Kibitz Room
419 N. Fairfax Ave.
West Hollywood, CA 90036
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Five thousand years of beautiful tradition has nothing on the twelve thousand years of imbibing. We, the World Dive Bar Tour, shall uphold this tradition for one last time in 2011. The end of the year means rushing from office to party, rushing from the office party, TV specials, gift procuring, and dangerous reflection on the waning year. This week, we tap the brakes on the holidays and bend an elbow at the Kibitz Room. L’Chaim!

Kibitz has been a stop on the WDBT for years due to its cool, dark charm and stiff pours. Come early, nosh next door at Canter’s and take the VIP entrance into the back of the bar straight from the restaurant. Or eat someplace decent and take the long, cave like Fairfax entrance. No matter how you come, bring some cheer, have a beer, and be merry.

This year, we’ll take advantage of some serendipitous seasonal timing to host a holiday gift exchange. If you’re inclined to participate schlep a wrapped gift ($20 or less) to the bar and expect some meshugenneh present-stealing game.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you, if the friendly regulars don’t find you first).

Carpe Drink’em,

The World Dive Bar Executive Committee

The 2012 World Dive Bar Tour will start out on January 11th at Smog Cutter.

Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

H.M.S. Bounty
3357 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90010
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Some years ago — never mind how long precisely — having little or no money in our purse, and nothing particular to interest us on Sunset, we sailed about to the watery part of the LA dive bar world. Inspired, we cast a wide net.

Our, casual, debauchery was always seeking out the next cozy haunt; uttering for entrance to the next speak easy. This thirst for the new has left our old haunts missed. These, at times, great places have been forgotten amongst the cocktail napkins and matchbooks of over five years of touring. Some, like Del’s, have been lost forever. Others, like the Gold Room, are now an ironic museums to their golden age. These places are archived in our hearts and on our rarely trafficked website. Time to sort through our history and plot a course back-in-time.

September 24, 2008. Nearly three years ago, we last visited this week’s stop - the H.M.S Bounty.

Its Wilshire Center neighborhood has become the gentrified home to hipsters. Across the boulevard is the new $578 million RFK Community Schools complex. Yes, that is the most expensive public school ever built in America. However, our port-of-call is still nestled in the feet of the Gaylord Apartments, named for the developer, socialist, Canadian, UK, and US political candidate, the millionaire (at various times) Gaylord Wilshire. Yes, it’s the same as the long boulevard that houses many capitalist institutions and the legal stealing of 10-15%, talent agencies — but most importantly, the H.M.S. Bounty.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em!

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”

- Winston Churchill

Blipsy Barcade
369 N Western Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90004
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Quarters.

They have always had meaning in our lives. As children, we begged our mothers at the supermarket, seeking treasure in the gum ball machine. We pleaded for them at the pizza parlor for a round or two at Street Fighter. Sadly, after the joy of adolescence the twenty-five cent piece became the currency of hygiene. Coveted change tightly held; crinkled dollars exchanged; early morning queues for a roll at the bank. The quarter was reduced to the ammunition for battling brown stains in the name the of maintaining societal harmony.

This week, the World Dive Bar Tour is pleased to partake in shameless nostalgia [latfh] as we visit Blipsy Barcade. Once known as Miss T’s Barcade, this week’s stop features a dozen 80’s arcade games, a few pinball machines, $4 scotch and soda and the return of the quarter as the currency of joy. Bring cash. Bring quarters. Leave your adult burdens at the door. An extra life is just a token away.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own and we’ll find you.

Carpe Drink’em,

Brian & Travis, hosts

for The World Dive Bar Tour Executive Committee

"I don’t believe this. I got the scroll weapon, and I almost beat Mecha-Turtle at the end of level three." Sam in the "Wizard"

Mariscos Los Kabo’s
4168 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90004
map

At our last dive bar, the first in a series of three ‘underground’ locations in our fair city, those who arrived late discovered just how underground we mean as we were nowhere to be found and the bar closed early to prepare for their crush of drunkards the following morning. With our apologies to the snafu regarding our St. Patrick’s Day debacle please rest assured there is no danger of such a tragedy befouling our enjoyment of this weeks dive.

This week, we visit Mariscos Los Kabo’s and it is just about as far from your typical nightlife establishment as any we have ever attended on the tour. While it is possible to ‘check in’ at the bar via popular social networking applications…. nowhere would you find any inkling of what is in store. Los Kabo’s does not even merit a glib Yelp review by a hipster bag raving about the authentic cultural experience… until now.

Mariscos Los Kabo’s is a Central American beer bar in the center of our fair city and is easy to miss unless you happen to notice faint glow of neon light and the drone of accordion music through the unassuming screen door. There are just a few caveats; the bar is cash only (but the beers only run a few dollars each), it may very well be a low key gay singles spot, the jukebox is quite loud and only loaded with songs in Spanish, and you will not find any Mariscos to speak of even though the bartender will bring you a bowl of peanuts and a plate of chopped cucumber and carrots doused with picante sauce when you order a beer. Yet, there is a quality Salvadorean / Honduran restaurant right next door and a burrito shack across the street if you feel a bit peckish.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own and we’ll find you.

Carpe Drink’em,

Brian & Travis, hosts

for The World Dive Bar Tour Executive Committee

I’m not trying to be some kind of underground renegade. ~Alex Winter

The Dime
442 N. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
map

Happy New Year,

Two thousand and eleven is the start of a new chapter in the World Dive Bar Tour. We are turning over new leaves, making resolutions and righting the wrongs of the past. Over the holidays, we realized the tour needed some fresh ideas, new blood and to that aim we resolved to get out and socialize with other bar cultures. The WDBT is confident this time, this year, we will abide by most of our promises until (at least) mid-January. Soon, the news of snow storms in other parts of the country and the realization that our next paid holiday is in May will destroys our will to live and force us into the safe womb of our usual haunts. In the spirit of in with the new and fear of the same old, this week we visit the Dime.

Our stop is located on same block of Fairfax as the ancient, reliable, shabby Canter’s (with adjoining tour favorite the Kibitz Room) and new, wait two hours for a table, trendy Animal. The block’s gentrification has transformed The Dime. It cost a bit more. The decor is almost dive and it still would be dive, save the uber hipster backlit photographs on the wall. There are few patrons outside of the general WDBT advertising demographic. The bartenders are far cuter. But like any cleaned up drunk, you can still see the old ways written on the bathroom wall.

Let us go to forth into the Los Angeles’ Jerusalem, meet the people and preach the Wor(l)d Dive Bar Tour. Dress up, bring some smiles and mingle with the crowd. Let them know why you are there. Tell them we will be at the Silver Lake Lounge on January 26th.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you, if the friendly regulars don’t find you first).

Carpe Drink’em,

Brian, host

for The World Dive Bar Tour Executive Committee

Sheddy’s Public Parlour
361 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90036
map

There are a few things we’ve learned on the Tour about dives in Los Angeles, and the most important may be that no matter how upscale, redeveloped, or polished a community there are always dive bars. Where you least expect them, often hidden in plain sight, these little gems are what keep us well nourished in our ongoing dive bar explorations.

Sheddy’s is one of these places. Almost like the bipolar counterpart to the eastside Tiki Ti, Sheddy’s is time capsule and a monument to a singular vision of a perfect drinking establishment. It is a wine and beer bar from an era before there was such a thing as a wine or beer bar. This may be because the owner, Jim Sheddy, is a Canadian. Or it may be because Jim simply loves a good Dogfishhead IPA or a complex Spanish red with a plate of cheese - and thinks we all should too.

There is parking in the back for a few cars, they take plastic, and the rest is more or less by the book. It will also the birthday of Co-Czar Travis, and he specifically picked out this bar (never before on the tour) given his general agreement with Jim Sheddy’s vision.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

St. Nick’s
8450 W. 3rd Street
Los Angeles, CA 90048
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It’s a Holiday Miracle! In recognition of an incredibly awesome 2009, and in the season’s spirit of giving, the World Dive Bar Tour Executive Committee has added a bonus venue to the calendar: St. Nick’s, located in the shadow of the Bev Center for convenient post-shopping libations.

Featuring decent pub grub and drinks that make up for mild priciness with their respectable volume ($7 gets you a mixed drink, but it fills a pint glass), St. Nick’s is an excellent casual mid-week watering hole that stands, with the passing of The Coronet Pub, as the only oasis in the vast dive wasteland between West LA and East Hollywood.

Additionally, our cleverness should be acknowledged in that the bar is named for the noted Turkish gift-giver and patron saint of pawnbrokers, St. Nicholas. As we all remember from fond childhood memories, over the centuries the legend of St. Nicholas was stripped of his Middle-Eastern appearance to more closely resemble the Europeans who worshipped him (just like what they did to Jesus), and this once frail desert-dwelling Saint now appears during the Christmas season as a jolly, fat white guy from the North Pole, extolling the virtues of shopping at Macys and drinking Coca Cola. Associations between his activities and the pawnbrokers for whom he patrons have also been stripped from most folklore, despite remaining a common occurrence during depressed economic times. Merry Christmas!

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9:00 and gets really interesting by 10:00.  Come for one drink, or stay for one too many, bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drinkem,

Alex, Damien, and Travis — WDBT Co-czars

Kid: Your beard’s not real.
Willie: No Shit! It was real, but I got sick and all the hair fell out.
Kid: How come?
Willie: I loved a woman who wasn’t clean.
Kid: Mrs. Santa?
Willie: No it was her sister.

–Bad Santa

Kibitz Room
419 N. Fairfax Ave.
West Hollywood, CA 90036
map

Following the observance of Yom Kippur, the predominantly goy and shichtza WDBT will pause for a stop on the tour to remember who really runs this town. While our agents, lawyers, producers, and, in stark contrast, most of the town’s great comedy writers, observed a 25-hour fast, praying for atonement and repentance in the utmost ritual purity on Monday, this Wednesday, we will pollute ourselves with manischewitz in the spirit of multiculturalism, entering the belly of the beast — the Fairfax District — to visit the Kibitz Room adjacent Canter’s Deli.

Although our understanding is that "kibitz" is a pickled herring jelly, meant for spreading on bagels or rye bread, the bar itself is Dive Bar Tour Kosher, with an old man serving up cheap drinks at a reasonable price, and a wide range of friendly clientele. The only reminder of the bar’s Jewry is the relentless singing of classic Hebrew drinking songs… "Have a tequila, have a tequila…"

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you, if the friendly regulars don’t find you first).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis - WDBT Co-czars

"Five thousand years of beautiful tradition, from Moses to Sandy Kaufax, YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I’M LIVING IN THE PAST!"
- Walter Sobchak

Lotus Lounge
1135 N. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
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There are times when this city can still surprise and delight. It’s the feeling one gets in a slightly grimy neighborhood, which you have passed through hundreds of times, when you wander in a slightly grimy doorway, which you have never before noticed, and find a dive bar that warmly welcomes you and serves up the most inexpensive pitcher of beer seen in years. It is harder and harder to uncover a new dive never before seen on the tour, but this week we will bring such a bar into the fold.

This week sets us down smack in the middle of town, on axis with the great dive bar heaven of San Pedro and somewhere between the neighborhoods we often call "east" and "west." The bar is just a block from a stop on our often neglected subway system between downtown and the valley. It is just a stones throw away from the 24 hour Mexican restaurant known affectionately as ‘The Gran’. A pitcher of beer will set you back just 12 dollars. There is a dart board, a pool table and over sized 80’s macro-brew posters all over the walls. If you do decide to drive (rarely has a dive bar destination been so accessible to public transportation) you will find copious amounts of street parking and a small lot in the back. Stay long enough and you might find yourself in a crackpot conversation about the economic future of the United States of America with a nice old-timer. With all these factors taken into account, I am beginning to think the Lotus Lounge could be a lynch-pin of the entire Los Angeles dive bar universe.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM an gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em,

Alex, Damien, & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

Irish Times
3267 Motor Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90034 (Palms)
Map

Los Angeles has long been known for its poor emulation of the cultural trappings from other parts of the world, which is why if you’ve been to one Irish pub in LA, you’ve been to them all. We’ve been lead to believe that "authentic" Irish pubs these days are decorated with glossy, varnished bars, shamrock bric-a-brac, and plasma screens — the kinds of places that are packed to the brim every St. Patrick’s Day with underage college students who can’t hold their liquor. One trip to the land of majesty would quickly clear up this misconception…or you could just visit Irish Times with WDBT this week.

While all the amateurs are nursing hangovers and oxycleaning the vomit out of their clothes, WDBT is hitting up the only dive-worthy, authentic Irish pub in town. Capturing the ambiance of a quiet, Dublin watering hole, Irish Times offers Guinness on tap served by an acid-tongued Irish bartender (she’s really from Ireland, folks) in a dark , cozy space, where the pint is truly mightier than the game on TV. But, should you need additional entertainment, Irish Times provides some dive bar essentials like Golden Tee golf, 75 cent pool tables, and a juke box full of the best rock n’ roll.

As usual, the casual debauchery starts around 9PM and gets really interesting by 10:00. Come for one drink, or stay for one too many. Bring anyone and everyone, and join us for a great time in the middle of the week. If you arrive early or late, look for the people having a damn good time (it’ll be us), or start having a damn good time on your own (we’ll find you).

Carpe Drink’em!

Alex, Damien, & Travis - WDBT Co-czars