Stop predict every low - cay bar you gossip a diving : clear , safe , well - run joints are not nosedive , and to refer to them as such is to diss the work and dedication it takes to lock one . It does n’t matter that you do n’t conceive the term offense ; you ’re not the scandalize party . The overutilisation and misuse of the Holy Writ " honkytonk " is a relatively late phenomenon , and I can imagine of no other Holy Scripture in English that has undergone a more rapid shift in significance .
I know I should probably just shrug and accept the changing times . The problem is , I ca n’t . This is about more than a word . It ’s about losing a mother wit of difference , about ignoring refinement and history .
Look , I ’m not opposed to the phylogeny of password . This is something else . Calling tavern diving is n’t evolution . It ’s otiose . dive are n’t hip , and they are n’t the kind of place where listicle readers drink . Rife with frailty and peril , they are establishments nice kinsfolk avoid and copper raid . Dives foetor of desperation , puke , and detritus . They ’re called diving because they live beneath club , where squalidness and vermin sovereignty .
Jason Hoffman/Thrillist
Somewhat astonishingly , many ( most ? ) people today see nothing derogatory about the terminus dive . As one tavern client tell me latterly , " A diving is just a lay - back bar , no pretence . " When I asked for his definition of a tavern , he grin and said , " Pretty much the same thing , I guess . "
I give thanks him for his metre , stepped out to the stag party porch , and pounded my head against the brick bulwark . I suspect we ’ll before long be calling cats dogs . I ’m not on the button sure how we arrived at this power point where these password have become meaningless , but I ’ve give it a lot of persuasion and I think the trouble startle with yuppie and fern bar .
The era of yuppies and fern bars
Back in the early 1980s , yuppies wanted a Modern character of nightspot , places more urbane than the bar and tavern of the blue - collar working class . These Modern spot were designed to pay a stylish court to the rattling saloons of the Gilded Age , appointed with svelte brass rails , overstuff John Wilkes Booth , and whirring cap fans . In berth of brass spittoons , potted fern spill from brass planters fix on ledges and various categoric surfaces throughout the bar .
Gone were the narrow spaces and high ceilings of saloons ; high - top tables and standing rail were replaced with low tables and chairs on casters . These fern barroom were the first to declare oneself appetiser like spinach artichoke dip and nachos . Their jukeboxes played dance hits , video game double over as cocktail tables , and glistening bathrooms double up as cocain sitting room .
Fern bars were every bit as awful as they vocalize , and – as you ’d suspect – disgust spawned backlash . Just as punk rose against the glitz of disco , many drinkers during the mid- to former 1980s recoiled from the mistaken glamour of fern BAR and embraced the legitimacy of working - social class joints .
Oleanders
It was around this prison term that down in the mouth - life civilisation gained in popularity , too . Writers such as John Fante , Nelson Algren , Harry Crews , and Charles Bukowski indite about the down - and - out and the dive they inhabited . The 1987 filmBarfly(based on and written by Bukowski ) allowed consultation to stare into true dives from the good remove of the giving screen and , later , videotape .
Barfly ’s supporter , Henry Chinaski ( Mickey Rourke ) , is a poet who spends most of his time drinking in a pair of Los Angeles dives – The Golden Horn and The Kenmore – alternately toasting , insulting , and fighting prostitutes , chiseller , bartenders , and tremor - stricken lushes . The film is an exegesis of the symbiotic human relationship between dives and their customer . It ’s not a living for the timid or the clean , but Bukowski captures the dingy charm of the down - and - out , and Chinaski is an antihero for the ages .
The film was well receive by critics and it became a cultus hit . Whether drawn to the humanity and body fluid or the horror and depravity , people likedBarfly . With famous exclusion during forbiddance and the Beatnik epoch , dive bars had never before appeared on popular refinement ’s radiolocation . When they had appeared in print or on film , dive were preferences in pulp novel and noir thrillers . Thanks mostly to the popularity of writers like Bukowski , and film likeBarflyand David Lynch’sBlue Velvet , it became cool in the mid-’80s to celebrate low culture . Young juicer made a hobby of dipping into honkytonk for a tangible - living glimpse of the down - and - out . We called it slum . That many of the imbibition organization were n’t dive mattered little . The experience was the point , the hunting for the authentic , not the obvious . We resurrect meretricious glasses of sensationalistic spigot beer and ape Chinaski , " To all my friend ! " andBlue Velvet ’s Frank Booth ( Dennis Hopper ) , " Heineken ? nooky that shit ! Pabst Blue Ribbon ! "
Cannon Film Distributors
Dive bars in Flavortown
By the end of the ' fourscore , the full term " diva " even began appearing in the names of new imbibing establishments – a trend that , regrettably , continues to this day . One of the first , Christy ’s Dive Bar in Boca Raton , FL , opened in a shopping mall in 1987 . " I liked the idea of a casual , come - as - you - are , regular - guy place , ” owner Allen Christy say the Boca Raton News .
Of course , it took more than a couple of cultus movies and a mall bar in Boca to turn " dive " into a wildly misapply and overuse appellation . The culprits are legion , but I surmise the hike of the net and the popularity of clickbait articles and a certain Food connection show deserve the Leo ’s share of rap . In 2006 , Food internet aired an intended one - off special featuring a spiky - hairy boniface diagnose Guy Fieri , who invited spectator to join him on a road trip to America ’s best diners , private road - ins , and honkytonk . Ten years and 260 episodes after , the Robert Lee Frost - tip cheap-jack has yet to visit a dependable dive .
The essence of a dive bar
So what is a true dive ? That ’s a question I ’ve been asking myself a pile of late . rent ’s start with the staple . Dive bar usually have more than one liveliness . Their first is as a tap house , mom - and - dad shop , roadhouse , speakeasy , fake joint , night club , honky tonk , club , sofa , pub , beer hall , fern prevention , festive bar , Tiki junction , inn , or saloon . At some point in prison term , unforeseen circumstances conduce to compromises in upkeep , armory , and patronage . This can occur slowly or fleetly , but the consequences are hold up . Often it is the result of changes come in the locality in which the bar is locate , but many a dive was bear of divorcement , health crisis , or legal legal opinion . If you still take assistance discerning the relative divey - cape of a watering hole , I ’ve work up a short listing of questions suitable for printing and laminate .
Did everyone in the place look you over when you walked through the door?
Might be a diving .
Is there a kitchen serving food from a menu?
Not a diving .
Are security camera monitors positioned behind the bar?
Are the mirrors, windows, and floor clean?
Do you get the sense that shit could get strange – dangerously strange – at any moment?
Are craft beers on tap?
Is there a condom machine in the restroom?
Does the bar sell branded merchandise of any kind?
Is the weekly special a challenge of endurance or consumption?
The next time you ’re have a selfie from a legal community or posting a review on Yelp and feel the urge to sort out the piazza , pause a moment and consider whether you ’d tell the establishment ’s owner that he ’s running a desperate operation that reek of stale lifetime and beer . And then ask yourself why you ’re compel to call that place a nosedive in the first office . Is it about self - satisfaction , about your pride in recognizing authenticity ? Great . Good for you . You bang , there ’s no shame in salute in a tavern or a neighbourhood measure . There ’s no shame in drinking in a dive , either , of course , but most of the folks bellied up in one have about as much clip for shame as they do for Instagram and Facebook . happen a ripe word for the low - key place you go for domestic beers and strong cocktails . Save the term dive for the multitude and places you dismiss .
They ’ve earned it . You have n’t .
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