This Place Looks Like Shit — I’ll Have Two

Why the Dive Bar Still Kicks Harder Than Most of the Industry Knows What to Do With

There’s a magic to certain bars — the kind of places that feel like they were built out of regret, late nights, ashtrays, and accidental genius. Places where the only thing polished is the brass on the door you’ve kicked open so many times it now opens itself. Places that make you feel like you belong, not because they want your custom, but because they genuinely don’t give a shit whether you stay or go.

Dive bars.

Not the made-up ones you find on Instagram with curated neon and “quirky” cocktails in jam jars, but real ones. The ones with toilet doors that don’t close properly, with decades of grime baked into the walls. The ones where the bar staff are either your best friend or your natural predator, depending on your mood and how many drinks you’ve had. The ones that shouldn’t work, by any measurable metric, but somehow do — because they’ve got soul. And soul sells, even if it comes wrapped in mildew and apathy.

I’ve built my business, my career, my hangovers, around places like that. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the dive bar isn’t just still relevant — it’s more relevant than ever. Because we’re living through an age of pixel-perfect cocktails and corporate sterilisation. And when everything is slick, smooth, and tracked via app, something flawed starts to feel like salvation.

The Dive Bar Is Dead. Long Live the Dive Bar.

Let’s start here: the dive bar aesthetic is not an aesthetic. Not really. You can’t just bolt mismatched chairs to a chevron floor, scribble “wash your hands” in permanent marker above the urinal, and call it soul. That’s theme park thinking. That’s a room designed by someone who’s never scraped gum off a bar stool or been headbutted by a guy named Stewpot.

A real dive bar doesn’t have a brand strategy. It has history. Scars. A cracked mirror held together with masking tape and hope. It doesn’t chase the algorithm — it just opens at 4pm and lets the night do what it wants. If you’re lucky, it closes again.

There’s nothing clever about a dive bar. It doesn’t want to teach you anything. It doesn’t care what you’re drinking. You don’t Instagram your drinks in a dive — you forget your phone at the bottom of the toilet and make peace with that decision.

And yet… people love them. Not in the way they say they love concepts like “exposed brick” or “sustainably sourced ice.” I mean, really love them. Because when the world outside is burning in high-def 4K — when your phone is telling you who to be, what to want, and what to fear — a place that just is what it is feels like salvation. Dive bars let you hide in plain sight. No performance necessary.

Authenticity: It Hurts a Little, But It’s Real

The first time I walked into what would become The Mothers Ruin, it didn’t feel like an opportunity. It felt like a challenge. The place had a stink. Not metaphorically — I mean an actual smell. Spilled booze, armpits, and grief. It was on a street that had hosted more failed venues than most cities do in a decade. It was bruised. But it was real.

We didn’t redesign it. We let it breathe. We let it keep its scars. And slowly, it became something.

Because that’s what people are craving now — realness. Not just “industrial chic,” or “eclectic vintage.” But genuine, scuffed-around-the-edges truth. Places that don’t pretend. That’s what a dive bar is: the middle finger to pretension. The bar where no one tells you your trousers are wrong or your laugh is too loud. The kind of room where nobody’s judging your choice of pint or your lack of a skincare routine. The kind of bar that lets you fall apart, buy a stranger a drink, and maybe put yourself back together again before the lights come up.

Heroes in Worcester is like that. Run by my mate Sian. It’s not fancy. It doesn’t need to be. The people are real. The nights are long. The jukebox doesn’t have an algorithm. And the bar belongs to the people who drink in it. Not legally — spiritually.

These places work because they don’t try to be everything to everyone. They just are. That’s more powerful than most bar owners will ever understand.

The Freedom to Be a Glorious Fuck-Up

There’s a kind of freedom in running a dive bar that you can’t get anywhere else in hospitality. You’re not held hostage by the lighting designer. You’re not building your brand based on Pantone swatches. You’re not locked into serving the drink of the month to people who only came in to take a selfie.

You can do what you want. You can fuck up. You can recover.

In the early 2000s, I spent a lot of time in Kreuzberg, Berlin — and if ever there was a holy land for glorious, anarchic hospitality, that was it. Legal bars, squats turned into drinking holes, places where the walls were crumbling and the spirit was bulletproof. Places like Wild at Heart and White Trash Fast Food, where the paint peeled and nobody noticed because the music was too loud and the crowd was too alive.

Then there was Banana, Banana in Prague. Gone now. But that place? Beautiful chaos. No signs. No menus. Just vibes. Just beer and noise and someone’s cousin playing guitar in the corner. You could drink there all night and walk out with half a dozen new friends and no idea what time it was. And you felt something. You felt like life was happening, and you weren’t watching it on a screen.

That’s the point. Dive bars don’t sell service. They sell life.

It’s the People, Stupid

You can fake the furniture. You can fake the paint. You can even fake the grime. But you can’t fake the people.

A dive bar is nothing without its crowd. And not just the regulars (though, God help you if you get the wrong ones — see Chapter: “The Wrong People, Every Night”). I mean the randoms. The walk-ins. The quiet drinkers who slowly turn into story generators. The lonely hearts. The weirdos. The absolute fucking legends.

Dive bars are people first, everything else second. You don’t remember the drinks. You remember the arguments. The laughter. The guy who sang “Bat Out of Hell” at 2am with tears in his eyes. The woman who told you how her brother died and bought you a whisky for listening. That’s the real transaction.

You don’t curate that with a Pinterest board. You curate that by giving people a space that doesn’t judge, doesn’t expect, and doesn’t try too hard to be loved. It just exists. And because of that, people love it more.

Predictability Is a Lie

Let’s be honest — most hospitality now is built on predictability. Same menus. Same music. Same lighting temperatures. You can walk into a chain bar in Sheffield and get the same cocktail as in Southampton, and that’s somehow considered a strength.

It isn’t.

Predictability is death.

Dive bars are the last bastions of unpredictability. Of chaos. Of risk. You don’t know what’s going to happen when you walk in. Might be karaoke. Might be a fight. Might be the best night of your year.

People are sick of slick. They’re craving mess. And they’re voting with their feet — especially the ones who still want to feel something after a long, grey week of performative professionalism and soul-sapping Zoom calls.

The Dive Bar Future (Yes, There Is One)

Every few years, some think-piece comes out pronouncing the death of the dive bar. Saying that Gen Z doesn’t drink like we did. That people want “experiences” now. That hospitality is moving into a new era of clean lines and clean living.

Sure. Fine. Let them.

But even in the middle of all that — dive bars are thriving.

Why?

Because we’re still human. Because we still want to gather. Because not everyone wants to drink a £14 cocktail made by a mixologist with neck tattoos and an allergy to eye contact. Some of us just want to sit in a place that doesn’t try to change us.

There’s a whole generation coming up who’ve grown up with filters. Who’ve had their entire social lives graded in likes and algorithmic approval. And when they walk into a dive bar, something in them relaxes. Because it’s the first place in a long time that isn’t performing back at them.

And that’s why it’s not just relevant — it’s vital.

So Why the Fuck Are We Still Explaining This?

I’ve watched smart operators turn their noses up at what we do — call it lazy, call it cheap, call it unscalable.

They’re right, in a way.

It is lazy — lazy like the breeze through an open door. Like knowing you don’t need to overthink something that already works.

It is cheap — and that’s the point. Not in cost, but in the lack of pretense. It’s accessible. It’s honest. You don’t need to dress a certain way to walk in. You don’t need to “know someone.” You just come.

And it is unscalable — because soul doesn’t scale. You can’t franchise character. You can’t roll out charm like floorplan modules. Dive bars aren’t built — they grow. Like moss. Like rot. Like life.

So here’s to sticky floors. To cracked toilets and duct-taped speakers and a sound guy named Steve who’s been there longer than anyone knows. To the chaos. To the music that plays just a bit too loud. To the bartenders who might hate you, might love you, and might be both at once.

Here’s to every dive bar that still kicks.

Still bleeds.

Still matters.