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Here are photos of some of Houston's best and most popular dive bars. With the good comes the bad, so we are asking the readers to suggest the Houston dive bar that is the worst and needs saving ( think Spike's Bar Rescue ). We will post the results when we get them all in. Please post your answer in the comments field.
Warren's , which is located in a historic part of Houston, is a downtown staple. (Cristobal Perez/Chronicle file)
I love Warren's. It draws an older more mature crowd. Love the 40-50s crowd.
Most don't know that the Barrell has been around for 40 plus years, originally off Memorial, west of Gessner, across the parking lot from the Lantern Inn, an old mainstay of the dining scene out there back then. One of the waiters used to come in after shift dressed in drag. A guy named Hank on the Barrell slow pitch team picked him up one night. Everyone but Hank knew the scene. Depending on the decade, the Burlap Barrell has always been one of the best, or worst, dive bars in Houston.
This list is a joke. These are the Chronicles's idea of dive bars? No Jimmie's, Shiloh, Tall Texan, Rose Garden etc. C'mom man!!!
Though the bars you mentioned are dive bars, they are pretty clean compared to some of the other dumps mentioned.
Jimmy's is actually a very cool place,much better than Shiloh's.
Shiloh Club
The "Tall Texan" on North Main.
Knuckleheads on westhiemer and winrock needs saving.
I can't speak for Houston, but there is one bar in Alvin that's a pretty darn poor dive bar and it's called The Garden. I used to go there with a friend that practically lived there. One day, I met a rough looking grizzled old merchant marine that informed me that he has been all over the world, to many different countries and many different bars. He said that The Garden was the ugliest nastiest bar that he has ever been to. I agree!!!
This appears to be a list of "slightly shabby scene bars" instead of "dive bars". No Houston dive bar list could possibly be made without at least either the Marquis II or Kays, within blocks of each other on Bissonnet. Even this is assuming there is a separate ice-house category.
The Marquis II... used to hang out there ALL the time in college. It's still open?!
The Marquis II has since been remodeled. Its windowless ex-strip-club facade is now a much friendlier beige stuccoed number.
If you can't walk in at 10am on a Tuesday and see Bukowski look-alikes drinking their breakfast then it isn't a real dive bar.
Amen
I haven't been in a while, but is Lola's Depot still open? It was a true dive bar.
Lola's is indeed a true dive bar.
Oh yes. Lola's is still open.
The West Alabama Ice House takes the prize in the ice house category. Many years ago it had a sign that said "Beer...Ice Cubes" so my buddies and I would just say to each other, "Meet you at the Cubes" They had some older regulars there back in the day who were Hall Of Fame bar flies including one elderly gentleman who you depend on to bounce his Ford Maverick off the curbs several times in his comings and goings.
Many of these hardly qualify as dive bars. Come on. Where is Shakespeare's Pub (way out west on Memorial). Now that's a dive bar complete with no cover and great blues music. If you've never heard John McVey every 2nd Wed you're missing something! Even The Usual on TC Jester is more of a dive than many on your list. Yeah I know it is mostly known as a lesbian bar but that doesn't matter. Does it?
C'mon, these are cute bars. Where are the old "Crown Clubs" and "Gold Crown Clubs" that used to be around Houston on streets like Airline, lower Steubner Airline and Aldine Mail Route - those were dives.
risky business on aldine bender...aka..525..
Hung out at the Crown Club on Aldine Bender once upon a long time ago, good times. Truly a textbook dive bar.
There is/was (not sure now?) a place on North Yale a block or two south of Parker called The Name Dropper, never went there but it looked like a serious dive from the outside.
How can you rate the best/worst dive bars? If the whole defining purpose of a dive bar is to be shabby/dirty/cheap...then is the best dive bar the roughest looking one or is that the worst? Dive bars are dive bars because they likely haven't changed at all in 20+ years...so why would you want to "save" one and turn it into something it is not. Frankly, the chron list is weak and there are tons of other true dive bars missing from the list and your favorite is most likely just going to depend on what part of town you live in. More importantly, let's stop publishing lists of dive bars because it just angers the regulars when hordes of hipsters come looking for that next cool place that only they know about it (or so they think).
I nominate Carlos' Beer Garden in Webster on Highway 3!! What a dump and a dive!!!
what about the spring branch legend of dive joints: The Blue Lagoon!!!
love the blue lagoon, quintessential dive bar, i fit in perfectly!
What about Aubrey's?
That is a dive bar, no doubt. The only think I do not like about this place is that it's so " membership only". Though the place seems to me mostly retired people, they are not too open to having new people come to the bar.
Ok lets begin, the 19th hole alief,rj's beer joint tomball parkway,the shady tavern, sundowners mangum rd ....
risky business on aldine bender
I've been there a couple of times & hated it. The bartenders and people that go there act as if they don't know you, you can't get a beer.
@Steve33....I'm with you! Enough of the "dive" bar articles. I'm sure these writeups are good for business (for 1 or 2 visits...nothing more), but the regulars really are not impressed when the snooty newcomers show up and start making degrading comments about their local watering hole.
Hunter's on S. Post Oak is a bad dive bar, but Carolyn's on Willowbend is the absolute pits.
I have two:
The Shiloh Club (In the Heights, but you'd think it was right outside a trailer park)
Griff's (awful, AWFUL place in Montrose)
Dive bars in Houston?? You have to go to San Leon for a great Dive Bar. Wayno's is perfect example followed by the San Leon Beach Pub and San Leon Radio Bar although it is closed for repairs. These are truly dive bars. Once watched 2 women duke it out at Wayno's only to kiss and make up after about 15 min of rolling around on the floor, cussing, punching and hair pulling. They made up, huggy, swapping spit, only to get back into it after about 20 min. I thought I was going to have to pay cover for a floor show. San Leon/Bacliff where there is a definite teeth to tattoo ratio for men and women.
I agree with you 100%. San Leon is a whole other scene when it comes to dives bars. I think Wayno's or as you mentioned Radio city are the worse dives bars certainly in the Houston Metro area, probably in the top 10 in the country.
There is another dump in San Leon called " The Pelican " that is petty brutal too, should be considered as one of the worse of the worse. In Houston, the three best dump bars are 1) Castillos Drive Inn ( in the Heights ) 2) Lone Star Saloon ( Travis/St. Joseph Parkway ) 3) Lola's ( Grant/Fairview).
But again, San Leon is the best place if one is seeking a hard core dive bar.
Sundown Saloon on Dacoma.
Lone Star Saloon anyone, how did this one get missed? Or Leon's Lounge on McGowen near Main.
Wouldn't Volcanoes qualify as a dive?
I would say no. A dive bar is the kind of place that most would never ever set foot into, because it's way too seedy, sleazy and dumpy. Volcanoes has character but is not a dive bar in my opinion.
Neither would any bars in this list. Boondocks is a hipster nightmare and has IN SPADES the needlessly-pretentious atmosphere that dive bars are supposed to lack.
The Shiloh Club, for sure.
Really these are dive bars? Cecils I will give them,the rest not even close. I have to agree Shiloh in the heights and Kays, Marquis II are actually dive bars. What about Aubreys on W Gulbank, Sarah's Pub in Kingspoint( if it is still open)
The Fortune Club at Rayford and I-45, The Lighthouse in Spring?
If Cecils is a dive bar than Griff's has to be one to. Rudz is too popular to be a dive bar
Anybody remember Gunny Shack in Spring?
I remember Gunny's. Good times...
The Gin Mill on West Bellort & 59 - the carpets are so saturated with filth your shoes stick when you walk. And Jack's for Cocktails right around the corner on Wilcrest & 59 - dark and smelly complete with a disco ball and nicotine stained mirrored walls. Great places to grab a beer, listen to some good juke box music and watch/listen to the locals. The best thing about dive bars is that no matter where you go anywhere in the US the people there are all the same - the haggard school teacher, the over-worked accountant, the long-time postal worker, the not so pretty but nice secretary. Annie, Paul, Charlie and Dave - no matter where you do - they're there waiting to welcome you in. I LOVE DIVE BARS!!
Leon's has been gentrified beyond recognition and no longer rates.