There are bars, and then there are dives. The former are all manners of drinking establishments, the latter are neighborhood institutions that feel as if they exist outside of time. And the term is only an affront to those who know no better.
"Dives is a good term, I like that term," said Shawn Doyle, owner and operator of Al's Cocktails in San Gabriel — a tried-and-true example of the genre on Las Tunas Dr. that's been open since 1945. Doyle remembers going to Al's on weekends for breakfast as a kid, a good decade before his mom bought the little watering hole in the mid-1980s.
Eventually, the siren call of the family business lured him in. Now, Doyle mans the bar and his 76-year-old mom works the back office. True to its status as a local spot, Doyle says 80% of their patrons are regulars whose names or faces they know.
"Dive bar means it's a little bit of a neighborhood bar, but it's no-frills," he said. "Just kind of a friendly atmosphere. You know you're going to get a good drink.
It's 'we're not gonna pay too much for it.'" Especially nowadays, when a fancy cocktail at a fancy place can set you back a $20 bill before tip, Al's and other dives still manage to charge a quarter of that — with none of that cocktail jigger nonsense. "You know, we're a small space and we just don't overcharge," Doyle said.
"It's not that we keep [prices] so low. It's other places charge way too much." Many of us have our go-to dives — and they come and go, the same way that we come and .