Dive into these joints for something different
OUT THERE by Leslie Basalla

Virtually every neighborhood in town has its corner tavern, a comfortable, casual gathering place, where people drop in for a post-work beer or a weekend celebration. Some bars, however, are some-thing entirely different — they’re dives.
Dive is a word with a lot of negative connotations. Dives, in a Webster’s Dictionary sense, are usually considered dirty, un-savory places, populated by equally unpleasant characters.
I don’t think of dives that way. For me, a dive is a place where your grandfather probably drank, a bar with history.
A good dive is a place that has seemingly been a bar since time immemorial, or at least since the end of Prohibition; a place that clearly was constructed with the sole intention of housing a drinking establishment. Dives are bars where cigarette smoke and spilled beer have become part of the molecular structure of the building.
For a bar to be a true dive it should have a workingman’s spirit, and preferably be located in a slightly out-of-the-way place. It should also be in a freestanding building, or a street-side storefront, a true dive is never, ever located in a strip mall.
Cleveland has a plethora of dives to choose from, but most of my favorites are clustered around the near West Side.
One of the best sits in a lonely corner of the Flats, a short ride across a lift bridge from the party scene of the East Bank, but worlds away in spirit.
bus Road, has a lot going for it. Beer prices are low, the fixtures are comfortable, and the mixed crowd runs from rock and rollers, to barflies to ordinary neighborhood folks. It also sports one of the best views of the downtown skyline you’re likely to see.
Thursday nights area great time to check out the scene at Hoopple’s. Local blues main-stays, the Schwartz Brothers have played a free Thursday gig at the bar for longer than any-one can remember, but people keep coming out to see them, and for good reason.
While bassist, Gene Schwartz calmly holds down the low end, guitarist Glenn Schwartz alternately lays down licks that defy belief, and rants, raves and pre-aches, telling stories from his disturbing and traumatic life.
As an acquaintance of mine noted, “Glenn is more punk rock than anything else you’re going to see, because you never know what he’s going to do next.”
If blues and beers don’t as-sure you that Hoopple’s is indeed a dive, consider this, back in November, the bar sponsored a beard-growing contest. Let’s see some glam palace in the Warehouse District do that.
Around a few twists of the Cuyahoga River, you’ll find an-other bar that could only be de-fined as a dive.
Occupying the ground floor of a rickety old house that sits next to some kind of chemical plant, Pat’s in the Flats is Cleveland’s reigning rock and roll dive.
While the tavern earned its designation as “The Working-man’s Bar,” (as a sign near the door proclaims), by lunch to masses of workers, it is the crowd that won Pat’s its reputation. feeding industrial nighttime
For years, Pat’s has opened itself up to musicians looking to book some good rock shows. Photo collages on the wall show pictures of punk and metal bands in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Before Mark Leddy opened the Beachland Ballroom, he and Doug Niemczura staked a late ‘90s claim to the bar, and booked some of the best garage rock shows I’ve ever been to. The White Stripes played their first show outside of Detroit at Pat’s, sometime in 1997 or ‘98.
Pat’s still hosts shows nearly every week, ranging from hard-core to indie rock to country.
Other great dives around town include the Starkweather South Side (formerly Trinka’s, an “old man bar” on Scranton), where the old crowd of regulars mixes with punks, the Five O’Clock in Lakewood, and Mitzi’s, an ancient establishment on St. Clair, where you still have to get buzzed in the door, speakeasy style.
The Harbor Inn, located within shouting distance of hop-ping Flats complexes Shooters and the Powerhouse also gets a nod for its history. It was there long before the bar scene was, and it served as a hangout for longshoremen as well as legendary figures on the ‘70s Cleveland punk scene.
It was even name-dropped in the Rocket from the Tombs song, “Amphetamine” — you can’t beat that for credibility.

 

Out There runs the first and third Thursdays of every month.
Basalla can be contacted at magneticmj@yahoo.com.