Dive bars may lack the sophistication of a cocktail bar, the camaraderie of a sports bar or the tropical flair of a tiki bar, but they are neon beacons in the neighborhoods they serve.
They’ll never be the fanciest places on the block, inside or out, but the comfortable surroundings are where the best, or at least the easiest, pour decisions are made. Often, the drink options are limited. The food menu, even more so. Each dish or drink’s ingredients are familiar. The names are easy to pronounce, even after you’ve had a few.
“Dive bars are what one would call a hole in the wall,” says Kristiana Mallo, co-owner of Broads Lounge, where the “female-forward” focus reads more diva than dive.
For some Chattanooga bar owners, there’s nothing wrong with being called a dive
“We’re definitely not a dive bar,” Mallo says of the establishment at 124 E. 10th St., where the vibe is “sophisticated, with a very curated aesthetic, a vintage Art Deco style that hearkens to the glamorous era of the 1920s,” she says.
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As names go, Mike’s Hole in the Wall fits the description, and its history lends itself to any connotations to be drawn from the dive bar label. The bar opened September 15, 2008, in what an online history describes as a small, dark, smoky building on Cherokee Boulevard, an area not considered particularly safe at the time.
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Still, business partners John McClellan and Mike Robb (who died in 2020) saw the location’s hidden potential. What really drew their interest was a long tube rising from a downstairs dumpster to an actual hole in the wall behind the bar. When a bartender opened the stainless-steel trapdoor over the hole and tossed in an empty beer bottle, they listened to it rattle down the tube and hit the dumpster “with a glorious crash of breaking glass,” says the website.
McClellan and Robb renovated the building in 2010 and added a deck in 2016. But the next year, when they lost the parking area next door, they relocated across the street to the current location at 535 Cherokee Blvd., keeping the “Hole in the Wall” name if not the “hole in the wall” architectural novelty.
The original location “was most definitely a dive bar,” says McClellan, who believes the term implies a space that’s not very large and “a little rough around the edges.” The new Hole in the Wall, he says, “is more accommodating, lighter, brighter, dog-friendly with great food and a lot more beverage offerings.”
The term “dive bar” originated in the 19th century when the establishments were often located in cellars or basements, requiring patrons to “dive” below street level to enter them. Offering plenty of privacy, these subterranean hideaways eventually became known as disreputable places to drink.
These days, “dive” is often considered a compliment, describing a place as unpretentious rather than unsavory.
Shady’s Corner, at 1402 Cemetery Ave., embraces the implications of being a dive, billing itself as a place for “freaks, weirdos and ne’er-do-wells.” If below-ground accommodations are hard to come by in Chattanooga, there’s at least a cemetery nearby.
Food and drink are served all day, and TVs, billiards, pinball and a “barcade” give patrons plenty of ways to pass the time — for those the website calls the “busybodies that like to do something while you drink.” The closest thing to pretense would be the beer garden — simply for the fact that they call this rustic collection of wooden picnic tables a beer garden (“ooh la la, look at us,” says the website).
At Mean Jeen’s, 1800 E. Main St., the vibe is “cocktail dive,” says co-owner Josh Mongoven. Which means, he says, “we offer the accoutrements of a dive bar with pool tables, TVs and a jukebox, and a good selection of cocktails without the stuck-uppy feel of a cocktail bar.”
(PHOTO GALLERY: Mean Jeen’s opening on East Main)
Opened October 7, 2024, Mean Jeen’s was the result of two years of searching for the right space by Mongoven and his wife, Jeena Listar-Guest, the bar’s namesake. They knew the look and feel they wanted to create.
“We are big movie people,” Mongoven says. “It’s 100% based on the bowling alley of ‘The Big Lebowski.'”
For Mongoven, there’s no shame in calling a bar a dive.
“I would say a dive bar is a positive thing,” he says. “It’s casual. It’s comfortable. It’s not too polished. There’s something endearing about a dive bar.”
For more information: Broads Lounge, broadslounge.com; Mike’s Hole in the Wall, mikesholeinthewall.com; Shady’s Corner, shadyscorner.com; Mean Jeen’s, meanjeens.com.