Texas dive bars: 'continuity from the chaotic cold universe outside the front door'

This book is solid gold: "Texas Dives: Enduring Neighborhood Bars of the Lone Star State" by Anthony Head — with photographs by Kirk Weddle — might be the most eloquent ode to the state's culture published this year.

San Marcos journalist Head devotes his savvy insights and layered prose to dive bars in 12 of the state's towns and cities. Austin photographer Weddle, using available light to powerful effect, gives depth and dignity to each bartender, customer and bar scene.

The pair had already worked closely together on magazine projects about adult beverages. After "Texas Dives" (Texas A&M University Press) came out earlier this year, the pair toured the state for book events at the bars in question as well as more traditional ones at bookstores.

In a bit of a surprise, the subjects of their visual and verbal reporting welcomed the book about them — it's not a ranked guide — with barely concealed emotions. Any reporter or author would approve that copies were passed around so that all the bar regulars could sign them, like a high school yearbook.

I've read several of the book's entries again and again, and have already planned judicious stopovers. I thought the best way to introduce volume to Think, Texas readers was to share Head's introduction, "The Tao of Day Drinking," lightly edited for style and length, along with a list of chapter titles.

I urge you to purchase or borrow "Texas Dives" and raise a glass to this enduring tradition.

'The Tao of Day Drinking'

Two guys walk into a bar. One guy turns to the other and says, “We should write a book.”

No joke. That’s how it happened, way back in July 2010, long before the world became a very different place. One of those guys at that bar, Kirk Weddle, took photos, and the other, Anthony Head — who’s writing these and most of the book’s words, with Kirk’s blessing I assure you — wrote articles and feature stories for our day jobs of covering Texas’ vibrant alcohol culture, mostly for magazines.

In the name of journalism, we visited the tempranillo vineyards and multi-generational wineries up near the Panhandle, checked out bubbly-interiored champagne bars in Dallas, and profiled image-making mixologists in Austin who build drinks like others craft fine home furnishings. We’ve made professional calls to a bunch of breweries, tasting rooms, distilleries and restaurants with wine lists so long you simply can’t read them in one sitting. We have sat at some world-famous bars.

For over a decade Kirk and I traveled thousands and thousands of miles inside Texas, attending private and high-profile events, meeting with men and women who were truly — sometimes dangerously — obsessed with the craftsmanship of their brands, and tasting our way through world-class beers, wines, and spirits, sometimes in spectacularly elegant settings, and other times in more outdoorsy locations showing off the natural elegance of the Lone Star State.

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Usually, before or after work, if we had time to kill, we’d kill it in a dive bar.

Which brings the story back to that one July afternoon in 2010. After finishing up a job covering a rollout for a super-premium herbal liqueur product at a Denton pub for "The Tasting Panel Magazine," Kirk and I were driving south on Interstate 35. Exhausted from the traffic that formed alongside that interminable construction that has haunted motorists for years, we pulled off in the tiny town of West, about halfway between Dallas/Fort Worth and Austin. We were hoping to find something cold to drink.

Mynars Bar awaited us on a hot, dusty street corner, and in we walked.

Linda, the bartender, held a cigarette lightly in her fingers as she slid over two Shiner Bocks and popped a Dr Pepper for herself. “Just passing through?” she asked.

The lights were kind of low. The place was kind of empty. Some old George Jones song was making the jukebox cry. I can remember how the smoke, the aroma of beer, and whatever the scent of history smells like were all mingled in the air at this frontier-style icehouse.

Yes, we were just passing through West that time around, but the plain truth was the origin story for this book had just occurred. For some reason, being inside a dive always brings to mind all the other dives I’ve visited. They’re just something I’ve kept track of over the years, lined up in my memory like shots of Jägermeister on the bar.

Kirk’s the same way. We told Linda we’d be back some day.

Usually — and unfortunately — when the term “dive bar” comes up in polite conversation, it’s shorthand for a place to be avoided. Kirk and I take the opposing view. Our book is filled with dives that should be patronized, but for clarity’s sake, perhaps it’s best we start by explaining what we believe a dive bar isn’t.

Dives are not black holes of alcoholism, despair, isolationism and questionable motives. Those places are called dumps, and, yes, they exist. Many hotels and airports have them.

A dive is a place that gets judged unfairly from the outside world, its reputation based mostly on Hollywood typecasting of old neighborhood bars as dingy spaces filled with wastrels, miscreants, ruffians and fools. And in most fiction, a dive isn’t just in the backwater of a city; it is the backwater of the city.

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It’s always located just off the edge of proper society, adrift and diluted with regret and consolation — at least some would have you believe — rather than sailing along with the same anticipation and optimism as any other sincere business. Worst of all, a dive is perceived as a place of purposelessness.

Bullshit. That’s just what they want you to think a dive bar is. The truth: these places cater to ordinary people — third-shifters, entrepreneurs, the retired, the hard workers and the good ol’ day drinkers. Sometimes there are loving couples visiting the bar together, and sometimes they chose to come individually.

There are non-conformists and people who are in between jobs. Some have done time. Others are probably going to do some time some day. There are legendary Hemingway-grade drinkers. There are very rich people. There are grumbling bartenders and insightful bartenders. There are joke-tellers and drunks, both amused way too much with themselves. And unlike many businesses, the owners are usually around somewhere.

We see beautiful women and handsome men in dives, same as anywhere else.

There are non-drinkers, same as anywhere else. Some of these people vote, some don’t. Some were actually born nearby; others found their way to the bar probably much the same way Kirk and I found Mynars, with no other agenda than to pass the time comfortably with a drink.

On occasion, during visits to bars around the state, we may very well have met one or two wastrels, miscreants, ruffians and fools. But that’s the same as anywhere else, too.

A dive tends to attract a natural balance of visitors from the crossroads of America; we’re guessing that’s because a neighborhood bar actually is, quite naturally, a crossroads unto itself. The good places, we found anyway, weren’t territorial about who their customers were; they’re just interested in selling booze at a razor-thin profit margin and staying open for another day.

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Some people swear the friends they’ve made at the bar are the best they’ve ever had, and that’s because these are places where people get together and talk, face-to-face, all up front, no tricks. Or at least they were. Dives are where people have met, fallen in love, and gotten married. To underestimate the bonds of friendship among the regulars and staff is to miss entirely the point of a neighborhood bar.

True, we found that bars that open before lunch aren’t necessarily about working hard, playing hard, achieving social status, unlocking your full potential, influencing anyone, or calling attention to yourself. Instead, the flow of life is gentler, maybe even a bit more manageable at these neighborhood staples. They’re no less dynamic, by any means, they’re just misjudged reminders that not everyone lives in the exact same 9-to-5 world.

By the way, if you’re looking for a carpenter, electrician, or a contractor — or if you need work — inquire at your local dive.

Having visited dozens of dives, spending time getting to know the people who work and drink in them, we began to recognize a common philosophy was present on both sides of the bar: the more you interfere with the natural laws of the universe, the worse things can get.

It’s one reason these places exist — to offer order and continuity from the chaotic cold universe outside the front door. But please don’t say to yourself that we just made an argument for turning back the clock to any so-called “good ol’ days.” That’d defeat the purpose of a dive.

The only true constant a dive bar possesses is time, specifically lots of it in the past tense. Dives anchor their neighborhoods, outlasting other businesses around them by decades, usually by defying social trends in favor of offering simple familiarity.

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They’ve built up consistent patronage from longtime devoted customers, who appreciate that things don’t need to change all the time to remain satisfying. Time seems to sweep a little slower across hardwood floors and Formica bar tops, which is probably why the passing years actually remain respectful to dives. There is durability to these places, opening and closing every day for years and years while aging as well as any other piece of true Americana.

How we went about finding these 12 in the first place was really catch-as-catch-can. Some, like Mynars, were return visits from earlier discoveries. We talked to colleagues around the state, we took suggestions from friends and acquaintances of those friends. For the right kind of source — you know, like, a real square — our typical inquiry might go something like, “If your mother was coming to town, where wouldn’t you take her?”

We also Googled, we Yelped, but mostly we just walked into bars wherever we happened to be at the time, sat down, and had a drink with friends we didn’t know existed yet. Alcohol is a proven social lubricant after all.

While we both had ideas of what makes a bar a “dive,” there is no legal definition to meet, and so we never concocted a working sketch of the term, then sought such examples. We took what we got and ended up picking these 12 for the book because we thought they provided a welcoming atmosphere. While each had a singular clientele, rich with tales uniquely pegged to that particular bar, all 12 of them are places where somehow, it wouldn’t surprise you to see anyone, from any walk of life, come through the front door.

Some dives serve food, others don’t. Some have live music at night, others don’t. While lots of dives feature karaoke, all of them, apparently, have pool tables.

We especially liked going during the earlier hours, when the rest of the world was busy doing other things, living different lives, walking right past these places as though they were invisible, or purposeless. Nighttime — at just about any bar — brings louder music and louder crowds, offering fewer chances for a decent conversation. It’s also when people are out on the prowl, following the siren’s song to seductions unbecoming any decent barfly, turning an innocent dive into something a bit less wholesome.

Some people swap dive bar discoveries like celebrity sightings. Some brag about their hometown dive bar like another might boast of a favorite fishing spot. We did this book after traveling thousands of miles and visiting and re-visiting a lot of great bars — not nearly all of them, of course — between June 2018 and December 2019. In the end, these dozen are nothing fancy, and that’s why they’re so appealing.

To be clear, though, neither of us claim these 12 bars represent the breadth and width of the subject. There are bars anchoring all sorts of neighborhoods that our admittedly haphazard sampling didn’t take us to. But we’ve picked up quite a few recommendations for the future, whatever it may hold. "Texas Dives: The Second Round"?

And by no means are we saying these are the “best” in the state. Ranking them against one another makes about as much sense as trying to figure out the best places to live in Texas. You can have your favorite, but they’re all winners.

Michael Barnes writes about the people, places, culture and history of Austin and Texas. He can be reached at mbarnes@statesman.com. Sign up for the free weekly Think, Texas newsletter at statesman.com/newsletters.

'Texas Dives': The chapters

"The Last Cantina: La Perla, Austin"

"Meet Me at the T: Texas T Pub, San Antonio"

"The Battle of Riley's Tavern: Riley's Tavern, Hunter"

"Buddy Guy, Where Are You? The Goat, Dallas"

"Still Sylvia's: A Great Notion, Fort Worth"

"Forever Young: Dudley's Draw, College Station"

"Back in the Day: Mynars Bar, West"

"Just a Country Bar: Saddle Bronc, San Angelo"

"Vices and Witches and Hurricanes, Oh My!: The Wizzard, Galveston"

"October Classic: Alice's Tall Texan, Houston"

"You Can't Go Home Again: Showdown, San Marcos"

"Drinks at the End of the World: Shorty's Place, Port Aransas"

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Dive bars in Texas: New book highlights 12 special places across state