A sports bar conjures up images of chads chowing down wings and sexually harassing waitresses who laugh it off for a decent tip. Beer bars have all the brews in our solar system, and bartenders who can write you a dissertation on each one. Gay bars have jukeboxes containing only Robyn. What is a dive bar though?
It definitely shouldn’t be defined by the terrible old cliche of “a place where hipsters rub elbows with [INSERT BLUE COLLAR TROPE]” because that veers dangerously close to giving a cop or a sanitation guy mystical features. It shouldn’t be a place that is cheap above all else, because a hellhole with cheap beer is still a hellhole.
A dive bar is a place that should have cheap beer, yes, but also decent service and some sense of being permanently etched into the landscape. If it’s baffling or intimidating to newcomers, all the better. If you walk into a bar, sit down with your beer and are suddenly being lectured on the terrible decision the Rangers made to trade for goddamn Phil Esposito 40 years ago, you know you’re in the right place. Or at least I know I am. A dive bar, more than any other kind of bar, is a place that acts as a bulwark against a world that is more often completely shitty than anything else.
Some of the bars on this list have existed as bars since seemingly the beginning of time, others are new but well on their way to permanence. Several reject the slummy dive bar aesthetic for something a little snazzier. Due to the sometimes anonymous nature of the dive, this list is far from all encompassing. Still, all these spots share an edge and patrons who don’t give a fuck what you think when you walk in the door. And Brooklyn is all the better for them. — Dave Colon
18) Soda Bar 629 Vanderbilt Ave. (near St. Mark’s), Prospect Heights
Sunday – Wednesday: noon – 2 a.m.
Thursday – Saturday: noon to 4 a.m.
Happy Hour: 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.; $3 drafts, $5 well drinks
Credit cards: Yes
Soda gives you options. It’s a good day-drinking spot where you can forget that it’s actually light outside. Or, you can party it up, taking advantage of all that space. On Fridays and Saturdays the back room turns into dance party with a DJ. Soda is also a popular hang after a free First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum, and a great place to meet some locals. Feel free to show up with a crowd: Soda is accommodating to large groups with its cushy vintage velvet couches and seats in the back room. In the front room there are smaller candle-lit tables across from the bar perfect for a very inexpensive date. There is also a backdoor patio in case you need to cool off from dancing, and tables for drinking al fresco. A small bar menu offers snacks such as fries, burgers and pierogies. — Marti Zabell
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17) Commonwealth 497 5th Ave. (at 12th Street) Park Slope
Monday – Friday: 3 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Saturday – Sunday: 2.p.m to 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: All day $4 Yuengling
Happy Hour: 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Credit cards: Yes
Somewhere between an upscale bar and dive lies Commonwealth. The dark and secluded bar has a patio for smokers, a decent jukebox and no stabby locals or crack whores in sight. The multitude of beers on draft — 12 on tap at $6 or under — alone makes us fans. Expect to see Hendricks not Beefeater on the shelf next to its great bourbon selection. Probably the greatest determining factor in divey-ness is the recent addition of locally made hand pies to its snack menu. Also equipped with chalkboard bathrooms, the true flavor of this stale bar lies in the old-school bulletin board in the back. — Vanessa Londono
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16) Boat
175 Smith St. (b/t Warren & Wyckoff), Cobble Hill
5 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Happy Hour daily 5-8: $3 All drafts, bottles, well liquor
Cheapest option: All day $3 High Life or Genesee Cream Ales.
Credit cards: Yes
A cheap, casual, everyday bar along a row increasingly populated by Michelin star chasers and bespoke cocktails, Boat is divey without being dirty. In other words, the toilets work and there is usually TP and soap in the graffiti’d unisex bathrooms (don’t get any ideas; stick figure illustrations on the doors warn against group activities. You’re welcome for the tip, filthy bar fornicators). Boat attracts a laid back thirty-something crowd with plentiful seating and a generous daily happy hour. No fancy cocktails, food, TVs or attitude. Just cheap booze and friendly conversation with the bartenders and random neighborhood strangers. Throw a couple bucks into the jukebox stocked with aging-but-still-excellent indie mixes donated by staff and patrons, with titles like “Why Satan Matters” and “The 40 Year Old Hipster.” Go with a date and challenge them to a nostalgic game of Connect 4 (or one of the other vintage board games stocked behind the bar) while cozied up on one of the romantical pleather banquettes in the back by the fireplace. Saturday nights get crowded and rowdy. But you might also run into Edith Zimmerman. — Rachel DeLetto
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15) Buttermilk Bar
577 Fifth Ave. (between 15th and 16th) Park Slope
6 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Happy Hour: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
$3 beers
Cheapest option: All day $3 High Life
Credit cards: Yes
Don’t let the name deceive you — Buttermilk Bar in Park Slope has very little in common with the Jay-Z-and-Beyoncé-frequented Buttermilk Channel in Carroll Gardens. Its black, nondescript exterior makes it easy to miss, but this neighborhood bar isn’t one to pass up. For every Sloper griping about early closing hours and $1-off happy hours, Buttermilk Bar offers a 6 – 9pm antidote with $3 well drinks, shots and beers (all beers. You heard me). The ambiance is pretty much nonexistent, but the happy hour continues to be $3 everything until 9. — Kelly Murphy
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14) Lone Wolf
1089 Broadway (off Dodworth) Bushwick
7 p.m. – 4.a.m.
Happy Hour: Monday – Friday, $3 well drinks, $2 PBR
Cheapest option: All day $3 PBR or Gennessee
Credit cards: Yes.
It’s nice to walk into a dark bar and be greeted by a bartender who calls you “Hon.” It’s very homey. The youngest entrant in our guide, the former quasi-legal venue Bodega, has been around for more than a year. It doesn’t use its newness as a cudgel for expensive drinking, offering up a $5 PBR and well shot deal every day. The lack of tap beers is more than made up for by an impressive collection of bottles and cans, including options from local favorites Sixpoint and Blue Point. The stage in the back isn’t just for show, playing host to bands booked by the bartenders, who are ludicrously friendly judging by the one I talked to. The best part of the entire experience though is definitely “The Champion’s Pub,” a barfight-themed pinball game that must be played to be believed. — Dave Colon
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13) South
629 Fifth Ave. (between 17th and 18th) Park Slope
Monday – Friday: 2 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Saturday, Sunday: 12 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: All day $3 PBR
Credit cards: Yes
It’s 3am — time to spill your guts to that cute girl you just met and also quell your growling stomach. Head to South and treat her to a grilled cheese and jelly sandwich, which might sound gross but tastes like exactly what you want post-midnight. The bartenders are shaggy-haired (all of them), super-friendly, and diligent with free popcorn refills. Both the backyard and the booths are simple and spacious. Toss in a $3 shot for good measure, and it’ll be obvious you know the way to a lady’s heart. If she’s still unimpressed, try a board game or a round of Buck Hunter to seal the deal. — Kelly Murphy
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12) Wreck Room
940 Flushing Ave (at Central) Bushwick
Happy Hour: 2 p.m. –-6 p.m. every day: $1 off everything
Cheapest option: $3 Coors
Credit cards: Yes
Happy hour at Wreck Room means $4 wells and $2 Coors on draught. To me, this place feels like happy hour all the time, when a shot and beer is $5 forever and always. Have a Tecate and tequila or High Life tallboy and whiskey; the staff is happy to accommodate your mixing and matching needs. Embodying “Bushwick shithole” (especially for Morgantown, a burgeoning fancypants area) yet having superfriendly service, the place has such major staying power it’s physically impossible to have just one beer. Or beer and shot. With graffiti-speckled car hoods arranged around the mysterious sleaze-drenched exposed brick, the place feels aptly named, especially considering the bathrooms, which are a thing of nightmares. Wreck Room’s saving grace, prices aside, are the chintzy chandeliers that dangle amongst the wreckage: a nod to the former party rental space it once was, before becoming a bar in 2005. — Caroline Shadood
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11) Brooklyn Ice House, 318 Van Brunt Street (off Pioneer) Red Hook
Noon to 4 a.m.
Happy Hour: Monday – Friday, noon – 8 p.m., $1 off all beer and cocktails
Weekend Happy Hour: noon – 4 p.m.: $2 PBR and High Life
Cheapest option: All day $3 PBR and High Life
Credit cards: No
As good a reason as any to travel to the end of the earth, this 3 1/2-year-old Red Hook joint was previously known as the Pioneer Bar, “a place you wouldn’t go into” as the bartender told me. “What’s that mean?” I asked. “It was a crackhead bar,” she said. “With a food smoker that turned out food of questionable quality,” offered a fellow drinker. Now it’s a spot as comfortable as your living room, but so much more fun. Sit at the bar and chat with the bartender and neighborhood folks passing through or get some work done sitting at one of the tables adjacent to a couch running the length of the back wall. Either way, the massive beer list and great beer-and-shot specials such as the $4 Stevedore (PBR and Evan Williams) will keep you longer than you intended, especially if you decide to soak up some of the booze with something off the menu, like a burger or wings or two pulled pork sliders. Stay long enough and talk to the right people and you may get offered a job selling life insurance door-to-door. —Dave Colon
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10) Lucky 13 Saloon, 273 13th Street (at 5th Ave.) Park Slope
3 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Credit Cards: No
If you’ve ever been to Austin, your ears have probably been witness to the grindcore blaring out the windows of Death Metal Pizza. Lucky 13 Saloon in Park Slope is all that the without the gimmick. It’s tough to say whether the types of absinthe outnumber the shrunken heads, and for metalheads on a budget, the White Trash Special gets you a PBR and a whiskey shot for $6. Why listen to Slayer alone in your room when you can do it to the backdrop of horror movies, happy hour until 9, and —if you time it right — pole dancers? — Kelly Murphy
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9) Shenanigans Pub 802 Caton Ave. (E 8th St.) Kensington
5 p.m. – 1 a.m.
Happy Hour: 5 – 7, buy one get one free
Credit Cards: No
In the hour or so that I spent on a quiet Sunday night at this neighborhood Irish dive, I not only cheered on two giant walruses wrestling each other on the Discovery Channel with a pack of drunk construction workers but also participated in an impromptu, bar-wide Pat Benatar sing-a-long. Granted there were only seven or so people in the entire place, but if that’s not reason enough to stop by I don’t know what is. Inside, Shenanigans doesn’t look like much. Paper shamrocks are haphazardly taped onto the mirror that runs the length of the bar, and a neon Budweiser sign in the front window casts a bit of a glow across the bar’s otherwise dimly lit main space. But $2 drinks during happy hour in addition to a nice backyard area (complete with grill) set this dive apart from the rest. Sure, the well liquor could probably be used to strip paint, but for the price you have no right to complain. Be sure to stop by on Saturdays at 10:30pm for its infamous karaoke night, which always runs well into the early morning. — Tom Sullivan
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8) Freddy’s Bar 627 Fifth Ave. (between 17th and 18th) Park Slope
noon – 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: All day $3 PBR or High Life
Credit cards: No
When you cross over the Prospect Expressway going south on Fifth Avenue you come to two bars. Both are dive bars with cheap drinks, multicolored Christmas lights and jukeboxes. One offers a backyard and grilled PB&J, and the other is Freddy’s. From the fish tank to the painted gold ceiling to the mismatched lamps, the entire experience upon entering the bar feels hallucinogen-induced. Forced to move to make room for Bruce Ratner’s Monument To Avarice & Greed, Freddy’s hasn’t missed a beat. If you’re seizure-prone, step into the bare bones back room for nearly nightly and often free late-night live music and comedy (like Dive Comedy every other Monday hosted by the highly crushable Giulia Rozzi). If you’re hungry, Freddy’s has a menu full of bar staples like burgers, pulled pork sliders and crab rangoon. Top off the spectacle with a $3 beer or go crazy with a $5 cocktail. — Kelly Murphy
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7) Tip Top Bar & Grill 432 Franklin Avenue (at Madison) Bed-Stuy
Monday – Wednesday: 4 p.m. – midnight, Thursday – Saturday: 4 p.m. – 4 a.m.
Credit cards: No
This neighborhood favorite has a varied history — you’ll hear something different depending on who you ask — but everyone seems to agree on the no-fuss, simple-times drinking atmosphere and huge and funky backyard this bar provides to residents of Bed-Stuy and nearby Clinton Hill. What we have gathered from multiple Tip Top trips over the years is that it’s co-owned by a husband and wife team who man the front door and back kitchen nearly every night. No food menu means the options are always changing, but items are mostly of the alcohol-absorbent and meaty variety. The bartenders also keep a concerned eye out for all patrons, constantly re-filling bowls from a seemingly endless supply of behind-the-bar snacks. No draft beers. Bottles cost $4, and a well drink, $5. Happy Hour specials also vary by week, and daily entertainments include an unrivaled jukebox selection (and dancing on Friday nights) and a TV always turned to the juicy visuals of nighttime network programming. I’m hesitant to give too much away, but I will say that this bar may have offered a free plate of crispy fried fish to a certain Brokelyn writer the very first time she set foot inside. — Karina Briski
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6) Alibi 242 Dekalb Ave., (off Vanderbilt) Fort Greene
Happy Hour: 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. $3 beers and liquor
Cheapest option: All day $4 Bud and Bud Light
Credit cards: No
Alibi is a blink-and-you-miss-it, no-frills bar where you can sling back pitchers with a harmoniously diverse crowd of old-timers, posh Fort Greeners and beanie-topped art students. Bartenders say Alibi has been here since the Depression, and by several accounts has looked and felt about the same (with possibly the same clientele). On the walls are a shark’s jaw, a trophy case, an old fireplace, a lone woman’s shoe and an ancient pig’s mask. “This place didn’t capture that vibe,” one regular told us. “It maintained it.” Regulars start pouring in around 5pm to play pool or cheer along to Jeopardy on the one TV, and the night crowds fill up the graffiti-covered back room that also holds a Big Buck Hunter and video bowling. The big bench tables in the dim and latticed back yard fills up with smokers. There’s a digital jukebox too, if you really need to hear Rush’s 2112. — Tim Donnelly
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5) Montero’s 73 Atlantic Avenue (at Hicks St.) Brooklyn Heights
Monday-Sunday: 3pm-4am
Cheapest Option: All day $3 PBR bottle
Credit cards: No
Montero’s is a merchant marine bar open since 1947, with authentic lifesavers and old photographs hanging from the ceiling and walls. No happy hour here, but full-time bartender Allan is both drink-slinger and historian who serves up stories with the modestly priced drinks –$3 PBR bottles (a rare sighting), $4 domestics, $5 imperials; $5 well drinks, $7 mid-shelf and $8-10 top shelf. Pull up a stool to hear about OG supermodel Twiggie shooting a film in the ’60s, writer Frank McCourt living above the bar in the ’70s, or take it back to the mid-’40s when the bar had to cross Atlantic Avenue because the BQE was constructed. There’s live music on Mondays (“contemporary stuff, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones”); blues/folk/country western on Wednesdays; karaoke nights on Friday and Saturday. No matter what youth-driven exploits this bar takes on, the decor will never stray too far from its maritime roots. “There’s no IKEA in here,” Allan says. — Catherine Wolinski
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4) Gotham City Lounge 1293 Myrtle Ave. (between Cedar Street and Hart Street) Bushwick
Tuesday – Saturday: 7 p.m. to 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: $3 PBR/whisky shot
Credit cards: Yes
Ah, life’s great mysteries: like why does a bar that has no happy hour have a “Best Happy Hour” plaque from Time Out New York? Googling “Brooklyn geek bar” brings up a bunch of excited blog posts about the Way Station and its TARDIS. Steampunk and Victorian fetishism are fine for pansies; it just means that I have more room to myself in Brooklyn’s actual nerd headquarters, a place that greets you with a life-size Skeletor behind the bar, Marvel vs. Capcom in the corner and strange cartoons projected on a screen. And you will end up playing Marvel vs. Capcom, fueled by $2 PBRs and $3 for the same with a shot of whisky. Nestled right under the Central stop on the M, this former Pentecostal church and skeevy biker hangout has been slinging cheap drinks since 2006, interrupted only by a fire in 2009. Ray, the owner, says the building has been in the family for a number of years, which is what allows him to price the drinks so low it’s practically a public service. Most of the sci-fi and comic memorabilia hung up around the bar is from his personal collection. The clientele skews younger, but while we were there, a couple older regulars were giving a friend advice on raising a daughter. — Dave Colon
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3) Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern 188 Bedford Ave. (between N. 6th and N. 7th) Williamsburg
11 a.m. – 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: All day $4 32 oz. Bud/Bud Light
Happy Hour: 3 p.m. – 7 p.m.: $4 margaritas, $3 Gordon’s Gin, Bacardi or Smirnoff mixed drink.
Credit cards: No
Rosemary’s has been around for 58 years. A plumber and a cobbler kept shop in the space before Rosemary’s parents bought it when she was 23 and pregnant. She keeps it open every day from 11 a.m. to 4 a.m., and the drink prices make you feel like you died and woke up in New Orleans. “I want to make sure after a couple drinks you kids can still afford to have a bologna sandwich when you get home,” says Rosemary, who lives upstairs and visits daily. White Christmas lights droop all year round, and no holiday is ever denied a proper outfitting. Settle into a comfy red vinyl booth with a good friend and a Styrofoam 32 oz., and you’ll forget the mob of cool just outside the door. — Kate Mooney
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2) 773 Lounge 773 Coney Island Ave. (off Cortelyou) Flatbush
Happy Hour: 4 p.m. – 7 p.m. $1 off all drinks
Cheapest option: All day $3 Miller Lite bottles
Credit cards: Yes
It’s always nice to walk into a bar that shows sports on TV but isn’t a sports bar. In the case of 773, it’s a roomy neighborhood spot with a kindly bartender that will jawjack with the regulars and talk about the old days of the Mafia-sponsored bartenders union (“When I had my first kid, they gave me $150.”) This through-and-through Irish spot has been quenching thirst since New York’s magical year of 1969 and, aside from the flatscreen TVs and credit card machine, it could fool you into thinking you’ve woken up in the 20th century. The week is filled with things like a dart league, live music on weekends and a Thursday night open mic hosting local musicians and comedians. — Dave Colon
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1) Jackie’s Fifth Amendment 404 5th Ave. (at 7th Street) Park Slope
8 a.m. to 4 a.m.
Cheapest option: $4 Budweiser bottle
Credit cards: No
“How old is this bar?” I ask. “Oh it’s been around longer than me,” says the bartender, who had just told a story about getting hit by an ambulance 45 years ago. It’s entirely believable that this place has been a bar since the beginning of recorded time. A guy on a nearby stool told us it was a saloon, and then a speakeasy. The bartender made dirty jokes about the guy from the Health Department who came to shine a flashlight in the bottles of liquor and took her sweater off in an attempt to sway him. No taps, no happy hour and the Coke from the rum and Cokes comes from a bottle. This is that place to get a few $10 buckets of 7 oz. nips, take a seat by the window and watch the day go by. Jackie’s is the platonic ideal of a dive bar, stubbornly resistant to the world around it, best represented by its use of a rotary phone as the bar phone. — Dave Colon
THE COMPLETE LIST
18. Soda Bar
17. Commonwealth
16. Boat
15. Buttermillk Bar
14. Lone Wolf
13. South
12. Wreck Room
11. Brooklyn Ice House
10. Lucky 13
9. Shenanigans
8. Freddy’s Bar
7. Tip Top
6. Alibi
5. Montero’s
4. Gotham City Lounge
3. Rosemary’s Greenpoint Tavern
2. 773 Lounge
1. Jackie’s Fifth Amendment
Honorable mentions to Rope, which closed as we were preparing this guide, and The Subway Bar, which assured us several times it was closing but is still open at the moment.
Edited by Brokelyn culture editor and bar guru Dave Colon. Follow Dave at @herbertharper.
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major omission: Smith’s on 5th Ave and 9th St. One of the best jukeboxes in BK (better than commonwealth’s, even) and $1.50 mini-beers (they might be $2 now actually, but still).
It’s $2.50 now, for a little stein of Budweiser.
What? Turkey’s Nest didnt make the list? I am wutie surprised.
Turkey’s Nest deserves it and had there been time I would have done an emergency trip over there to get a write up done. Something tells me they’ll be just fine though. And now people know about Smith’s, so thank you Escott!
I wouldn’t think of a place where I could watch Breaking Bad and Mad Men on big screen tvs from comfortable couches (i.e. Soda) as a dive bar. Maybe Brokelyn’s definition is a little off the map here
I’m going to second the consensus in the comments: Turkey’s Nest definitely belongs on this list. I’m surprised Soda’s considered a dive. It’s actually a perfect bar: a relaxed environment that serves excellent food — my favorite is the kielbasa sandwich — and cheap drinks.
And since Greenpoint didn’t make the list at all, may I add the following: Pit Stop at McGuinness and Meserole and Palace Cafe (a.k.a. Goodman’s) on Nassau and Russell.
yes! and connie o’s! luhh pit stop.
Of course there was no way this list could cover everyone’s favorite dive bar, but what do you guys think of the No. 1 pick? Agree/disagree/want to drunk fight about it?
I agree with the number one pick AND will drunk fight about it.
This list is incomplete w/out Hanks!
cheers to that.
I have to agree about Soda. I tried to go in there a few weeks ago on a Saturday night and there was a $12 cover. Unless that covers all you can drink, I’m pretty sure a cover negates dive bar status.
Sorry, I stand behind Soda. It’s been a good neighborhood staple for years. Never heard of a cover so that must be new. They have a really great happy hour, so just go during the week. Or walk to Branded Saloon instead. A great bar that got also deemed “not a dive bar” by our editor.
Project Parlor in Bed Stuy for sure
Project Parlor…. The best dive bar around! All others are merely imposters
Fun list. Need to check some of these North Brooklyn places out.
Couldn’t help but balk at Soda too, but even more so at the Commonwealth entry – Am I to understand that the addition of hand-made local pies contributes to a bar’s divey-ness? Haha, uh, what? I mean hey, I like the pies, and Commonwealth, but c’mon, they’re both pure Park Slope yuppiedom.
Agree Hank’s deserves a spot here. Maybe Canal Bar. Good to see Lucky 13, Freddy’s and Jackie’s though, those are right on.
We had a lot of mixed emotions about including Hank’s. Definitely divey on the inside, good free events, but the prices are a little higher than you’d expect from a dive that smells like feet all the time.
I suppose that’s a valid point, given the theme of this blog. Honestly, I don’t really remember much about the prices. I do remember the owners having to eject a hooker (a regular) one time, so that kind of etched it pretty firmly in my mind as a dive. Hank’s is really about the atmosphere, more than the booze, and yes, it comes complete with an odor.
really bad call on putting soda bar and commonwealth (seriously?) in here, neither of which are dives.
turkey’s next should have absolutely been included, as well as hanks. canal bar should have been in the running with a special RIP post to great lakes.
And how the hell is O’Connor’s not in there?!
O’Connors is on hiatus right now for renovations, but it can definitely make our next round up of Old Man Bars.
Yes, we all miss Great Lakes : (
Great Lakes has been closed for so long though!
I’m still mourning.
I thought for sure The Palace would have made this list… It’s a Greenpoint classic with great bartenders and an excellent cast of regulars
Turkey’s Nest is THE definitive dive bar – i think they have an exact replica in a sealed, airless room somewhere in the french alps from which future designations of dive bar status will be based upon.
Criteria for a dive bar:
1 – are you vague uncomfortable there, but not enough to immediately leave and go somewhere else?
1b – If you are under forty, are you more or less unwelcome and/or ignored by the bar “staff”? Is the median age of the patrons over 50?
2 – Are the regulars people who not only you would not normally associate with, but would also absolutely avoid if they tried to associate with you?
3 – Is there a payphone?
4 – Are the regulars actual dirtbag alcoholic drunks? That is, people for whom getting cut-off by the bartender and eventually vomiting around the corner occurs more frequently than you showering?
R.I.P. Harry Boland’s. If Jackie’s closes and reopens as anything with a bird in its name, I’m going to arm all 10 septuagenarian patrons with molotov cocktails. Or I’ll just write a disgruntled, first world problem-filled Yelp review.
what? no turkey’s nest? are you kidding?
freddy’s has been @ this location for like 1 year, dont think it counts esp when you leave off real dives like the subway bar
We went to Subway Bar on a couple occasions and both times the bartender told us they were closing after Memorial Day, but they do seem to still be around. And it isn’t Freddy’s fault that big politics and big real estate came together to attempt to turn Downtown Brooklyn into downtown Houston. If anything, they get extra points for just picking up and moving.
Duff’s needs to be on the list.
HOW did you miss Connie O’s in Greenpoint??! Sunday and Mondays, $1 beers…only $1.25 during the week. $4 well drinks. $6 for top shelf cocktails. Free pool, free darts, huge backyard, buck hunter, lotto, giant jukebox, original ms pacman? yo, you guys seriously are NUTS for not putting on Connie’s!!!!
This list is perfectly indicative of Brooklyn 2012, because basically none of these are “dive” bars.
You clearly haven’t been to Jackie’s! Otherwise, I agree.
Brooklyn now is a really great way to extend college till your 45.
Does this seriously need to be in 18 separate pages? I know page views are important, but couldn’t it at least be, like, three per page?
You know this site is here to make money, right?
a blog can dream…
Denny’s in Kensington. much better than Shenanigans which made this list.
2 for 1 happy hours, open basically 24/7 (if you knock on the door at 8, there is a guy there who will serve you). Pool Table, old drunks, and a sense of anger.
Denny’s Steakpub. No steak.
Canal Bar!
Once again, Brokelyn has forgotten bay Ridge, Bath Beach, Bensonhurst, Sheepshead bay… and other great neighborhoods.
RIP Timboo’s
What about Sonny’s????? in Red Hook.
Blaahhh…half the bars on this list are in Park Slope. This list is weak.
In the post about Commonwealth – “no stabby locals or crack whores in sight.” What the FUCK does that mean? Not every criminal in this city is a New Yorker, and not every law-abiding person is a trust fund kid from Wisconsin. JesusHashtagChrist. Native Brooklyites get no respect. No respect.
…Soccer Tavern in Sunset Park
Great options, a nice read.
I visited Bay ridge in 2015 and I really liked Delia’s Lounge bar in the 3rd Ave.
Not sure it would count as a dive bar. It felt very classy and had a ‘date’ vibe.