Here's a list of bars in San Diego. Note that most are not dive bars at all. You can figure that out though by reading the descriptions.

http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=4757


Also, there are tons and tons of dive bars in San Francisco. Just pick a block, pretty much

Allston/Brighton

The Model (where everyone usually ends up)
Silhouette
Reel Bar (though they did it over and it's not as dive-y as it used to be it's a lot more fun now)
Hogan's Run
TC's Lounge

RIP Pasalamany's RIP

This city is losing dive bars, record stores, and decrepit spaces (industrial and residential) by the minute. I'm glad I got to live in Montreal in its last fine hour.

I hope it wasn't The Spotlight.

I haven't been in the the spotlight but driving by it would indeed appear to be a dive. I'm familiar with all of the other LA bars mentioned but Bar 107 and I wouldn't call any of them dives.

I have a sentimental attachment to St. Ann Street's Pub in Baltimore. Real no frills bar with a blue collar crowd. All of the liquor bottles are on shelves with masking tape across them displaying the price of shot.

Holy crap, I gotta find that place.

that depends what your definition of a dive bar is. If you mean a bar that sell's mostly cheap american beer like Pasbts Blue Ribbon, Schitlz, Miller High Life, ect... and opens at 6AM and closes at 2AM, then you sound make PHX, AZ at stop on your american dive bar tour.

have you seen the blues brothers? you know bob's country bunker, where they play their first show? well, there's a place just like that in the middle of chicago. it's called carol's. it's open until 4am during the week and til 5am on weekends. it is probably the most definitive dive i've ever been in. then again, i don't normally go to bars unless bands are there.

I'm a firm believer that there's no best dive bars here, since there's so many damned good ones. Seriously I can name excellent dive bars in at least 7 cities here, and it really depends on where you end up.

mine....

cheap drinks, smelly/sticky bar, prostitutes, strippers, odd types, cocaine use (in plain view), cheap-heartburn inducing food, predictable jukebox that plays ac/dc or zz top at least 4 times while you're there, mean looking cooks, whiskey breath, fisticuffs (at least a few punches a night).

ummm, you mean a GOOD bar?

hahaha, well yeah, dive = good imo. fucking entertainment.

There are always many in every city, but the one I have been to frequently here is Fox's Sherron Inn. It's been a steak house bar for 40 years or so. It's a dimly lit bar, a red tinted room. One incident while eating a 4am steak:

An older couple(80ish) sitting at the bar drinking, the husband gets up to throw some quarters in the ol' j-box falls and breaks his hip all the while I was in the men's room. I walk out with his wife leaning over him slurring if he's alright. I step over him and the bartender assures all is OK. We eat steak. The gurney and entourage comes in and wheels him passed and nothing skips a beat. Sipping bourbon and eating steak.

check, check, do just common unpaid whores count (?) -- if so check, check, check, no, check, check, check, check, check.

yep, most are unpaid and lookin' for a sucker john. oh, and they have that crack twitch thing goin' on.

if you happen to stop by muncie, IN, which you probably won't but...

the heorot - viking themed bar serving imports and micro-brews only. swords and shit on the walls. decent food. lots of irish/folk/oi type bands

mark III tavern - fun gay bar. lots of techno-tronic dance music, but still a hole in the stall...i mean wall.

or if you pass through indianapolis, there's the melody inn, which is sort of the indie/punk rock bar with good cheap beer and decent shows, and also j. clydes which doesn't have shows but is the bar all the punk kids go to after shows at the emerson theater[/i]

One of the last times I was at there there was this middle aged woman with her fiance, who was so drunk he was barely conscious. At one point in the night I saw her kissing another guy across the table her fiance was sleeping at and another point in the night my friend came out of the bathroom and said the woman was huddled in the corner crying and asking the girls in there if they wanted to make out.

That's the only time I've seen that woman there..

Carol's (already mentioned) and Rose's

man, you'd love it here....EDIT: not my place per se, jus the island in general.

Oh, and my votes go to The FIve Point Cafe in Seattle, the Horseshoe lounge in Austin, and The Black and White Bar, San Pedro Belize<---anyone remember my post about cathedrals and bars? *bingo*

ok ok bar 107 isn't necessarily a dive bar, but i guess more of a kitschy type bar.

never been to the spotlight.

long beach has a lot of good dive bars.

Nashville:
Springwater, Villager Tavern, Broadway Brewhouse, Red Door Saloon. Music venues that are like dives: The End, The Basement, The Muse.

Athens, GA Roadhouse, Manhattan, Bar 283, Georgia Bar[/b]

Manhattan, Bar 283... those are not dive bars at all. If anything there are on the pretentious side. The drinks at 283 are too expensive, and Manhattan is completely hipster.
The old Lunch Paper (on College Ave) qualified way better than those two.

P.S. The 'new' Lunch Paper down on Washington Street will be closing permanently September 16.

For Omaha, I would suggest Sullivan's, Saddle Creek Bar, The 49r, Homy Inn, Underwood Bar and O'leavers

Sullivan's, Saddle Creek Bar, O'leavers, The Homy Inn and The 49r are dive bars that the indie folk affiliated with Saddle Creek Records hang/hung out. Both O'leavers and The 49r have a lot of shows, Saddle Creek only has a few.
The Homy Inn used to have champagne on tap and served peanuts in dog bowls, I don't know if they do it anymore.
I really like the 49r, it has shuffle board and is pretty small. My friend used to live by The Underwood. It is a plain dive bar with little ambiance that has cheap tall half litre pitchers.
I'll also suggest The Goofy Foot. It looks like a Dive bar from the outside and is in a fairly ghetto locale of downtown Omaha, but is actually a indie/hipster place with good imports and booze.

I really enjoyed that place the last time I was there.

Good. Now lock up Jittery Joes and sweep the townies away

Georgia Bar and Roadhouse definitely qualify by Dalen's standards. I have done things openly in the Roadhouse that I would be worried about doing in the privacy of my own newly purchased home