BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast
The bartending podcast for home and professional bartenders. We share best practices, tips, trends, tools, hacks, product reviews, and innovations in the bartending and mixology field. We cover everything from being a better bartender to being a better drinker.
BarNinja Podcast - The Ultimate Bartending & Mixology Podcast
Dive Bars and their Allure: A Journey with Leslie
Have you ever stepped into a bar that felt like stepping into another era? That's the charm of dive bars! We're all aboard the nostalgia train in this episode of the Bar Ninja Podcast with your favorites - Kayla Louge and Mike Garrison. On our journey, we're joined by Leslie, a dive bar expert who shares her unforgettable experiences from Dinos and Santas, two dive bars in Nashville.
Find out why we believe that the best dive bars are those where folks don't take themselves too seriously and the past is literally etched into the walls. We share amusing anecdotes about regulars like Charles, and delve into the eternal debate - is it safe to drink the tap beer? You don't want to miss out on the hilarious recounting of Charles pulling out his tooth after a few shots of wild turkey! So, hop on and let's pay tribute to the unpretentious spots that serve as community anchors and havens of authentic fun.
Hey, barton and J'nation, Welcome to the Barton Ninja Podcast, where we talk about everything from trials and tribulations, from life behind the bar to tips and tricks, to making a better bartender and a better drinker. Join your host, bill Forton, kayla Rood and yours truly, mike Garrison. Let's go have some fucking fun.
Speaker 2:So we are back with our next episode of our Barton Ninja podcast and we are going to talk today about dive bars, Our favorite. Everyone loves a good dive bar.
Speaker 1:They're the best.
Speaker 2:They are. I mean, if I think back to like any, like even new town I go to or a hometown, the dive bars, there's always great stories that come out of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have a dive bar expert with us today too, leslie who also dislikes brunch.
Speaker 2:But we're still on that train.
Speaker 1:We're still trying to change that.
Speaker 2:We're still trying to change that.
Speaker 1:We're still on that train. She still loves a dive bar, yeah there we go. At least we're on that train, she's still hard past brunch, but we're working on that. Yeah, you worked at a dive bar in Nashville. I did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I worked at a dive bar called Dinos. It was great. It was probably the most fun I've ever had working in her restaurant before. It was so much fun. What?
Speaker 1:makes a good dive bar. Are there just no rules? It's lawless.
Speaker 3:I think so. I don't think that there's an exact formula for what makes a great dive bar. It can be so many different things. Like it can be really dark with, you know, just like the neon lights on. It could be a dive bar where they like keep the lights on all night because they don't want too much like shenanigans going on. I think when you walk in and there's just like decades of past smoke or grime, just like sort of like embedded into the walls and you can feel that I think that that is like a good first sign that like you've made it to the right spot, like it's clean, like it's clean.
Speaker 1:It's still dirty, but it's like it's like.
Speaker 3:It's just like embedded, it's a part of, like the structural makeup. Now, if there is a carpet in a bar, all for it. All for it. If, like you can tell that the people sitting in the corner of the bar have been there for years and that is their spot, and like really they're the official unofficial or unofficial official staff, the barfly regulars. Like that makes a good dive bar. But really it's just like nobody takes themselves too seriously and everybody's just having fun and like you leave having fun, you leave like being ridiculous and the next day you're just like that was so much fun. We were also done. We all just talked to everybody Like it's yeah, it's more like that feeling of yeah, kind of like no rules, nobody's taking themselves too seriously and good music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they definitely have a different good dive bar. They have a different vibe. Yeah, if I'm you do kind of know it when you walk in.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, for me, like I know, it's definitely a dive bar If I go in and the only thing I consider drinking is like a Coors light or Miller light To me. If they're, like you know, a little more fancy, they might have an Amstel light. I love a good Amstel light, so but it's within that row. There's nothing else I consider drinking. I'm not drinking the tap beer. I'm not, and not that they're not clean, you just like want to match. Yeah, so it's questionable, but you want to like match the vibe of what it is and that bottle beer, just goes right with it.
Speaker 3:Sometimes they might have Jell-O shooters. You've got to drink the Jell-O shooters in the house specialty.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a dive bar, like right, like literally, on one of this, the end of the street that I live on, also right next to my gym. It's one of the most popular around the lake, called Saïd's, and you do not drink liquor there. The only time I drank liquor there, it was the worst night of my whole life. So ever, even since then, I'm like beer, beer it is.
Speaker 1:Bottle beer is always safe.
Speaker 3:Yes yes, that's it. The Outer Banks has a few good dive bars down here too, pops, pops.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's one in on Collington Island.
Speaker 3:And another good marker of what makes a good dive bar is like there's always that character there where that's like acting out and everybody's like, oh, that's just pop. Like we were. Years ago I was at Pops sitting outside. This man just popped out the dumpster from around the corner with a plastic chair and hopped on his bike and rode off with the plastic chair and I looked around and was like anybody else, just see that. And then, like this guy was just like, oh, that's pop. I'm like, oh, is that pop pop?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pop, b-pop yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so funny, that's funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, santa's was another one in Nashville, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, santa's is great too. Santa's is like a couple double wide trailers put together. It's a Santa theme bar. The owner looks like Santa. It's a karaoke bar too, but, like you know, it's Nashville and so the people singing are like very talented. But also don't take themselves too seriously, you know, it's kind of fun. I think you can still smoke in Santa's. What a good brand. Yeah, they have a walk-up window on their porch that you could order beer from. And I had a friend who loved going to Santa's and when she became pregnant she would go earlier in the day just to say hi to Santa and his wife and they would make her sit by the sliding window so she wouldn't be too close to everybody smoking, so she would have to take beer orders from the other patrons to hang out. Oh my god, it's like that kind of like no rules, sort of like fun thing about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's like also again, even building kind of and establishing like a community, you know people go back to certain places, whether you've talked about building relationships and rapport, and we go back to certain bars like nice cocktail bars or even restaurants, because of the bartenders and the environment it provides. Dive bars almost have that like extra, like family, like hug, like you just want to go in and even though it's like it is like a little community yeah, yeah, that's, yeah, it's like warm and welcoming, even though you're like what is this? Especially if it's like a local spot.
Speaker 1:Hold bars can be that, if you like, really build your clientele up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the dive bar is kind of like with the almost like don't really give a fuck mentality, make it easier, right, because they're just like whatever. Whereas, like almost, when you're trying to be too structured and too much, it takes the personability out of it. Where dive bars it's a free ride, like screw it. You know, it's just, you can go in, kind of be yourself and it's fun.
Speaker 1:That's why we love them.
Speaker 2:That's why we love them. You walk in, you're like, yep, we have this A type of people.
Speaker 3:We had this year long regular at the bar I worked at for the longest and his name was Charles. Probably smoked four packs a day. He laid carpet. I think he like did something with carpet for a living. So like he was this old man, but just like jacked arms and he would come in every day and he would just drink double jack and coax and he got a bigger discount than any of the staff there. He has his own button in our POS machine, so so you know he for rides. You're right, yeah.
Speaker 2:When your name's on the POS machine Rolling out the red carpet that he's laying.
Speaker 3:And we got a text one morning, a group text from our boss Saying hey, if Charles orders anything other than Jack and Coke, don't give it to him, don't let him drink any other liquor. And I was like what happened? And then I get a following. I get a text message following that of a picture, because I guess he ordered like wild turkey or something and he had a toothache, so he took a couple shots of wild turkey and then reached his mouth and pulled out his tooth. And so there's this picture of Charles sitting there like with his tooth at the bar.
Speaker 1:Doing tennis tree.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so instead of being like Charles's band or like Charles can't come in for a while, like you need to cut Charles off. It was like don't let Charles drink anything other than Jack and Coke.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Keep it in limited. We know he can tolerate that and handle that. Everything else is off limits. Yeah Gosh, that's cool. Yeah Well, with dive bars, obviously we all three vote yay for dive bars.
Speaker 1:We're all.
Speaker 2:team dive bar, we're all team dive bar and we love to know obviously we have listeners kind of everywhere if there's a specific dive bar that you're favorite, whether it's in your hometown, somewhere you visited, oh yeah, send us your best dive bars.
Speaker 1:Yeah and get podcastabartninjacom, because we're rolling all over the country, yeah, so.
Speaker 2:And we all travel quite a bit. And also, I'm never We'll stop in. Yeah, I'm never opposed to a spontaneous trip If you can sell me on going to a really cool dive bar, yep. So.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely podcastabartninjacom.
Speaker 2:Get on all the platforms, even message us on Instagram. We kind of check everything, yep, and you know we have a lot, of, a lot more fun topics that we have rolling out that we're going to be talking about too. But again, if there's anything that you guys think about that you want to hear, that you want us to talk about, let us know. Till next time, bar Ninja out Later.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bar Ninja Podcast. Please be sure to subscribe to us and your favorite podcast player and join the Bar Ninja Nation that has over 7,000 bartenders in it, by going to wwwbarninjacom and you can enter your email. Till next time. See you then. Bye.
