. The instant we walked in, this one guy started hitting on my future bride. I started a conversation with him, just to be the manly protectorate of her, and I managed to ask him what he did for a living. He replied, "I squeeze tits -- I'm a dairy farmer." We shotgunned a couple of beers and he decided I was all right. We made it out of there unscathed, but with a lot more beer in us. At 75 cents a pop, it was worth it!

[phaelon56]

I can think of more than several I'll mention and far more that I became totally soused in during a previous life....

It's a music club but CBGB's on the Bowery has to earn points for being slimy and having some of the worst bathrooms in the "developed" world.

There was a place on the West Side in my hometown of Syracuse - it was so scary looking that even I wouldn't go in there - name: "The Bucket of Blood" (I kid you not).

Can't recall the nname but my favorite "ouch that's so sleazy" story is the place just off Broadway in Saratoga Springs. It's on the corner of the street a block or two up from Phila. Sort of a half basement place as the street sloped won and away. Low ceilings and a locals place.... old wooden table in the booths and wooden floors. My female friedn went to use the ladie's room (we had just stepped in off the street and they were cleaning up as closing time was approaching). The guy with the mop and the incredibly dirty bucket of mop water was mopping the floors and very nonchalantly, without missing a beat, lifted his stroke to mop the top of each table in a smooth motion before ending the stroke on the floor .....

[Nick]

Varmint, you should thank your lucky stars you didn't pull into a fishermans' bar anywhere along the east coast after the drinkin' had started. Even more, a Portagi bar in New Bedford.

Edit: By fishermans', I mean commercial fishermen - not sport fishermen. Sorry, fisherpeople.

[MsRamsey]

Hey MsRamsey - what about the Comet? I think it used to qualify as really divey, but might it be a faux dive by now?

No, nightscotsman, I think the Comet is still a gin-yoo-wine dive. I don't like it much, but it is one of our neighborhood's last surviving trashy taverns (since the sad demise of Ileen's/Ernie Steele's).

[MsRamsey]

Can't recall the nname but my favorite "ouch that's so sleazy" story is the place just off Broadway in Saratoga Springs. It's on the corner of the street a block or two up from Phila. Sort of a half basement place as the street sloped won and away. Low ceilings and a locals place....  old wooden table in the booths and wooden floors. My female friedn went to use the ladie's room (we had just stepped in off the street and they were cleaning up as closing time was approaching). The guy with the mop and the incredibly dirty bucket of mop water was mopping the floors and very nonchalantly, without missing a beat, lifted his stroke  to mop the top of each table in a smooth motion before ending the stroke on the floor .....

Man, I was just there a couple of days ago. It wasn't The Parting Glass, was it? (I hope!) How recent was this? Businesses tend to open and close pretty quickly in Saratoga.

My dad lives in Saratoga and is Type-A, fastidious clean. He'll cringe when I tell him about this -- I can't wait!

[Gavin Jones]

Goldsmith's Tavern - New Cross

You know a place is ok if your feet stick to the floor.

Mostly punk on the jukebox, contains a variety of creatures left over from 70's popular culture and a good ska night too.

Grave Maurice - Whitechapel

The non-yuppified east end & such a lovely name.

[Gavin Jones]

Actually these are places I'd recommend - on reflection you're wanting places that I'd avoid. Hmmm.

[Miss J]

414, Brixton:

Banging trance, lots of lights, and a chill-out room upstairs that basically consists of, er, a floor to sit on with 150 of your closest friends. There's a fish tank, a telly with the sound turned off, and holes in the walls through which you can peer out at the unsavoury characters who populate Coldharbour Lane at 5am.

I only know one person who's seen it in daylight, and he finds it difficult to talk about the experience.

[phaelon56]

Man, I was just there a couple of days ago. It wasn't The Parting Glass, was it? (I hope!) How recent was this? Businesses tend to open and close pretty quickly in Saratoga.

Can't recall the name but it's been there forever and was still there in late June this year when I last visited. It has low ceilings and when you walk in the booths are to your right and the bar is across and to the right on the back wall. The entrance is on the side street but it's in a building that's on the corner of Broadway.

[Wilfrid]

1. This thread is worth it just for some of the names. I mean, The Golden Banana. Poetry.

2. Gavin, yes the Grave Maurice is a cut above a dive. I have many personal memories of that pub, some of which are too personal for a Wednesday morning. But I spent a lot of time in there, munching scotch eggs and drinking strong lager. There are some far divier bars on that stretch of the Whitechapel Road. What about that Young's pub on the corner - the Bull's Head, maybe? McEwen and Tartan on tap, and a clientele of, er, lost celts. And if you ventured into the back streets behind the Whitechapel hospital, there were some pubs serving the substantial local dosshouse population. Maybe they've been cleaned up by now. Iain Sinclair memorably evokes one of them in Downriver (which I'm sure you know).

3. Trying to think of a very garish and grubby bar in San Francisco's Chinatown. It's a very large, high ceiling roomed, with various brightly coloured Buddhas on the shelves, serving mainly neat brandies to the local crowd, and with some fearsomely dirty restrooms downstairs. Anyone remember the name? I think it's quite notorious.

[sp1]

I too am profoundly fond of dives, tommy, which is why I hoped someone else would show up on the thread and tell me about some I don't know.

Reif's Tavern on 92nd St. just east of 2nd is a great dive. Cheap beer, friendly bartenders, Ms. Pacman, ratty old couches and a pool table. But what really makes it a cut above is the fact that there are two grills on the back deck. It's bring your own meat (the Vinegar Factory is a couple of blocks away). A great place to watch football--there are plenty of TVs, but it's not a "sports bar."

[Wilfrid]

Reminded me of a pub in Cheltenham - a rather chilling National Front pub, as far as I could make out - where on Sunday lunchtime you got a raffle ticket with your first drink, which turned out to be for a raffle of pork chops and similar items. So the clients would come in there for a bevy hoping to win their Sunday lunch.

[Liza]

Other possible criteria for dive bar status:

1. If theres a good chance of getting mooned by either bartender or owner.

2. If they 'wash' the bar with lighter fluid to wake up the 'sleepers'.

3. When someone tries to pick you up, the line "why, you could be my cousin" is considered a good thing.

[Gavin Jones]

3. When someone tries to pick you up, the line "why, you could be my cousin" is considered a good thing.

I believe this line also works for royal families.

[Wilfrid]

This thread is revealing my bad memory for bar names, but what about that bare, charmless bar on East Broadway - only bar around - with a really chirpy, neon martini-glass sign outside, misleadingly suggesting that good times await within.

[201]

Tuman's Alcohol Abuse Center in Chicago, Illinois.  Total dive, but my favorite bar in the city.  You can get tanked on a $20 bill there (think $2.50 pints of Guinness). 

It's tucked away in the Ukranian Village - one time I tried to take a cab there, and the cabbie insisted several times that "there's nothing out there, miss!"  The place always smells like a dirty ashtray, but after a few minutes, you get used to it.  It has a jukebox that plays only old jazz or thrash metal.  There's an Old Style neon sign in the window, and another neon sign hanging on an inside wall with a note attached to the pullcord that says "Do not Touch!"

There's a beat-up pool table near the back of the bar.  More graffitti than I've ever seen in my life on the walls of the women's bathroom.  An enormous painting of a naked, reclining woman centered over the bar.  There are a few mismatched tables, with a few broken cafeteria type chairs, and a few empty kegs to sit on as well.

I think I'll head over there tomorrow night!

Mark my words: If I ever decide to drink alcohol again, I want the very first drop to be consumed in that place!!!

[col klink]

MsRamsey and NightScotsMan, did you ever go to the Rendezvous in Belltown? It closed a year ago on Holloween and has since reopened under new management and much more expensive drinks.

I used to get the $2.50 gins with a tonic floater. First time I went, it kicked my ass and spent the last hour in various alleys trying to breath. A buddy of mine went to bachelor party there a few years ago and ended up dancing with a crack whore. Yeah! In Belltown! Not only was it dank, but that's where all of the old-time alcoholics and wantabe alcoholics used to drink. Where the 5 foot lady behind the bar can kick ANYONE's ass and if you're lucky, a bum won't hit you up for a drink.

[coolranch]

In my hometown of Austin, there is the Horseshoe Lounge (or, just "the shoe"). They had that table shuffleboard game, cheap Lone Star beer--and depending on the night--either free popcorn, hotdogs , or sloppy joes in the back.

Juke box was old country tunes...or Elton John.

I learned how to play dominoes there from a retired postman.

I find it hard to spend too much time inside now since I stopped smoking and the olfactory senses have come back.

[Wilfrid]

Can anyone remember the name of the mock honky tonk over on 8th in the 40s (NYC)? It was a small bar with a weird plastic banquette with special places to put your paper plates of fried fish. A cowgirl logo, and the name was something like the Blue Moon Saloon - but I don't think that's right. It later became a cleaned-up anonymous cocktail lounge.

[tommy]

duffy's, in paterson, NJ. scary neighborhood. scary bar some nights. but a decent family owns the place. now the guy's kids are taking over. free shuffleboard. random video game. large screen tv. good pool table. occasionally you'll get your standard short, skinny drunk guy with a questionable dental plan wanting to kick your ass. but they usually back off after realizing that the act of standing is busting their balls enough as it is.

oftentimes the "nice" drunk regular will protect you from the "nasty" drunk regular, throwing out comments like "c'mon jimmy, leave the guy alone," etc. always good for a close call.

and they have bud bottles, which is really my only requirement.