The World's Top 100 Dive Bars

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
2. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
3. Eater These Are the Very Best Bars in New Orleans

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Eater The Best Bars in Denver
3. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Denver

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Eater The Best Bars in Las Vegas
3. Time Out The best bars in Las Vegas

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
2. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
2. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

The patio seating is made from repurposed toilets and road signs, which tells you everything about the vibe before you've ordered a drink. Double Wide is a Deep Ellum dive bar with a trailer park aesthetic, cheap and stiff pours, and a music venue across the patio hosting bands and DJs on most nights. Wildsam named it one of the 50 most essential bars in America, which somehow feels both surprising and completely correct.

1. Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
3. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Happy Hour · Best of Dallas

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Time Out #28 · The 30 best bars in NYC right now

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. The Infatuation The 18 Best Bars In Atlanta

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Eater These Are the Very Best Bars in New Orleans
3. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Esquire The Best Bars in America
2. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America
2. Miami New Times 100 Best Bars in Miami

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

A tiki bar so small it was once a violin-repair shop, which tells you everything about the square footage and nothing about the ambition. Three generations of the same family have been pouring Mai Tais under the thatched canopy on Sunset since the sixties, and they do not serve beer or wine, so don't ask. Modern tiki bars tend to look like this place photoshopped. The original is still doing it straight.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
2. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

1. Huckberry The 50 Best Dive Bars in America

Red lights, pool tables, a game room, and flatbreads until 2 a.m.: The Little Woody refuses to be just one kind of place, and Arcadia has loved it for years because of that. It's a dive bar with cocktail lounge bones, where dart nights blur into dancing and the Gun Shy Sour keeps the bourbon crowd happy. Weekend nights draw a younger crowd who treat the arcade games as warmly as the drinks.

1. Foodist Awards 2024 · Winner · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience
2. Foodist Awards 2025 · Winner: Genuine Concepts · Outstanding Hospitality Group
3. Foodist Awards 2025 · Finalist · Outstanding Bar/Nightlife Experience

The highball glasses here are 220ml, which is basically a tall person's thimble, and that's the whole philosophy in miniature. The Boilerman is a dive bar in Eppendorf run by the same person behind the very formal Le Lion, and the contrast seems deliberate. Bottled beers, American whiskey, and those precise little highballs fill the menu. Neighborhood regulars and cocktail nerds occupy the same barstools without anyone making it weird.

1. Difford's Guide 5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Infatuation The 12 Best Bars In San Diego

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Eater The Best Sports Bars in Atlanta for Watching the World Cup and More

Taxidermy, graffitied walls, mannequins, shelves of old shoes, and a trippy dome with bean bag chairs on the second floor: Notsuoh is less a dive bar and more a three-story cabinet of curiosities that also happens to serve drinks. The art is strange, the vibe is stranger, and the whole place reads like a dare Houston issues to anyone who thinks Austin has a monopoly on weird. An old-school Main Street institution that earns every square foot.

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. The Infatuation The 12 Best Bars In San Diego

1. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Eater The Best Sports Bars in Atlanta for Watching the World Cup and More

The walls at this Deep Ellum dive bar are covered floor to ceiling in years of pen-and-marker graffiti, and the house policy is to add your own. Adair's Saloon runs on outlaw country and live music most nights, with the honky-tonk crowd and the boot-scooters sharing space without much negotiation. The kitchen stays open until nearly two in the morning, which is exactly when a bar burger tastes best.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

Oak Cliff locals have been calling it "Barb's" for decades, which tells you everything about what kind of place this is. A low-key dive bar with a retro-cool vibe, it runs karaoke on Thursdays and Sundays and burlesque on the third Wednesday of every month, so there's always a reason the room is full. Between sets, the jukebox swings from disco to hip-hop without apology. Your bartender probably drinks here on their nights off.

1. D Magazine 2025 · Best Hole-in-the-Wall Gay Bar · Best of Big D
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The jalapeño beer-battered corn dog only appears after 11 p.m., which tells you everything about Lakewood Landing's priorities. This old-school dive bar packs a pool table, a jukebox loaded with local favorites, and a sprawling front patio into a small space that somehow feels lived-in rather than cramped. The burger has a loyal following, and the solo seat at the far end of the bar by the door is the best spot in Dallas for quiet, amateur people-watching.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
2. Dallas Observer 2023 · Best Burger · Best of Dallas

Wood-paneled walls and old neon beer signs set the tone at Lee Harvey's, a classic Dallas dive bar that's been knocking the edge off long weeks for as long as anyone can remember. The patio is roomy enough to bring the dog, and the onion rings with chipotle aioli are the kind of thing you eat standing up and then immediately order again. Cold beer, no pretense, no dress code.

1. D Magazine 2025 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Big D
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The stripper pole is decorative, full stop. That's the first thing to know about this Cedars bar, the second being that management wears suits while you eat a roller-grill hot dog next to a cigarette machine. It's dark and a little flirty, with pool and darts keeping things grounded. The dirty martini, made with fresh-pressed olive juice and an anchovy-stuffed olive, does a lot of heavy lifting for a place that also sells boxed candy.

1. Dallas Observer 2025 · Best Bar With a Stripper Pole · Best of Dallas
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
3. Dallas Observer 2024 · Best Hot Dog · Best of Dallas

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide
2. D Magazine 2023 · Best Dance Hall · Best of Big D

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

A cowboy-hat-wearing doorman perched on a barstool out front marks the door at this Western-themed dive bar on Ross Avenue. Inside, a beer-chugging bass fish watches over the pool table and neon booths, while glitter-filled drinks pay tribute to Dolly Parton. Out back, a patio big enough for line dancing hosts chicken shit bingo, with actual chickens making the call.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

Ships is a dive bar that's been around forever, wedged between the Lower Greenville club strip and an old East Dallas neighborhood. That geography shows up in the crowd: regulars who've held the same barstool for decades sit a few seats from musicians and late-night stragglers catching a game. The old guard enforces a genuine no-cussing policy, so keep it civil, or at least quieter than you planned.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Plywood floors and neon signs for Busch Light and PBR set the mood at this Greenville Avenue dive bar, and the mood is firmly "nowhere to be." Cheap beers, darts, and well-priced shots are about the full extent of the program, which is precisely the point. The kind of place where regulars need no introduction and newcomers feel at home by the second round.

1. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

The smoked meatloaf plate, with house-ground beef, gravy, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese, tells you everything about what this downtown Dallas dive bar is up to. Hockey on the TVs, whiskey and craft beer behind the bar, and a menu that takes bar food more seriously than its gritty room suggests it will. The fancy bologna sandwich is a standing option; the pork tenderloin shows up Friday through Sunday for those who plan ahead.

1. D Magazine 2023 · Best Bar for Beer · Best of Big D
2. Dallas Observer The Ultimate Dallas Bar Guide

A big central island counter, worn banquettes, dark panelling, and naval prints on the walls: this Chelsea pub reads like someone described a proper London boozer from memory and then built it. Tucked away on a quiet side street off the Brompton Road, it draws the kind of locals who come for the chat, not the Insta moment. The covered tables outside are never quite sunny enough, yet somehow always full.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

The corridor just inside the front door is lined with framed glowing reviews, which is either very confident or very self-aware, and at The Lord Clifden it's probably both. This Jewellery Quarter pub has Banksy prints, exposed brick, beautiful wood panelling, and an enormous beer garden out back. The bar straddles two rooms and the whole thing has the unhurried feel of a proper British boozer. Ale, scampi fries, pub grub.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. The Infatuation The Best Restaurants & Bars In Fremont

Frosted mugs pulled straight from a freezer behind a bar draped in kitschy tchotchkes: this Grand Avenue tiki dive bar has been an institution since truckers were rolling through on Route 60. Wood paneling, tiki-style tables, a pool table, and a patio where the smoking happens. On Tuesdays a DJ spins vinyl, playing what the regulars call "funky mutant dance music," and somehow the night outlasts your intentions. Cash only, so plan accordingly.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

A honky-tonk dive bar on the east side of Phoenix where the lineup might be line dancing one night and back-to-back rockabilly the next. The bar menu runs wings, burgers, and nachos, there's a daily food special, and happy hour runs weekday afternoons. Sports play on multiple screens for the crowd that isn't there for the boot-scootin'. An old-school institution that closed for a stretch and came back, which says something about how much the neighborhood wanted it back.

1. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Bar Food · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Country Bar · Best of Phoenix
3. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix

A hanging mobile about Phoenix's infamous trunk murderess sets the tone before you've even ordered a drink. Valley Bar is a basement dive, reached through an alley off Central Avenue that will make you question your life choices right up until you hit the stairs and descend into genuinely good energy. Cheap beers, cocktails named after Arizona politicians, skeeball, shuffleboard, and live DJs on weekends round out a room that has no interest in taking itself seriously.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Basement Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. AZ Central Best bars in metro Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Cockney rhyming slang gives this Brick Lane-area bar its name, which means "stairs" for anyone not raised within earshot of Bow Bells. Inside, green pendant lights hang against exposed London brick, the armchairs are comfortably battered, and the terrace out back is about as no-frills as it gets. A second bar downstairs opens when the weekend crowd warrants it. The whole place wears its East End scruffiness without apology.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The bar at No.18 is a bruine café, which means brown walls, brown ceiling, and centuries of cigarette smoke baked into the woodwork, all of it legally protected so nobody can touch it. Locals call it "standing Hoppe" because that's what you do. An old-school Amsterdam pub that has been around forever, it's the kind of place that makes a gin and tonic feel like a historical document.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

The mahogany back bar has been here since the Wild West era, and Elixir wears that history without trying too hard. It's a proper neighborhood dive on the Mission-Castro border, the kind where dog walkers fill the stools by late afternoon and nobody opens a cocktail menu. A dartboard in the corner, sports on the TVs, and regulars who clearly consider this their living room, just one with a liquor license.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Bartenders pour rounds for themselves as readily as for anyone else at this loud, bar-top-dancing dive in an old warehouse in the Chocolate Factory District. It's a good-time bar through and through, the kind where the music makes conversation optional. The summer rooftop opens up a panorama of the Moscow skyline that looks almost too cinematic to be real.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

The pub sign pictures a man who turns out to be a Coptic Orthodox saint credited with moving a mountain in Cairo, not a local drunk with leather-stained hands, which sets the tone nicely. This is a small, unpretentious neighborhood boozer in Bermondsey, mismatched dark wood furniture and all, the kind of place that quietly resisted any pressure to become somewhere clever.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

A "teuchter" is mildly rude Scottish slang for a country bumpkin, which tells you something about the place's sense of humor. This traditional Edinburgh pub runs on whisky, rugby, and football, with chunky wooden beams, leather sofas, and the kind of lived-in warmth that makes you stay for one more. When a match is on, getting through the door requires genuine optimism.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

The Basement is exactly what it says, an underground dive bar on Broughton Street that trades on the fact that Edinburgh sunshine is, statistically, more of a rumor than a given. Their own website takes a cheerful shot at the wicker-furniture crowd, and the regulars seem to agree, keeping the place full even on the rare days when it isn't needed. Dark, atmospheric, and aggressively unpretentious.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

Patterned carpets and stained glass windows set the tone at this old-school Birmingham pub, which somehow survived the gastropub wave with its character intact. It's a proper boozer on John Bright Street, with a ground-floor bar that feels genuinely lived-in and an upstairs lounge where the programming swings between stand-up comedy, poetry nights, and touring bands depending on the week.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

Dollar bills papering the walls floor to ceiling, Christmas lights above, and a stage that gets a rock band most nights of the week: Chopper John's is a dive bar that knows exactly what it is. The black-and-red room off Indian School Road draws regulars who look like they were designed to match the decor. Pool tables, a patio for smokers, and baseball on the TV fill in the gaps between sets.

1. Phoenix New Times 2024 · Best Rock Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times 2025 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Phoenix
3. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

Cash only, dark inside, and on any given night you might have to squeeze past a metal band unloading gear in the parking lot just to get through the door. Palo Verde is a Tempe dive bar where construction workers in hi-vis vests share the rail with ASU newcomers and neighborhood lifers. Drinks are cheap and poured strong, and the bartender has your order memorized before you've taken your jacket off.

1. Phoenix New Times 2023 · Best Dive Bar · Best of Phoenix
2. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix

1. Phoenix New Times The Top 100 Bars in Phoenix