What makes a dive bar? A look at Las Vegas classics

Let’s settle an argument: Atomic Liquors on Fremont East is not a dive bar.

Well … not really. OK, maybe.

It depends who you ask what being a dive bar really means. It’s a definition that varies, has some hard rules and, of course, many exceptions. And Las Vegas is rife with dive bars.

There are a few simple standards that most dive bars in the valley share:

The drinks cost next-to-nothing.

It’s most likely been around for a decade or two (or six).

It’s probably located near downtown Las Vegas. (We’ll get back to this later.)

And it (typically) serves one purpose and one purpose only — to let you get drunk.

These bars are also places where smoking is allowed indoors, they never (or rarely) close and using the restroom is advisable only after a few drinks.

“Why is the floor sticky?” might be a thought that you learn to ignore.

Jim Sowatzke, who has lived in downtown Las Vegas for almost 14 years and frequents multiple dive bars, said it’s the lack of bells and whistles that makes a dive bar.

“Places like the Huntridge (Tavern), places like 5th Avenue Pub, you know, where it’s one s——y pool table with crummy cues and cheap beers. For me, a dive bar serves the simple man,” Sowatzke said. “You sit down. You order, and ‘eleven-teen’ seconds later, you have your drinks. You drink your drinks. There’s no mint julep in a dive bar.”

HUNTRIDGE TAVERN

Huntridge Tavern, on the corner of Maryland Parkway and Charleston Boulevard, has been around more than five decades, a smoke-filled spot with a jukebox, a little video poker and most likely the cheapest beer in Las Vegas ($1.50 for a Hamm’s, 12-ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon and High Life cans).

Kate Alexander has been the manager of Huntridge for almost eight years.

“We haven’t really changed the decor much in the last 50-something years,” she said. Huntridge opened in 1962, about six months before Dino’s Lounge opened on the north end of the Las Vegas Strip. “It’s rode through the neighborhood’s ups and downs — for better or for worse.”

Alexander said the appeal of Huntridge is that it’s a comfortable environment, where “everyone feels welcome and we want to make them feel comfortable.”

She noted the diverse clientele, saying it’s one of the few places you’ll find “a 90-year-old talking to a 22-year-old hipster.”

“I prefer the enjoyment of the different variety of people — different walks of life, everyone seems to get along in a dive bar,” she added.

It’s just down the road from 5th Avenue Pub, a lesser-known dive bar in downtown Las Vegas.

5TH AVENUE PUB

“5th Avenue Pub might be my quintessential dive bar because it references a street that hasn’t been named that for 50 years,” Sowatzke said of the thoroughfare known nowadays as Las Vegas Boulevard, between Fourth and Sixth streets.)

“One crummy pool table, one bartender, it never gets super slammed,” he said.

5th Avenue Pub is technically on Sixth Street, near Charleston Blvd.

It’s the kind of place where the Yelp reviews range from “someone should send a Hazmat team here” to “it reminds me of a gas station.” But ask the regulars and they’ll probably be fine with that.

You won’t find a seven-ingredient cocktail with garnish here.

“I like s——y tap beer and s——y cheap whisky. If I’m going to a cocktail bar, I don’t want something that’s muddled. I don’t want fresh fruit. Give me a beer and a shot,” Sowatzke said.

There are other bars nearby that you would think fit the aforementioned criteria, but then you run into the argument of dive bar versus hipster bar (we hate the term, too) versus neighborhood watering hole.

The Griffin, as well as others on Fremont East, where smoking is allowed and the one purpose is drinking, would more likely fit that hipster categorization.

Bars like Boomers Bar, near Interstate 15 and Desert Inn Road, and Moon Doggies, down the road on Arville Street, would usually be called watering holes, because of their location, along with probably another 50 bars spread out around the valley.

So what else makes a Las Vegas dive bar?

“It harkens back to that Midwest, non-Las Vegas feel,” Sowatzke said. “What would be a regular bar in the other 49 states, in Las Vegas is a dive bar because there’s no chandelier or Cirque du Soleil act.”

ATOMIC LIQUORS?

“I’m looking at all of these bottles here,” Sowatzke said Tuesday afternoon, pointing at the higher-end and specialty liquors that Atomic Liquors offers. “I guarantee you will not find those at a dive bar.”

Atomic Liquors’ dive bar status has been debated as long as it’s been open. What used to be a shady part of town has been the center of growth and revitalization for more than five years, and Atomic is in the heart of it.

The bar, at 917 Fremont Street, has indoor smoking, no TVs, no gaming, a decades-old downtown location and that “home away from home” feel — wait a second.

Candice Turner, an employee at Atomic Liquors, argues no.

“It has too many refined qualities,” she said. “Bathrooms are too clean, juice is fresh-squeezed, wide variety of spirits and primarily all craft beers.”

And another appraisal:

“Not in my opinion,” the bar’s assistant general manager, Jeff Grindley, said. “For years, it was. It’s a neighborhood bar with history now.”

So that settles that.

FRANKIE’S TIKI ROOM

But then you introduce the theme bar — Frankie’s Tiki Room, for example. The bar features specialty cocktails (about $9 each), and behind the bar are bottles of rum you’ve probably never heard of.

You can still order cheap beer and a shot, but does this tiki bar count as a dive?

If you ask anyone what Frankie’s is, they’ll tell you it’s a tiki bar. If you ask them what their favorite dive bar is, they’ll probably tell you Frankie’s.

“Tiki bars are cool,” owner P Moss told the Review-Journal in 2013. “They always have been. I don’t care what city you’re in, if there’s a tiki bar — even a crappy one — people are going to say, ‘Hey, let’s go do that, for something that’s different and fun.’ But done properly, it’s a place where people want to go all the time.”

For this one, it’s more about the experience. It’s the “people want to go all the time” aspect.

Frankie’s reopened as Frankie’s Tiki Room in 2008 under Moss with the help of Bamboo Ben, whereas before that, for decades, it was Frankie’s Bar & Cocktail Lounge.

The stand-alone bar, west of I-15 at 1712 W. Charleston Blvd., can be overwhelmingly dark if you go there during the day, and overwhelmingly smoky if you go at night, but it has the “home” feel like most other dives.

“There’s a coziness,” Sowatzke said.

CHAMPAGNES

Champagnes Cafe, on Maryland Parkway, is another name that many will throw out at the mention of dives. It’s existed since the 1960s and has been frequented by everyone from the guy down the street to the Rat Pack.

The bar recently underwent a transformation of sorts as part of Spike TV’s “Bar Rescue,” a decision that fans of the bar almost immediately disdained.

In a rare move for the show, much of Champagnes was left untouched — the design of the bar, the prices and the famed wallpaper. Time will tell if it retains its dive bar notoriety, but because of what it was, we’re still counting it.

DINO’S LOUNGE

Known by most for its karaoke, Dino’s is usually one of the first, if not the first, suggestions one hears when asking about Las Vegas dive bars.

The bar, at 1516 Las Vegas Blvd. South (right behind the Stratosphere), has been “getting Vegas drunk since 1962,” as the tagline goes. It’s one of those bars that comes with a classic Las Vegas mob tie.

According to his granddaughter Kristin, Rinaldo Dean “Dino” Bartolomucci bought the bar, then known as Ringside Liquors, for $60,000 from reputed mobster Eddie Trascher.

It’s one of those bars, like Huntridge and Champagnes, where you’ll find some of the people who helped build Las Vegas into what it is today.

And they’re all after the same thing.

“There’s a sole purpose to dive bars,” Sowatzke said. “We’re here to get f——d up.”

Contact Kristen DeSilva at kdesilva@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @kristendesilva