The Dive Bars of America: BullShots (Atlantic City, NJ)

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest and grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. I’ll be using a rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

BullShots

2309 Pacific Ave

Atlantic City, NJ 08401

You had me at $2 Bud Lights, BullShots.

My dear friend, Scotty Pickles, is getting married this year and we needed a place to go for his bachelor party so’s we could gamble, son. We decided Vegas was too far and Foxwoods too close. We settled on Atlantic City. As we drove to check into our place, we zoomed past that delightful sign above. We knew we found our spot. Bud Light is Southie water so this was a friendly place for us. BullShots has a long bar with a room in the back that has pool tables and oh yea, it’s connected to a strip club.

Fun Factor: Oh, there’s a ton in this joint. There’s all kinds of silly shit hanging from the walls here. There’s pool tables in the back (though I never made it back there because BEER). They got beer pong, hookah and tons of promotions all week. It’s a veritable drunken playground. Oh, and it’s connected to a strip club.

Also, they got cigarettes, and smoking is always fun!

                       

Beer Choices: They had $2 Bud Light. That’s really all I needed. But yes, they had a surprisingly diverse beer menu for a hole in the wall bar. Yeungling, Stella and many of your other big name beers. The funniest part about the booze in this joint is that you hafta buy your beers in this bar and then bring it over to the strip club. AC has some weird law where the strip clubs can’t serve booze if they show completely NEKKED womens, so to get around it, some of the strippy strips require you to bring your own beer. It’s truly a wonderful scene watching grown men pay $15 bucks for a 6 pack and get walked over to the strip club by a stripper to watch them strip. The circle of life, indeed. 

The Dive Bars of America: The Cellar Tavern (Abington, MA)

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest and grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. I’ll be using a rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

The Cellar Tavern

221 North Avenue

Abington, MA 02351

Thar she blows.  It's an actual cellar.  Under someone's home.  With an old timey truck thereabouts.

I recently moved even more south than the south shore, and have been looking for a dark place to wet my whistle. And lo and behold, this beautiful basement arrived on the horizon. The Cellar has a long bar that’s also combined with a horseshoe shaped part. It’s got a buncha tables for your eating and boozing pleasures too.

Fun Factor: This place is a drunkard’s heaven. They do all kinds of specials during the week. Like a ladies night on Thursdays with raffles and half-priced food.  It’s got the requisite Keno, dart boards abound, a killer juke box and Yahtzee for grownups. Throw a few bucks around and who knows, maybe you’ll walk outta here with enough cash to buy some Advil for your next hangover because…

Booze Choices: ARE DIRT CHEAP. My dear lord. You saddle up to this stick with 20 bucks, and you are going home in a body bag. Ice cold Bud Light drafts are 2 bucks and they have a myriad of cheap mixed drinks all over the place. If you had a bad day at your shitty job (and all jobs are shitty unless you’re a porn star or 3^rd string NFL quarterback), this is the place to drown your sorrows.

Delicious & cheap. Just like me.

The Dive Bars of America: The Connection (South Boston, MA)

If you couldn’t tell by the title, this column is going to feature one of the many beautiful dive bars in and around Boston. I’m a purveyor of these places, as the dive bar is my preferred destination when rambling about town and taking in a few pops. So join us, won’t you, as we venture forth into this vast, delicious wilderness?

For these bars I’ll be writing about, I’ll be using a 5 category rating system which will be rated between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

THE CONNECTION
560 Dorchester Ave, South Boston, MA 02127 (you’ll most likely find it listed as the Sports Connection)
        

I must confess to leading off with a personal favorite of mine. I lived around the corner from this spot for about 5 years and this became the de facto base of operations for me and the morons I hang out with. It’s essentially a large room, with a rectangle shaped bar, a dance floor no one dances on, a kitchen no one uses, and women no one hits on.

Fun Factor:  There’s not much to do in this bar except sit and drink. There are two dartboards, a videogame machine, a jukebox and a buncha TVs all about the outlying areas and in the main bar section. That being said, there’s still plenty of fun to have in this joint. It’s the type of place to watch a game with loudmouths and sit there for hours. More than once I went to stop in for one or two beers, then BOOM its night time. Or I blacked out. Only the police know the true answer.

   

Cast of regulars:  The repeating clientele in this joint is PHEE-NOM-A-NOL. Unreal characters in this joint. There’s Mush Mouth, the belligerent drunk that speaks a language not of this Earth. Barney, a drunk man whose name we do not know, but looks just like Barney, the drunk man from the Simpsons. DAAAAAHLEEEEEEN (Darleen for non Southie speakers). And of course, Butter, the bartender. He’s like the sane doctor in this asylum. If you need to know which horse to bet in any given race, he’s your man.

Beer choices:  Not much happening in the beer dept. Tons of domestic choices, the usuals, Bud, Bud Light, Rolling Rock, etc. Drafts are limited as well, though the prices are dirt cheap, as they should be for a dive bar. $10 for a pitcher of Bud Light, & the house cheapo is a pint of PBR, which will set you back $2.

The Dive Bars of America: Irish Pub Parking in Rear (Quincy, MA)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

This column features one of many beautiful dive bars in America. I love these places. The dive bar is my preferred destination when rambling about town and taking in a few pops. So join us, won’t you, as we venture forth into this vast, delicious wilderness?

As usual, I’ll be using a 5 category rating system which will be rated between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

IRISH PUB PARKING IN REAR 

51 Billings Rd, Quincy, MA 02171

(It seems the official name of this place is just The Irish Pub, but that gigantic, glowing neon sign says otherwise, so I refer to it by it’s full, Christian name)

In the last year, I moved to the Quincy area. What that means is I’m stuck in, essentially, Chinatown Jr. There are an abundance of Sushi joints, businesses with chickens in the window & small people walking around holding pink plastic bags EVERYWHERE. It’s damn near impossible to find a good dive bar in the area. There was a great one called the Alumni Café, alas, it has gone the way of my sobriety, dead & gone forever…to be replaced by another Chinese restaurant. How novel.

The Dive Bars of America: Sully's Sand Trap (North Weymouth, MA)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest and grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. I’ll be using a 5-category rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

Sully’s Sand Trap 

327 Bridge St

North Weymouth, MA 02191

It looks and smells like a coffin.

Holy SHIT what a fantastic dive this place is. Sully’s is a legit box. You walk in, there’s a bar, there’s NO SEATS and then some booths. It’s a square room to get hammered in. there’s like two windows, but they’re pointless, as the neon Budweiser signs block all natural light that may enter this hole. This should be the picture in the dictionary for a dive bar. It’s marvelous in its simplicity. Let’s get right to it.

And that’s my big fat head taking a pic of the inside
of this glorious watering hole. 

FUN FACTOR

Drinking is fun. And that’s all ya got here. There’s a table with a cribbage board built into it, but they lost the pieces years ago. So if you don’t wanna have fun drinking, then this isn’t the place for you. But if hurting your liver with insane amounts of alcohol is cool, COME ON DOWN

ONE OUT OF FOUR

The Dive Bars of America: Stage Door Casino (Las Vegas, NV)

Stage Door Casino
4000 Audrie St.
Las Vegas, NV 89109

Welcome to a special Dive Bar Review, well outside my safety zone of New England. I'll be using a different rating system instead of the standard handlebar mustache for this special review.


The glitz and glamour of Las Vegas is a unique splendor. Ordinarily when you think of Sin City, you think of this majestic view:

You typically wouldn't think of this lovely spot, hidden on a side street on the strip in between the Flamingo and Bally's:

The Dive Bars of America: The Frog Bar (Ocean City, MD)

I've been branching out lately in my dive bar consumption, so it makes sense to review the best I've been to in America. I returned from Ocean City, Maryland this week and hit many, many great bars. They all have happy hours at different times of the day and some even do happy hour ALL day. It's a booze Mecca!!!

See that bar right there? I drank there.

Before I delve into the top dive bar, here's some other bars that need a mention:

1) Mother's Cantina 2810 Philadelphia Ave: Legit, the BEST Mexican food I've ever had. The double decker tacos are outrageously good as is their queso dip. I never miss this place when I visit.

2) Seacrets 117 49th Street: The closest you'll get to island living in this awesome beach community. It's pure bedlam in this massive party complex and a cool place to try to stay sober all day (not possible).

The Dive Bars of America: The Harbor Inn (Ocean City, MD)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

Back with another edition of The Dive Bars of the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. I’ve got a 5-category rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

Harbor Inn

216 Somerset St

Ocean City, MD 21842

Being from Boston, I miss out on a lot of things offered in bars outside of Massachusetts. We have no happy hour here, and it’s essentially ruined my life. Oh sure, I can go out and buy a bottle of Bud Light for $6.25 but how am I supposed to get messed up off three beers? (Here’s a secret: Ludes). Therefore, I am forced to venture elsewhere to find happy hours, and on my most recent trip to OC, I stumbled upon this gem of a bar down by the waterfront. The Harbor Inn is a rectangular room with a misshapen floor, a ceiling that’s far too low, and patrons with nary a full set of teeth among them. So, it’s heaven.


Fun Factor: There’s enough to do here that doesn’t involve drinking. There’s a pool table, a touchscreen game and TVs for your sports-watching. Why you would waste your time with any of that when there’s GALLONS of cheap booze hanging out is beyond me. Get your priorities in line, young man.

Cast of Regulars:. This is what you’d call a "Locals Bar." It’s like Cheers, but with more alcoholics. And the locals, at first, don’t take to kindly to strangers. I walked in and you could hear that record scratch. They looked at me like I had shit dripping out of my ears. But then, a patron by the juke box cracked a somewhat suggestive joke, I laughed, and I became one of the gang. By the time I left, I had heard some new and very colorful vulgarities being spewed from the drunken mouths of all my new friends. It was a pleasure.

The Dive Bars of America: The Ducktown Tavern (Atlantic City, NJ)

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest & grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. My rating system has between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

Ducktown Tavern

2400 Atlantic Ave

Atlantic City, NJ 08401

One of the coolest logos in the dive bar world

In our journey to Jersey, the boys & I ventured outside of the casinos for awhile. Tough to believe, but it’s true. Outside of going to BullShots, we ended up heading past this spot, the Ducktown Tavern. It’s a huge, long bar with two rooms and it’s open 24 FUCKING HOURS A DAY. Yeah, that’s right.

Fun Factor:  The place was HUGE. There were two giant rooms in the joint. They had a ton of TVs and I think dartboards and such in the back…but we were all pinned in a corner, drinking beers and watching TVG to get our horse betting fix going. We made our own fun...and very little money. 

The man brought his own racing form.  He's got a problem.

The Dive Bars of America: Sully's (Quincy MA)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

Another edition of The Dive Bars of the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. I’ve got a 5-category rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

Sully’s

28 Chestnut St

Quincy, MA 02169

About a week ago, myself and fellow Enuffa contributor Scotty Pickles decided to head into Quincy Center for a little day drinking. And we decided on Sully’s as our venue of choice. For some reason, when you google this fine establishment, it comes up as Sully’s Spa. If you show up here for a nice massage and some possible crotch play, YOU’RE IN THE WRONG PLACE, PAL (that’s across the street). Sully’s is split into two distinct areas, one long bar and a seating area behind it. It also has a boss neon sign that you can see even when you’re blind drunk.

Fun Factor: Keno, all day, all night. Along with the scratchie machine, jukebox and old school TV with rabbit ears, that’s about it for your entertainment dollar. Not much happening here. But I love me some Keno, so I’m biased. They also have AWESOME décor all over the place. Planes made out of old Natty Light cans? YES PLEASE.

Cast of Regulars: Oh, yeah. TONS of em. And they were all hunkered down at the end of the bar watching reruns of “I Love Lucy”. I would love to judge these old codgers for watching an ancient episode of a show from the fifties, but I was drinking two-dollar beer in the middle of a Wednesday, so I can’t really act all high & mighty.

Spuds MacKenzie counts as a regular

The Dive Bars of Yesteryear: The Quiet Man Pub (South Boston, MA)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

Back with another edition of The Dive Bars of America, but with a twist. In this edition, I talk about a storied dive bar from days past. I’ve got a 5-category rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

The Quiet Man Pub

11 W Broadway

South Boston, MA 02127

Probably the most lamented bar in Southie, The Quiet Man is a legendary watering hole that, sadly, went the way of the dodo bird almost a decade ago. The Quiet Man was a bar with two rooms, one a straight-up pub, the other a restaurant area. It had a questionable bathroom, excellent food and tons of personality.


FUN FACTOR: Every time you walked into this joint, you would have a blast. Didn’t matter what you came there to do; if you were eating or boozing til the last number 9 bus drove away, the place was GREAT. There were TVs all about for your sporting needs, but it was more about the crew you showed up with. A good time was had by all in here.

Shortly before its untimely demise

The Dive Bars of America: Delaney’s Pub (Quincy, MA)

by Dan Moore
@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest and grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. I’ll be using a 5-category rating system between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

DELANEY’S PUB 

35 Franklin Street

Quincy MA 02169

Delaney’s is a vile bar with filth covering it and disgusting people going in and out of it all day. Let’s get this over with.


FUN FACTOR: Do you like hepatitis? Fleas? Zika virus? If those things are your idea of a good time, run, don’t walk to Delaney’s. The place is most likely covered in all those, along with some heretofor unknown diseases. So head there now if you wanna end up with a jolly old case of Brainpox.

ZERO MUSTACHES

CAST OF REGULARS: All this place has is regulars. And they’re as disgusting as the beer that flows from the taps here. Also, despite the fact that it’s illegal to do so in the state of Massachusetts, EVERYONE smokes in here. It’s ridiculous. I walked in there thinking I was smoking. I still haven’t been able to get the crusty smell of Madge’s Marlboros off my jacket.

ZERO MUSTACHES

BEER CHOICES: Whatever you do, order a bottle from here. The dust in this place had dirt in it. The cleanest thing in this place was the urinal. If you’re drinking a draft beer in this place, good luck getting home, because the bacteria from these draft lines is 100% gonna make you go blind. I’d rather be dead than drink a draft from this joint. And I don’t even think it was beer they were pouring. That was the natural color of their putrid water. If you had a choice between a Bud draft from Delaney’s or drinking whatever is left at the bottom of monkey cage, take a glass over to Koko’s place and bottoms up.

ZERO MUSTACHES

The Dive Bars of America: Pat's Downtown Bar & Grill (Denver, CO)

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

Pat’s Downtown Bar & Grill

1624 Market St, Denver, CO 80202

In my latest jaunt to a town I went to for really no reason but to drink, Denver was where I laid my weary liver for a few days to pound down some original Coors, the banquet beer. While checking out the downtown area and bar-hopping quite easily thanks to the free shuttle Denver provides, we happened upon Pat’s. A chalkboard sign outside let us know they had $5 pitchers of beer, so we ventured south down the stairs.


FUN FACTOR: A basement bar with a small bar area but a huge dining area with plenty of TVs and seating, Pat’s is a perfect dingy hole in which you can sit for hours and get drunk. Off to the side is a dartboard and a coupla pinball machines. BE WARNED: this is a Philly bar. I have no problem with Philly folk, but we showed up on a college football Saturday, when it was transformed into a Penn State bar. That immediately turned me off, as I can’t separate their football program from the Sandusky child-love incidents, so I was horribly biased against the fan base in there. Rooting for that team and university sickens me.  Thankfully, the Lions were getting blown out and the crowd dispersed. But it cast a shadow on my fun factor.