Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
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Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/27/2011 12:26 PM EDT
- chollands
- Posts: 5
- First: 12/16/2008
- Last: 5/27/2011
Is there a pub or bar where everybody knows your name? What's your favorite spot for watching the game over a beer? Frequent Globe contributor Luke O'Neil shared some of the spots he visited while writing "Boston's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in Beantown" — now it's your turn to dish. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:00 PM EDT
- obrien807
- Posts: 1
- First: 5/31/2011
- Last: 5/31/2011
The Cottage Tavern in Hyde Park...ultimate dive -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:05 PM EDT
- vinnienap
- Posts: 3
- First: 2/3/2008
- Last: 5/31/2011
Sonny's Pub, Adams Village, Dorchester. Cheap drinks, good food, and Keno. Plus 8 HD tv's -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:20 PM EDT
- CaptainHook978
- Posts: 10
- First: 4/1/2011
- Last: 6/17/2012
I had a gypsy take me downtown
To my usual port o' call
Where everyone's a drunken sailor
Waiting on a call
I took my ivy-covered college
And slowly poured it down the drain
Weatherman says fair tomorrow
But tonight it looks like rain
I for one am not telling anyone about my favorite dives, because the same thing will then happen to them that happened to the original "Cheers" bar.... yep, all the maggots will start showing up, drive all the cool regulars out, drive up the prices, and basically ruin the place!
I go to a dive to forget. It is down to the level for a re-boot. I don't have to be sharp or charming at a dive, I just have to have the $2.50 for a highball (Old Thomson, or Fleichmann's, Canada Dry ginger ale, short jelly jar glass). Nobody asks who you are, or what you are, you just ARE.
And it is not a true dive unless there are either pickled eggs or a display of Slim Jims on the back bar. If they are serving "well liquor" out of half-gallon jugs on the back bar, thaen it is a dive. And, if you can buy a glass of the runoff from the draft taps for $.35 (we always called it a "Musty"), it is a dive bar.
ANything ense, it is a wannabe -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:25 PM EDT
- CaptainHook978
- Posts: 10
- First: 4/1/2011
- Last: 6/17/2012
Oh, and is "My Brother's Place" still open, over by the Castle? We would go in there after working the midnight shift in the John Hancock computer room... Any real dive does NOT wait until 5 PM to open, and most should be open by 9AM -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:32 PM EDT
- gotham77
- Posts: 16
- First: 5/17/2011
- Last: 3/5/2013
Oh for crying out loud...spare me the Working Class Heroes nonsense.
Y'know why "dive bars" are an endangered species? Because they usually deserve to be. There's nothing "romantic" and "old school" about a proprieter who never flushes out the taps so the draught beer tastes like garbage, and doesn't mop the floor so as soon as you walk in you notice that smell of soured spilled beer (if you're lucky, that's all you'll smell). It's just lazy and CLASSLESS, and "classless" should never be confused with "working class." And spare me the nonsense about how "friendly and neighborly" these local watering holes are...what that means is the REGULARS who know each other are friendly to each other, but any stranger that walks in off the street is going to learn rather quickly that he's not welcome there. If he's lucky enough to get the bartender to even pay attention to him, he'll probably start getting the "badass shoulder" from other patrons.
When I was 19 I hung out at places like this because they wouldn't card. THANK GOD I don't have to worry about that any more and can go to places that are actually - y'know - FUN TO HANG OUT IN. And y'know what? The prices for the beer are pretty much the same. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:35 PM EDT
- gotham77
- Posts: 16
- First: 5/17/2011
- Last: 3/5/2013
And I like The Dugout on Comm Ave by BU. It's a cheap, no-frills place that's FRIENDLY, well run, and a genuine pleasure to hang out in. And the beer actually tastes like the hoses have been cleaned at some point in the last 50 years. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 7:40 PM EDT
- CaptainHook978
- Posts: 10
- First: 4/1/2011
- Last: 6/17/2012
Ways to test if the bar you are in is a dive:
- try and order an "Appletini", a "Cosmo" a "millionare Manhattan", or anything else that is a presumptious trendy drink. If the answer is "we don't serve that ____ here", you are in a respectable dive. (The fanciest mixed drink in any dive would be a margarita)
- Go up to the bartender and introduce yourself. A little while later, have someone go to the men's room and call the bar asking for you. If the bartender uses the line "he just left", you are a respectable dive.
- After a few drinks, then WITH ENOUGH CASH on the bar to buy at least two more drinks, lay your head down on the bar and doze. If they let you sleep, it is a dive. If the cash is still there after you open your eyes back up, you are in a respectable dive.
- Bars named after real people usually have a better chance to be divey. If you walk in to Rupert's Bar, and get served by Rupert himself, you stand a good chance of being in a respectable dive
- Heck, if anyone orders a highball at a bar you are in, it is probably a dive. -
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Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 8:36 PM EDT
- pollie
- Posts: 150
- First: 2/7/2006
- Last: 5/31/2011
I couldnt be happier that boston.com posted a story like this. They usually stick with the $9/drink places with the pretty people.
Not mentioned due to closure are:
PJ Kilroys
Cambridgeport Saloon
I light a candle in my window each night for both of those places.
As for modern dives, well, I wouldnt know. I dont go out anymore due to the $9 beers and obnoxious pretty people in their pretty clothes posing in pretty poses. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 8:37 PM EDT
- QIG
- Posts: 7
- First: 12/28/2010
- Last: 6/1/2011
I grew up with most of the a holes in Lowies and like to go back all the time. Good stuff. All cash, no credit, ceilling half painted red?
Last, Sligo "used" to be a dive bar. If you know Mick or "living room" (aka the guy with his dog and was always eating chinease food, then you exepreinced the real Sligo. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 8:39 PM EDT
- QIG
- Posts: 7
- First: 12/28/2010
- Last: 6/1/2011
I'll add Windsor Tap and Tripple Os to Pollie's candle list. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 8:52 PM EDT
- chrisal67
- Posts: 1
- First: 5/31/2011
- Last: 5/31/2011
+1 for a candle for PJ Killroy's
I remember at Killroy's they would have hot dogs for $1.00 in a crock pot from 1972, you would give the bartender your dollar and he would hand you the bun, and then help yourself to a hot dog... good times -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 8:59 PM EDT
- toolio
- Posts: 5
- First: 9/29/2008
- Last: 7/4/2012
There are several such places in Allston/Brighton that qualify---Hogan's Run was obviously the contribution from that neighborhood, and it is a good one for sure.
My favorite dive moment was when I went in to a local spot with my wife late one Saturday afternoon, maybe 5, and ordered a BL and a Sam Light. Bad move. No Sam Light pallie. One of the local parade floats comes up with the sweet, sweet line of "why dontcha order a frozen maaaaaahgaritahhhh" which got a good few cackles from the rest of the locals in attendance. I then looked over and realized that she and the rest of her crew were enjoying Michelob Ultras. Uhhhhhh....pot? Kettle's on line one, he'd like a word with you. (No harm no foul pal--I'm back in there every so often.) -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 9:30 PM EDT
- rpc
- Posts: 10
- First: 4/7/2005
- Last: 5/31/2011
Ah yes, the Tam. Remember it well. Was served my first underage drink there, no ID required of a 16-year-old who looked 14. My two friends were 6-footers who might have passed for 18 at a time when the drinking age was 21. Fifteen cents for draft beer. And my Somerville friend got into with the bartender for overcharging for the shot he got with his beer. Great place that looks pretty much as it did in my visit in 1963.
Aside to Luke O'Neill, if you're going to be hanging around the Quencher, you should know that, in Boston, those three-story tenements are called three-deckers. A triple-decker is an ice cream cones with three scoops.
Thanks for the tour of Boston's dives. Bet you had a good time finding them. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 9:37 PM EDT
- waldenlou
- Posts: 60
- First: 1/13/2008
- Last: 7/18/2011
Mary Ann's in Cleveland Circle. I don't know if it's still there but, it was a dive! -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 5/31/2011 9:39 PM EDT
- Jolly-Roger
- Posts: 2
- First: 4/29/2011
- Last: 5/31/2011
waldenlou beat me to it.
Mary Ann's in Cleveland Circle is alive and well and for the life of me I cannot see how the Globe omitted this "gem" as it is one of the top dive bars in Boston. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 12:45 AM EDT
- QIG
- Posts: 7
- First: 12/28/2010
- Last: 6/1/2011
Errr....memory loss.....it was Mac who was the bartender at the old Sligos. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 6:04 AM EDT
- mcdermott451
- Posts: 17
- First: 6/9/2008
- Last: 6/1/2011
Pug's, East Cambridge. Dilboy Post, Davis Square. -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 7:56 AM EDT
- jazzsongbird
- Posts: 2
- First: 6/1/2011
- Last: 7/29/2011
Whitey's on Broadway Southie-although you may not find it there's no sign-near Burger King-what a dive! -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 8:01 AM EDT
- bellefior
- Posts: 6
- First: 2/22/2010
- Last: 6/1/2011
Ahh, Maryann's...I remember the first time I went inside while I was at BC and said to myself this is it???!!! No other dive even comes close! -
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Candle List
posted at 6/1/2011 9:18 AM EDT
- kbembel
- Posts: 4
- First: 1/18/2011
- Last: 9/7/2011
Am still missing the Pony Lounge in East Boston, add to Pollie's candle list -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 9:22 AM EDT
- QIG
- Posts: 7
- First: 12/28/2010
- Last: 6/1/2011
Bigguy45 - Again memory loss but thought the Windsor became the B-side, now its the Royal Lord Hobos? -
Re: Your go-to dive bar or neighborhood watering hole in Boston?
posted at 6/1/2011 9:50 AM EDT
- centerfielder
- Posts: 13
- First: 6/26/2008
- Last: 6/1/2011
gotham77 wrote:
" Y'know why "dive bars" are an endangered species? Because they usually deserve to be. "
Actual, you have it backwards. Those overpriced "trendy" places that think they are cool because they try to sell you some sort of micro brew made from somewhere obscure and charge you $5-$6 dollars just because they think they are cool are the ones that always come and go.
gotham77 wrote:
"And spare me the nonsense about how "friendly and neighborly" these local watering holes are...what that means is the REGULARS who know each other are friendly to each other, but any stranger that walks in off the street is going to learn rather quickly that he's not welcome there."
That's exactly why I go to a local "dive" bar, so I don't have to deal with any college kids or 20-something transients who thing they are special.