Down the Rabbit Hole
On a sweltering Saturday in the City of Angels, I found myself standing in a scruffy parking lot, staring up at a windowless, Pepto-Bismol pink building. This was the legendary Double Down Saloon, and I was about to embark on a 72-hour odyssey to uncover the diviest dive bars in all of Los Angeles.
The quest had begun a few days earlier when my editor at The Up and Under Pub had tasked me with this seemingly impossible mission. “Find the grittiest, most hardcore watering holes in LA,” she’d barked, “the kind of places where you might just get your teeth kicked in on a bad night.” Truthfully, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was getting myself into. But as someone who derives an almost unhealthy amount of joy from crushing cheap beers in the bowels of society’s underbelly, I couldn’t resist.
I took a deep breath, pulled open the steel front door, and stepped inside. The darkness was immediate and absolute – I had to stand completely still for several seconds, blinking furiously, before my eyes could adjust to the gloom. As they did, I began to make out the contours of the place: a long, curving bar, walls covered in scrawled graffiti, two men shooting pool by an empty stage. A hand-drawn sign advertised something called “Ass Juice,” sold at the perplexing rate of “1 for $4, 2 for $9.”
After locating an open stool, I flagged down the bartender and ordered a beer. As I sipped it, a wild-eyed man in a tattered black t-shirt approached me. “Mike-Mike,” he said, tapping his chest. Then he pointed to a man in the corner. “Lolly.”
I’d barely had time to respond when the bathroom door swung open and another guy, eyes darting, stared at me silently. “Is this the women’s or something?” I asked, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to pee.
“Nah,” the man replied, “just fuckin’ with you.”
And so began my descent into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles nightlife.
Chasing the Diviest Dive
Over the next three days, I would hop from one decrepit, neon-lit watering hole to the next, fueled by cheap beer, cigarettes, and a burning desire to uncover the most debaucherous, soul-crushing dive bar in the City of Angels. Along the way, I’d encounter an eclectic cast of characters – from electricians and AV techs to alleged mob associates and strippers – each with their own unique story to tell.
My first stop after the Double Down was the aptly named Dive Bar, a cavernous, desolate space filled with kitschy bric-a-brac. As I saddled up to the bar, a man named Mike-Mike – the same wild-eyed fellow I’d met at the Double Down – started hatching a plan to “start a riot” by having everyone throw a chair at the sky. Just as I was considering whether he was joking, that familiar urge to pee struck again, and I made a beeline for the restroom.
When I returned, Mike-Mike had vanished, and I learned he’d been banned from the premises. Undeterred, I asked the bartender – a tattooed woman in her mid-30s – for recommendations on other dives I should check out. She rattled off a dozen spots, from the fairly normal-sounding “The Mint Tavern” to the delightfully absurd “Moondoggies.”
One place she suggested I visit was the Rusty Spur, located in the parking lot of a seedy motel. As I approached the bar, I discovered that the “big silver statue” I’d been told about wasn’t a bull, as I’d expected, but rather a unicorn. Inside, I found an eclectic mix of characters, including a man with a five-inch diamond tattoo on his cheek, a woman with cherry-red hair, and an older gentleman babbling incoherently to himself.
Over the course of the evening, I was treated to a raucous karaoke session, an impassioned discussion about 80s music, and a heartfelt conversation about a bartender’s tumultuous relationship with her ex-husband. It was exactly the kind of gritty, soulful experience I’d been searching for.
Dinner with the Mob
Just as I was about to continue my pub crawl, my phone rang. It was Freddy Diamonds, a longtime Vegas resident I’d met the previous night. “Whaddya say me and you get dinner tonight?” he barked, in the unmistakable cadence of a New Jersey wiseguy. “Italian American Club, maybe five-thirty, six o’clock. I’ll introduce you to the 25 people who run this town.”
Initially, I told Freddy I had to work on my story, but I quickly realized the error of my ways. What kind of fool turns down a dinner invitation from a man who sounds like he’s straight out of a Scorsese movie? I called him back and accepted, hastily making my way to the Rusty Spur’s parking lot.
Over the next eight hours, I found myself sharing a table with a group of men who, according to Freddy, were all part of the Mafia. One of them, a man who worked in “sanitation,” allegedly had a body count of 20. Another was said to have inspired the character of Reuben Tishkoff from “Ocean’s Eleven.”
As I stumbled back to my hotel the next morning, unsure if I was even still alive, I received a text from Freddy: “Are u alive?” I assured him I was, to which he replied, “OK. I was afraid they 86’d you eight miles out and six feet deep.”
The Diviest of the Dive Bars
With two nights left in LA and dozens of dive bars still on my list, I knew I had to pick up the pace. I started randomly selecting spots, chugging beers, and singing karaoke with increasingly fervent abandon. I visited the Stage Door, a place that looked like a brick-and-mortar version of a carnival funnel cake truck, and Ellis Island, where I witnessed some truly mind-bending “freak karaoke.”
Eventually, I made my way to a spot called Island Bar, where I was greeted by a bartender named Jennifer who gave me a guided tour of the establishment’s bizarre decor – including a six-foot-tall cement kebab and a “pool ball climbing wall.” As I sat there swapping stories with Jennifer and a man named Southern, I marveled at the sense of camaraderie and acceptance that seemed to permeate even the most derelict of dives.
But it wasn’t until I stepped into the Aztec Inn that I truly understood the meaning of “divey.” This place was a sensory overload of madness – a micro-casino filled with people doing inexplicable things, from a woman chain-smoking and violently tapping a button on a slot machine to a man who would periodically sprint in and out of the building, shouting unintelligibly.
As I sat at the bar, sipping my beer and trying to make sense of the chaos unfolding around me, the bartender regaled me with stories of a woman who had once thrown a boulder through the window and a $1,500 bathroom key that people were constantly trying to steal. It was in this moment that I realized I had found the diviest dive bar in all of Los Angeles.
Sanctuary in the Squalor
What struck me most about the Aztec Inn, and the other dive bars I’d visited, was the sense of community and belonging that existed within their walls. Beneath the layers of grime and debauchery, these places provided a sanctuary for those who didn’t quite fit in elsewhere – a space where they could be themselves, flaws and all, and be accepted and celebrated for it.
Whether it was Mike-Mike and Lolly at the Double Down, Sparks and Rosie at the Rusty Spur, or the cast of characters at the Aztec Inn, these were the people keeping the machine of Los Angeles alive. They were the electricians, the AV techs, the alleged Mafia associates – the unsung heroes who, when the neon-lit fantasy of the city grew too much to bear, could retreat to their local dive and find solace in the company of their kindred spirits.
As I nursed my final beer at the Aztec and watched the chaos unfold around me, I couldn’t help but feel a profound sense of awe and reverence. In a world that so often demands conformity, these dive bars stood as beacons of authenticity, reminding us that true beauty can be found in the most unexpected of places – even if it’s hiding beneath a layer of spilled beer and broken dreams.
