The 50 Best Dive Bars in the World

A 130-year-old longshoreman's bar at the end of a Brooklyn pier, run by the same family for four generations. Bluegrass on Saturdays. Cash only. Survived a hurricane and gentrification with the wallpaper intact.

A free hot dog with every pitcher of beer since the Depression. Red vinyl booths held together with duct tape. The pig statue out front has been there since 1933, the year repeal day legalised the room.

Open since 1958. The walls covered with paintings of nude politicians by the owner herself. Roger Ebert held court here. Open until 4am six nights a week, 5am on Saturdays.

Down a dead-end alley, behind a door you have to look for. Maritime memorabilia covers every surface, donated by sailors over four decades. The bartender will pour you Anchor Steam without asking.

Open since 1936. Eight thousand paper shamrocks pinned to the ceiling, each carrying the name of a regular. The Irish coffee is poured to a recipe that has not changed in the building's history.

Standing since 1807. Andrew Jackson plotted the Battle of New Orleans on the second floor. The dripping absinthe fountains on the long mahogany bar are the same fixtures that have been there since the 1870s.

Charles de Gaulle drank here in 1940. So did Francis Bacon. Half pints only at the bar, no exceptions, no mobile phones at the front. The closest London gets to a Paris bistro from before the war.

Open since 1820. Hemingway and Picasso drank absinthe here from the same bottles still on the shelf. The wood floor slopes. The chandeliers have not been cleaned in living memory. This is why you go.

Twelve seats. Three storeys connected by a stairway you climb sideways. Crystal chandeliers and red velvet wall to wall. The tourist tax is honest, the welcome is warm if you bow once on entry.

Allen Ginsberg's preferred Tuesday afternoon. The current owner inherited it from her father, and the menu inherited from him. Cheap pours, cheap food, an aluminium ceiling that has reflected forty years of arguments.

Dylan Thomas drank his last eighteen whiskies here in 1953. The bar still has his table marked. A local crowd of writers, longshoremen turned doormen, and one or two literary tourists per night.

Opened 1892. The dumbwaiter that brought burgers up from the basement kitchen still works. Tin ceiling original. Tile floor original. The mahogany bar is forty-five feet of unbroken wood from 1880.

Opened 1854. Two beers on the menu, light or dark, both house brewed. Sawdust on the floor every morning. Did not serve women until 1970, by court order. The dust on the chandeliers is older than that.

A red neon sign older than half its customers. Forced out of its original location in 2014, reopened five blocks east with the booths and the bar transplanted intact. Same regulars, same prices.

Tuesday night Irish session, longest running in the city. The wallpaper stained yellow by forty winters of coal fire, then nicotine. Pours stiff. Closes when the last regular finishes their cigarette outside.

Marie ran it from 1961 until her death at 89. Her family kept it identical: pink Christmas lights up year round, 1970s drum kit on the small stage, the back booth where the regulars play cribbage.

Atlases on every wall, maps stained from forty years of cheap house red wine. The beer list is one of the deepest in the Midwest, but you order the Old Style. Tuesday is travel night, free coffee with the proof of a stamped passport.

Charles Bukowski's Hollywood. The neon sign is a registered LA landmark. Last drink served to the Black Dahlia in 1947, allegedly. The bartenders neither confirm nor deny: they pour and they listen.

Karaoke seven nights a week since 1989. The owner sings every Wednesday. Beers come at four dollars and the well drinks at six. The clientele includes daytime musicians and graveyard shift cabbies in equal share.

Across the alley from City Lights bookstore, the Beats' base camp from 1948. Kerouac shouted from the upstairs balcony. The cocktail menu is short and unchanged, the espresso served in cracked porcelain.

The oldest continuously operated bar in San Francisco, opened 1861. Survived the 1906 earthquake because the firefighters drank here. Live blues five nights a week, no cover, ten dollar beers and a ten dollar shot.

An eighteenth century cottage that pirate Jean Lafitte allegedly used as a front. No electricity in the front room: only candles. The Voodoo Daiquiri is purple and stronger than it looks. Open until 3am every night.

A neighbourhood corner from 1947. The Bywater regulars come for the cheap bourbon, the well drinks named after dead jazz musicians, and the kitchen that serves a roast beef po' boy until 1am.

Across the street from UT since 1974. Two stages, both small, both running country and folk seven nights. Cheap pitchers, the kind of jukebox where someone has paid for the same Townes Van Zandt song nine times this month.

A 1951 building that has survived three rounds of zoning. Sticky floors. Lone Star tallboys at four dollars. The wall of dollar bills tipped to the ceiling represents about thirty years of Saturday nights.

The longest continuously open bar in Tennessee, since 1896. Karaoke, punk, country, all on the same small stage in the same week. Beer is two dollars during happy hour, which runs from open until 7pm every day.

Open 24 hours since 1929. The first bar in Seattle to serve liquor after Prohibition. Seven kinds of breakfast served all night, and the kitchen turns out a half pound burger that tastes like 1953.

A 1923 roadhouse known to the regulars as the Handy Slut. Cheap pour, jukebox heavy on Patsy Cline, a back booth that has hosted three documented marriage proposals and one annulment in the same night.

A converted Tudor pub from 1949 in the basement of a downtown office building. Open until 2am every night. Boston police, court reporters, theatre crew all drink in the same booth row. Three dollar Buds at lunch.

Open since 1935. The neon raven on the door has not been turned off in eight decades. Bartenders carry a clipboard list of the dozen regulars who get their tab capped at twenty dollars by mutual agreement.

A red rose for every woman entering the bar, every night since 1971. The first one was an apology, the rest is tradition. Cheap pours, plastic seats, a regular crowd that includes three retired postal workers and one current judge.

A two storey converted row house from 1997 with bumper cars in the upstairs lounge. Vegan menu, dive prices, the sort of toilet stall art that has been there long enough to be archaeological.

An 1898 building that has been a saloon every year since. Pretty much rebuilt twice but kept the dimensions. Live local rock most nights, the menu offers a four dollar shot of whisky and a four dollar Pabst combination.

Phoenix's oldest continuously open tiki dive, since 1947. The pufferfish lights still hang. Mai Tais are eight dollars and made with the original recipe. The patio gets shade by 4pm in summer, which is the trick.

The oldest free standing bar in Las Vegas, open since 1952. Frank Sinatra's stool is the second from the door. The roof was used to watch nuclear tests in the 1950s. Beers six dollars, well drinks eight.

Open since 1926, the oldest bar in Miami Beach. Anthony Bourdain called it his favourite. The neon glows pink, the ceiling is mirror tiled, the regulars are a 24 hour rotation of locals, drag queens, and fishermen.

Jeffrey Bernard's Soho watering hole, the bar named in the play about him. Cheap pints, the sticky carpet has not been changed since 1981, the upstairs cabaret runs every Saturday night for the last forty years.

Standing since 1549. Catholic mass was held here in secret during the Reformation. The cellar still has the priest hole. The pints are cheap by Holborn standards, the sausage rolls are the lunch the regulars order.

Standing since 1772, nicknamed the Bucket of Blood for the bare knuckle fights once held upstairs. The downstairs bar is unchanged since 1952. Cheap by central London standards, busiest on Friday at 6pm.

A 1930s lounge where every Dublin writer who ever drank, drank. Patrick Kavanagh held court at the back booth. Toasted ham and cheese sandwiches for four euros are the only food, served until last orders.

A two storey wine bar in business since 1955. The downstairs vault has the original 1955 jukebox loaded with Aznavour and Brel. Cheap house red by the carafe, the fondue served upstairs is the regulars' winter ritual.

A 200 square metre indoor jungle of post-colonial decor in a lopsided 1880s warehouse. African rum punches at five euros. The room is wrong in the right way, and that is the dive bar standard.

Berlin's best known queer dive, run since 2005 by Ades Zabel. Drag, karaoke, three euro beers, a mirror ball that has been spinning on Tuesday for two decades. The smoking room is louder than the main floor.

A 1519 sailors' bar, one of two surviving wooden buildings in Amsterdam. The small monkeys carved into the lintel gave the place its name. Genever the way it has always been served, in a tulip glass without ice.

A 1979 cocktail dive in a basement on Travessa de Santa Teresa. Wood panelled to the ceiling, every inch of which is varnished by half a century of cigarettes. Caipirinhas at six euros, expertly poured.

A piazza-side dive in Trastevere with euro beers and three euro chocolate cake. Romans only, until 2am. The chairs are plastic. The conversation is loud. The owner has refused to renovate since 1972.

A 1900 pub on Forrest Road that runs the longest weekly folk session in Scotland, every night since 1970. Cheap pints, real pies, a regular crowd who know the songs by the second bar.

Eight seats, French film posters wall to wall, the owner Tomoyo Kawai has poured for thirty years. Chris Marker's namesake. House whisky and Stones albums. The kind of room where the bar tab pays for the seat.

A 1951 underground bar named after the Gorky play, the favourite of Mishima and Kurosawa in their lifetimes. Sake at six hundred yen, the regulars eat sashimi at the corner counter at 11pm sharp.

A neighbourhood Bangkok dive that doubles as an art space, since 1995. Concrete floor, exposed brick, a Singha at 110 baht. Live local jazz on Friday, the same trio that has played since 2003.