Ode to the Dive Bar
23 Comments
When I lived in Boston my roommate had a thing for dive bars. He’d lead us from some tiny, literal hole-in-the-wall place in Davis Square all the way over to another to play darts in Southie. Sticky floors, the smell of damp wood and personal carvings in the table from patrons-past. You gotta love a dive bar for what it is really.
While reading Air Canada’s in flight magazine, enRoute, I came across an article by David McGimpsey, “An Ode to the Dive Bar“.
What makes a bar a dive bar is a matter of taste and sometimes, yes, a matter of orthodontics. A great dive is a place where the possibility of a gunfight exists (the White Elephant insists upon unloaded firearms), but mostly it should offer a quiet escape. Simple pleasures and a straight-shooting lack of pretension: bottled beers, a jukebox (at least one Elvis CD) and a TV above the bar, with the sound up when a decent game is on. These kinds of places may seem like they’re everywhere, but quality dives are a dying breed and are among the first victims of gentrification. Now, it’s easier to know a dive bar for what it is not: raspberry-flavoured lager, say, or a tapas menu…
… You may come to a dive bar for the three-buck Bud, but you stay for the idiotic conversation.[enRoute]
It made me realize there’s a serious lack of such in Vancouver. As the city is trying to gloss over what it considers imperfections, there are some that are trying to desperately hang on to what charm remains at our drinking establishments. Admittedly, I have been known to order ‘edamame’ or try the new yam fries but sometimes you just want to hit a dive. Someplace where you can wear what you want and not be afraid of the 14 year old Lohan wannabes in black dresses and f*ck me boots that are showing you to your table.
I think Duane and I were talking a while back about doing a pub crawl in Surrey – not saying there aren’t nice places to go in Surrey – but we wanted to head out to the Wheelhouse for starters. I think I’d like John to experience the Wheelhouse. Real people, real cheap beer, cover bands that play 80s tunes that make the cougars in white mini skirts shake all they got, and no pretentiousness. There may only exist a cloud of jealously over our downtowner heads due to the fact that we have to travel 40 minutes by train (and pay $5 each way) to get to this laid back super-fun atmosphere.
So what’s the deal – are there dive bars left in Vancouver, are we afraid of the dive bar or are we just letting them all close down so we can build new places that serve nothing but Stella and bellinis?
The quote in the first line of the post is also from the enRoute article
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January 22nd, 2008 at 2:27 pm
what about that one by the Patricia Hotel?
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
people used to make serious fun of me for going to the roxy, i can see a gun fight happening there. and i saw chad kroeger there that spells DIVE right there!
January 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
@PatZ – Yeah, I read something in the Vancouver Sun about a lot of places in the DTES (downtown east side) that are becoming part of the “Hastings Street Hipster Scene”
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
ohhhhhhhh lordy, the wheelhouse
a later stop at the active pass, and finish the night off at panchos and you got yourself a night right there!
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Oh dude you know it.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
im signed in and it is not showing im visiting your blog. lame. im here to link a trackback….
so i’ll also mention i played pool at the patricia years ago it was pretty *rad* in there.
January 22nd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
on mybloglog? strange.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:01 pm
What about El Furniture Warehouse.
All the peanuts you can eat.
January 22nd, 2008 at 4:10 pm
There’s also the Trap & Gill on Davie. Unfortunately, Carlos & Buds on Pacific has gone the way of the dodo for another condo tower.
January 22nd, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Parkersburg is the dive bar of West Virginia.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Thanks for your promotions of things Surrey. A few months ago we had a Whalley pub crawl and hit a few great dives with about 12 brave souls. Here was our mainly dive bar itinerary.
Brownsville Pub (awesome scene, great server who told us what food NOT to order!)
The Turf Club (dead atmosphere, expensive bad beer)
The Dell Lanes (disco bowling)
The Whalley Legion (live bands, your grandmother playing pool)
and we ended up at Central City Brewing… just to have a nice craft beer.
It was a great night, and no one got hurt, injured or lost.
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Pub 340 anyone?
January 22nd, 2008 at 9:58 pm
The Met on Abbott has awesome orange creamcicle shooters. And you can still play pool there.
I want to go to the Wheelhouse avec toi.
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:14 pm
I’m in.. Like now.. There are lots of dive bars around for the picking.. Let’s just pick a day and get at it!
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
The Wheelhouse and Active Pass are classics… Another favourite is the Station in Guildford (wicked Sunday morning omelette buffet!) where I’ve spent many an evening meeting up with friends (and clients from time to time…)
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 am
I’d toss in the Whaler too but that’s not there anymore. And Keith – yeah, they have that omelette chef dude at the Station, he’s awesome. Although that’s the place where I once ordered coffee and the waitress said, “Bud? Okay” and brought me beer. No joke.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Wheelhouse!!! OMG, I don’t think I’ve been there for over 12 years!!!
I’ve been there twice, both times brought by old coworkers who are avid Surrey-ites. It is totally laid-back 
Cracked up with the comment on Lohan-wannabeees
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Does the Dover Arms on Denman count? It’s full of old dudes and has a house band…but they did *just* get new signs…
January 24th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Dive Bars rule. Some of my favorites in MA – Ralphs, Vincent’s (best meatballs aside from my moms!) and some nights we would just end up at The Dive Bar itself. The funny thing about dive bars back east is they are not as seedy as people might think they are here. They are just laid back, unpretentious, and most have really good food. That’s the thing about Boston, you can never judge a place by the outside. The hole in the walls are the little gems in the city. Mwah! I never really thought about the lack of dive bars here or diners! http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethomsen/1752882636/ until I read your post.
For people on the North Shore, we go to Queen’s Cross Pub off Lonsdale. Yes, they have yam fries
but it is very laid back and they have damn good nachos. And I am not just saying that b/c my friend, Chris owns it. Cheers!
January 24th, 2008 at 10:11 am
The good thing about those places is that you can throw on your jeans and t-shirt after a long week at work and not feel like a slob. You also dont feel too young or too old because generally you have the young and old all hanging out having a drink.
January 24th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
Those are my fav places around here, the dive bars. Not because I overly like them, but for the fact that they are never busy, always have the coldest beer and you can just relax and shoot the shit, as well as listen to the good ole classics from the 80’s
January 29th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
It all started when they closed the Europe’s bar.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
If you want to do a dive bar crawl, talk to me. We can get you hooked up. Some of those places you definitely want to roll with a posse, but it’s fun sitting with April and her friends and some dude comes up and pulls some wrapped steaks out of his pants and says “five bucks?”.