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An Ode to the Dive BarAfter a hot Texas day, I was in the White Elephant Saloon at the historic Stockyards area of Fort Worth. I spent a cozy evening playing tabletop shuffleboard without a clue about the actual rules. I had a long conversation with someone about whether the board was covered in sawdust or salt (unresolved). Strictly speaking, the White Elephant is a honky-tonk, renowned for its country music acts and for being near the site of a legendary 1887 gunfight. But in the glow of its neon signs, in a calming cloud of cigarette smoke, I whiled away time in the kind of tranquility that can only be found in a great dive bar. What makes a bar a dive bar is a matter of taste and sometimes, yes, a matter of orthodontics. A great dive is a place where the possibility of a gunfight exists (the White Elephant insists upon unloaded firearms), but mostly it should offer a quiet escape. Simple pleasures and a straight-shooting lack of pretension: bottled beers, a jukebox (at least one Elvis CD) and a TV above the bar, with the sound up when a decent game is on. These kinds of places may seem like they’re everywhere, but quality dives are a dying breed and are among the first victims of gentrification. Now, it’s easier to know a dive bar for what it is not: raspberry-flavoured lager, say, or a tapas menu. The Old Town Ale House in Chicago, a favourite of mine, has a jukebox that only contains jazz and blues. The place is crammed with bric-a-brac, giving it the air of a naughty tool shed: old wood, a bust of a gorilla’s head, a Family Guy pinball machine and oversize ashtrays.
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