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The Demise of the Dive Bar

I’ve always had a fascination with dive bars. I don’t mean your slightly run-down neighborhood brew pub, either. I’m talking brown fiberboard paneling, dust buffalos lurking in the corners, and PBR the same temperature as water straight from the tap. I’m talking one lonely neon beer sign in the window with half the letters blown out.

I once went on a date with a guy who admitted he was “testing” me by bringing me to one of the junkiest, most tired old joints ever. I didn’t flinch. I ordered a sub-par domestic brand beer and after that was done, stayed for another. He said he was glad I wasn’t too much of a “snob” to demand that we leave. But still, he never called for another date. Did I pass the dive bar test or not? Did I fail in some other way, I’ve always wondered? Or did I fail because I actually liked the dive bar? I guess I’ll never know.

Dive bars have the atmosphere of a perpetual Irish wake. Maybe that’s why I like them. I feel in my element.

There’s one that I’ve noticed for years but was always too chicken to enter alone, though. I couldn’t get any friends to go in there with me, either. So I’d drive by it wondering, yearning to go inside. Could the inside possibly match the languid, flag-at-half-mast-and-sagging-in-the-stillness look of the outside? I so desperately wanted to find out.

One night I’ve hitched a ride with two friends. We get off an exit on I-95 to grab a drink. “Are we going where I think we’re going? Please say yes!” I cry.

This is not a new request. I’ve been bugging these guys to come with me to this place for ages. A sigh from the driver. “Okay. We’ll go.”

I squeal like a six-year-old who has just received a lollipop. One of those big, swirly ones.

We park in a tiny lot and approach the door. The bar is actually a house, set on a corner and looking the same as it has for decades.

I pretend-hook my fingers into invisible suspender straps. “My treat! Yep, this one’s on me!” I announce.

My friends laugh. “Oh wow, such generosity!” they say. We all know I’ll probably be able to pay the tab with the change at the bottom of my purse. Dive bars are always very reasonably priced. After all, you ain’t payin’ for atmosphere.

The first thing that hits me is the smell of smoke. Does the owner allow smoking against state law? Nope. It’s just residual, coating the walls and ceiling like a tobacco laminate. It smells like 1962 must have smelled.

This place is everything I want it to be and more. Or do I mean less? They serve fried bologna on white bread for lunch. The lone timeworn bartender actually has to leave the bar area to go get our PBRs. Nothing’s on tap. I’m thinking the bottles are pulled from a cooler or a mini-fridge out back. Craft beer, artisanal cheeses, and farm-to-table entrees don’t have a place here. The TV has a giant backside like a Kardashian and it sits, in all its hobgoblin glory, on a corner shelf. It’s tuned in to a football game, the sound off.

The bartender is probably the owner. He’s elderly and seems completely at home here. I feel at home, too, all bellied up with my friends, sipping at PBR, and telling funny stories. We’re the only people in the place.

Sure as I figure, the tab is time-warp cheap. I leave a twenty and tell Methuselah Bartender that he’s all set. He smiles sweetly and nods. He hasn’t spoken a word except to say hello.

Dive bars are going the way of the dodo, unfortunately. Used to be you could find a good old–bad old saloon in nearly every town. I can only hope the era of cheap room-temp beer and fried bologna on white doesn’t soon end forever. If it does, I know I won’t be the only one lamenting the loss. Come on, you’re among friends. Raise a PBR and admit that you will, too.

Juliana Gribbins is a writer who believes that absurdity is the spice of life. Write to her at jeepgribbs@hotmail.com.