Tony’s Saloon
2017 E. 7th St.
Los Angeles, CA 90021
map

This Wednesday the tour will throw Los Angeles a bone. Or more specifically, throw the Los Angeles bar scene a bone. As a careful reader of this humble newsletter and as a casual attendee of the tour you will likely know that we consistently rage, rage against the dying of the light. For each dive bar where the spark of perfect accessibility is fed into the incinerator of velvet ropes, doormen, and cocktails sporting infusions of acai berries, we shed a tear and often light a few devotional candles to St. Petersburg del Florida, the patron saint of dive bars.

This week we visit Tony’s Saloon, which is not really a dive, but more of a neo-dive. Owned by the same group behind The Golden Gopher and Seven Grand, Tony’s is located at the far eastern extent of the normal dive bar territories, well off the beaten path, in the midst of the confounding hybrid industrial trendy loft landscape between Skid Row and the Los Angeles river. Tony’s offers a quality pool table, darts, and a ping pong table on the patio. There is free parking in the lot right next to the bar, but carpool if you plan on attempting to make your way through the whiskey list…. as it is much longer the those offered at our usual dives.

And, if the scene is just way to upstanding for your taste, feel free to head back west on 7th street a few blocks to Campers Corner; a dive so deep it doesn’t even have a yelp review to its name and may also be a check cashing service. We might just decline to join ya.

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, & where the hell is Travis? - WDBT Co-czars

"Everyone kept telling me, Just be yourself. Be yourself. I kept thinking, there’s got to be more to it than that!" -Tony Danza

Shatto 39 Lanes
3255 West 4th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90020
map

This week the World Dive Bar Tour takes its annual rite of spring, the bowling night. While our exploration of the Los Angeles dive bar bowling alley has ranged far and wide, from joints named ‘Mar Vista’, ‘Midtown’, and ‘Bay Shore’, it has never led us to this corner of Los Angeles. Yes, Shatto 39 Lanes is one of the first destinations for the tour directly adjacent to Little Bangladesh*. For the whole story on Little Bangladesh, you’ll just have head on down to the the bowling alley so we can give ya the scoop. In addition to exhaustive explanations of neighborhood politics and low impact intrigue, Shatto Lanes offers cheap bowling in a wonderful 60’s styled decor (which was installed in the 60’s when it was just plain old decor), a full bar with inexpensive Oat Sodas and Caucasians, a collection of vintage arcade games, and diverse cross-section of Angelenos including the aforementioned Bangladeshis.

Free parking is available in the garage, and is likely the most shady element to encounter. We would also encourage all bar goers to check out the neighborhood nearby where in addition to the pulse of Bhangra there is a literal menagerie of sights, sounds, and flavors.

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

*neighborhood designation still pending

Proposed Name of Community: "Little Bangladesh"
Street Boundaries / Area: "Area surrounded by Wilshire Blvd, Western Ave, 3rd St., and Vermont Avenue."
Reason for name change: "We have a lot of people of our Bangladesh commnity living within that boundary."

-from City of Los Angeles application to name or rename communities

Dave’s on Broadway
708 E. Broadway
Glendale, CA 91205
map

It is not very often that the World Dive Bar Tour makes its way somewhere without a Los Angeles address, but this week will bring us all to the fine city of Glendale. Once you step away from the rampant consumerism of Brand Blvd. one will find the small town charm in the city’s quality collection of dive bars. Located at the intersection of Broadway and Glendale Ave, Dave’s is easy to miss. Keep an eye open for the red lit sign and the neon in the window, which simply hints at the quality within.

Dave’s on Broadway is a dive bar of the most typical sort. It is fit into a basic storefront configuration 40-ish feet wide by 100-ish feet deep, with a dark doorway in the front, a long bar along one side of the room, a pool table to the side, and a not so secret back entrance. The mixed drinks will set you back just a few bucks, the domestic oat sodas even less, and the bartender might just be wearing a classy old school white dress shirt and a thin black tie - just the way it should be. There might be free pizza, there might be karaoke or some sort of live musical performance of dubious quality, and there most certainly will be friendly senior citizens ready to make conversation with the slightest perception of eye contact.

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

"In the early 1880s town names such as Etheldean, Minneapolis, Portosuelo, Riverdale, San Rafael, and Verdugo were proposed. Following Thanksgiving dinner in 1883, settlers met at the schoolhouse (which also served as the community church) on lower Verdugo Road to discuss the possible names for the town. Ultimately, a young woman painter from Chicago offered the two word name "Glen Dale" and it was approved."

–Glendale Historical Society

Bar 107
107 4th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013
map

This week, the World Dive Bar Tour heads downtown to visit one of the dwindling holds in this once-beleaguered city center. Wasn’t it just yesterday that any adventurous soul could find themselves downtown, tiptoe around questionable sidewalks, and duck into a dark establishment to find a cheap drink within easy reach? Now there is a different movement afoot around our historic core, one which requires dress codes, cover charges and lines of credit; things well beyond the scope of our Wednesday night mandate.

Luckily, when converted from an old Latino gay bar several years ago to its present state, Bar 107 eschewed any of the trappings of gentrification and instead installed copious amounts of taxidermy, a 50’s style jukebox, mildly pornographic bible art, an extremely large doorman (if we are lucky), a few old school video games, a photo booth in the backroom, and tall cans of fine macro-brews (such as Pabst, Tecate, and rumblings of Olympia) for just a few dollars. While all this might seem like a bit much rest assured that it all hangs together for a ramshackle good time.

An item of note: the weekends can get a bit busy, with a DJ often spinning for the dance floor, sometimes a cover at the door, and as the bar is the official after party destination of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls.

As it is our compulsion to visit such dives mid-week, we will miss such distractions and should expect plenty of room in the comfortable booths for a relaxing drink or two. 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

"One Hundred And Seven is the 28th Prime Number"
- Wikipedia

Dave’s on Broadway
708 E. Broadway
Glendale, CA 91205
map

It is not very often that the World Dive Bar Tour makes its way somewhere without a Los Angeles address, but this week will bring us all to the fine city of Glendale. Once you step away from the rampant consumerism of Brand Blvd. one will find the small town charm in the city’s quality collection of dive bars. Located at the intersection of Broadway and Glendale Ave, Dave’s is easy to miss. Keep an eye open for the red lit sign and the neon in the window, which simply hints at the quality within.

Dave’s on Broadway is a dive bar of the most typical sort. It is fit into a basic storefront configuration 40-ish feet wide by 100-ish feet deep, with a dark doorway in the front, a long bar along one side of the room, a pool table to the side, and a not so secret back entrance. The mixed drinks will set you back just a few bucks, the domestic oat sodas even less, and the bartender might just be wearing a classy old school white dress shirt and a thin black tie - just the way it should be. There might be free pizza, there might be karaoke or some sort of live musical performance of dubious quality, and there most certainly will be friendly senior citizens ready to make conversation with the slightest perception of eye contact.

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

"In the early 1880s town names such as Etheldean, Minneapolis, Portosuelo, Riverdale, San Rafael, and Verdugo were proposed. Following Thanksgiving dinner in 1883, settlers met at the schoolhouse (which also served as the community church) on lower Verdugo Road to discuss the possible names for the town. Ultimately, a young woman painter from Chicago offered the two word name "Glen Dale" and it was approved."

–Glendale Historical Society

Maeve’s Residuals
11042 Ventura Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 91604
map

A great Los Angeles dive has that special ability to hide in plain sight, in that anonymous strip mall that you drove by a thousand times and never gave a second glance. Stand on a corner and boldly declare your presence to the world at large, and your divy intentions will soon be overrun by douchebags (The Gaslight, we’re looking at you…), which is why, at least in this regard, the nearly impossible to find Residuals is tops in the city. Without a GPS system or a trusty Valley sherpa, Residuals is impossible to detect while driving this busy stretch of Ventura Blvd., its location buried far from the curb, between a torta shop and a vegan fast food joint (this is still LA, after all).

The most noticeable landmark when giving directions to Residuals is its adjacency to its more popular neighbor, the pseudo-dive and British Pub, The Fox and Hounds — enough so that in front of Maeve’s Residuals sits a sign declaring "NO PARKING FOR FOX & HOUNDS!" Were this merely battle of adjacency, this rivalry would be nothing more than a footnote, but it must be mentioned that Residuals proudly serves Guinness on tap (for $5) in the proper manner of letting your pint settle first under a neon shamrock. They broadcast every Red Sox game, too. And, one gets the sense that the grizzled old man mumbling to himself in a booth is an escaped IRA bomb-maker plotting for the inevitable escalation to violance against this bar’s fish and chip serving Protestant neighbor.

Much like the nation of Ireland’s recent emergence from the middle-ages, Residuals is struggling to find its place in the modern world. The bar is spotlessly clean, they offer free WiFi, some sort of Internet-based trivia contraption, and are down with all the latest social networking trends. And yet, it remains mostly empty, since looked at from afar, it appears to be a backwards island of savages adjacent to the enlightened Brits next door. But we on the tour… we remember the Easter of 1916.

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 Drinkem,

Alex, Damien & Travis, WDBT Co-Czars

Lotus Lounge
1135 N. Vermont Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90029
map

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

Foxfire Room
12516 Magnolia Blvd.
Valley Village, CA 91607 (The Valley, aka: No Man’s Land)
Map

Like any good dive, the Foxfire Room must be prefaced with some warnings. First off, we should note that when arriving on Magnolia, you will find the front door boarded up and barricaded. Fear not. The entrance, and ample parking, can be achieved through the back alleyway. Second, while the bar showcases many television screens inside, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to watch your favorite sporting event of the evening on any of them, as most are dedicated to showcasing the various security cameras protecting the perimeter.

Reading these disclaimers, one may begin to fear for ones safety, but fear not, we of the World Dive Bar Tour Executive Committee implore you. The Foxfire Room is safely located in what is known colloquially as "The Valley" — a Los Angeles suburb best known as home to the Burbank and Burbank-adjacent studio lots where many of our paychecks originate. This region features tree-lined streets, relatively low crime, and temperatures, on average, 40 degrees hotter than the portions of Los Angeles that we call "Los Angeles."

Our suspicion is that the heightened security is simply for the purpose of protecting the bar from the encroaching Hipster Menace overflowing from Silver Lake into Studio City, and the Douchebag Menace overflowing from Santa Monica into Sherman Oaks. This is a bar for Dive Bar purists, and must be respected as such. Thus, we implore all Dive Bar Devotes to dress appropriately. No Fedoras. No ironic t-shirts. And, for that matter, no t-shirts with a retail value of over $20. Additionally, no drink orders that go by a name of anything other than the exact liquids to be porn (to the best of our knowledge, that is the proper conjugation of the verb "pour" in this sentence… at least in "The Valley") into your glass. Please, take heed of these rule. If you respect the Foxfire Room, it will respect you… otherwise, things may get ugly.

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

Hank’s Bar
840 S Grand Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90017

This might be the most important dive bar of the year. It will be the first night after the epic election of 2008, and quite possibly the first dive bar night of a new epoch of humanity. Okay, maybe not an epoch of humanity, but surly a epoch of the next four years. And no matter if you are all about environmental conservation or conservative economic theory, you will find common ground in the conservative prices for your standard mixed drink and support the continued bar’o'diversity of the downtown food-web. No matter if you are way down with unconditional discussion or conditionally applied freedoms, don’t worry your little heart, we will be unconditionally welcomed with the liberty to drink as we please, on the condition we keep up on the tipping schedule. But there is one reminder of the new deal or the welfare state that cannot be ignored. There is free popcorn.

Located to one side of the entrance to the wonderfully shady Stillwell Hotel, Hanks bar was founded in 1959 by its late namesake, Hank Holzer (who unfortunately passed on in 1997), and is a gem of the type. The bar is approximately 8 times longer than it is wide, the TV’s are smaller than a typical shoebox, the jukebox is not connected to the internet, there seems to be a table in the back with a crock-pot, a microwave, a toaster, and a huge supply of mustard, and behind the bar (hopefully staffed by the wonderful Wanda) is the sign ‘Yesterdays Charm’.

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

Club Tee Gee
3210 Glendale Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90039

It’s Wednesday afternoon. Dive bar begins in a few short hours, and the drinking public is in a state of panic. The resident Czar expert on Club Tee Gee has gone AWOL. Fallen off the grid. Most likely off on another bender of raging on barley wine… or designing a middle school. You never know with that guy. Fear not though, for the World Dive Bar Tour always goes on.

Having never been to Club Tee Gee, I can tell you that it’s a bar on Glendale Blvd, with a neon sign in a funny font that looks like it says, "Club Tee Yee". Do not be fooled, though. The name of this bar is "Club Tee Gee", and that’s a very nice name for a bar. Although the name sounds somewhat like "Club Tiki", I am also reasonably certain that it is not a tiki bar. But it could be. You never know. Since I am also uncertain whether they take credit cards, I would also suggest bringing some cash. Even if they take credit cards, it’s always a good idea to carry some cash, just in case. With those details out of the way, I now implore you to join me this evening, in heading off into this great unknown.

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, & where the hell is Travis? - WDBT Co-czars

"It all adds up. He stole somebody’s hair, made a wig, knocked out the guard, tunneled his way through a sewer line, and then stopped to get a candied apple on his way to Mexico" — Maebe Funke