LAGuide

The Best Dive Bars In LA

The 24 best dive bars in Los Angeles.
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LA can open as many fancy rooftop spots, high-end cocktail bars, and questionably themed dance clubs as it wants. But the best nights out in this town will almost always involve a dive bar. The criteria of a great dive is somewhat undefined, and that’s kind of the point. You should usually expect affordable drinks, zero lines, great people-watching, and the comfort of knowing that no one cares if you don’t hit the high note in “I Will Always Love You.” Whether you’re looking for a quick beer after a long day or to leap off a karaoke stage into the arms of a retired pirate, here are some dive bars where those dreams are still possible.

THE SPOTS

photo credit: Chloe Jayne Bell @chloejaynebell

Bar

Hollywood

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After going dark for a few years, this bar at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland remains unpretentious, kind of grimey, and still serves perfectly satisfactory well drinks. There are no heavy-handed gimmicks or themes, and despite its location, tourists never seem to find their way in, resulting in reasonable prices and bartenders who don’t hate you by default. That’s what makes it one of our absolute favorite bars in Hollywood, and an essential pit stop before or after the Hollywood Bowl. Like our own children or the humongous La Salsa Man on PCH in Malibu, we would do anything for this endearingly unremarkable bar. 

photo credit: Holly Liss

$$$$Perfect For:Big GroupsDrinks & A Light Bite

Walking into HMS Bounty, the classic, nautical-themed dive in Ktown, on a weekday afternoon is a feast for the senses. The place feels like you stepped into steerage on an aging cruise ship: there are musty leather booths, “Careless Whisper” quietly playing over the intercom, and scattered tables filled with old dudes sipping well tequila from a shot glass. In other words, it’s an absolute dreamscape and the kind of place where you could hang out for hours and have no one—besides the bartender, of course—attempt to make eye contact with you. 

Oy Bar is still fairly new (it only opened in summer 2022), but it’s important to note that the space itself has been around for decades—which is apparent when you step through the door of this crusty Studio City drinking hole. Dated wood paneling lines the walls, old chipped-up swivel stools dot the bar area, and 1980s-era dropped ceiling tiles hover above everything. The crowd is a charming mix of Valley residents and people in their 30s who just moved to the area, and everybody is drinking Old Fashioneds and eating some of the best bar food in LA. Get the gooey, pastrami-filled quesadilla and the house burger that comes topped with cilantro, Toma cheese, and hoisin ketchup.

Open since 1959, Chez Jay is an actual LA landmark. They’re also one of the only places we can think of in Santa Monica (that’s not a tourist trap or a scene-y small plates spot) where you can get stiff mixed drinks and a buttered lobster tail in one sitting. There are peanut shells on the floor, the jukebox probably doesn’t play anything that came after 1983, and we’re almost positive that the weird giant fish on the wall is staring at us. The recently renovated back patio is a fantastic place for some weekend day drinking, and is way nicer than it has any business being.

This city has no shortage of iconic tiki bars, but nothing compares to the magic of Tiki Ti. Located inside a glorified lean-to along Sunset in Los Feliz, this dime-sized bar has been around since the early ’60s and is still operated by the original owners. The crowd is mostly comprised of locals who’ve been drinking there for three decades, two cocktails will put you under the table, and if you order the right one (the orange-flavored Blood & Sand), a tiny mechanical toy bull will prance across the bar.

Crawfords proves that a place can still qualify as a dive bar even if it doesn’t have 50 years of sweaty history stomped into its floors. Opened in 2016, this tiny bar in Historic Filipinotown has a lively space filled with billiards and big booths of friends getting increasingly more drunk. Crawfords is beer-and-wine only, which might seem like a detriment, but that keeps the debauchery at relatively respectable levels. If you leave without getting at least one plate of the hot chicken (it’s some of our favorite in LA), you’ve done it all wrong.

In the same year that spiral-bound notebooks were invented and the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was held, Joe Jost’s opened its doors in Long Beach. Since 1924, Joe Jost’s has been an LA drinking landmark, and a place with all the insane weirdness you’d expect from one of the oldest bars west of the Mississippi. Come in any day of the week (daytime is definitely the best time) and you’ll quickly find yourself in a heated billiards match with a local bowling team while you crush baskets of pickled eggs and pretzels. You’ll never want to drink anywhere else again.


There’s no better place to end an Eastside night than The Roost, the pitch-black, cash-only bar on Los Feliz Blvd. in Atwater Village. This place feels like a relic in every way - there are regulars who look like they’ve been here since this neighborhood was part of Griffith Park, a carnival-style popcorn machine, and a functioning jukebox with actual records inside. Will your glass be a little bit smudged when you get it? Sure. But it’s filled to the brim with well whiskey, so who really gives a f*ck?

Tiny's Hi-Dive is a Chicago-themed bar that looks like it predates the Bears' last Super Bowl win (a long time ago.) But that's not the case: this old-timey jukebox spot in Sawtelle opened in 2022 and just feels like it's from the Carter administration. There are classic red booths, year-round Christmas lights, and a separate arcade room where you can simultaneously watch the game and play a competitive shuffleboard match. And apart from ample seating for groups looking to take advantage of Tiny's weekday $6 draft beer special, this dive also serves solid bar food, like Chicago dogs with snappy beef sausages and Italian beef sandwiches with spicy giardiniera.


Squeezed between sushi spots in a Little Tokyo strip mall, The Mermaid is a very cool locals bar with killer cocktails and cheap beer. Walking in feels a bit like you’ve just stepped into The Little Mermaid, except Ariel drinks a lot of whiskey and Sebastian subsists on pickled eggs alone. The crowd is friendly, so this is a great place to go if you’re looking to meet other people who actually live Downtown. Like we said, they’ve got plenty of creative cocktails, but if you want something quick and effective, their $10 shot-and-a-beer Happy Hour combo is definitely your move.


West Hollywood has a bar for almost any kind of night out. That said, it struggles mightily when it comes to low-key dives where you can always find a seat. Enter Snake Pit, the neighborhood bar on Melrose that’s remarkable mostly for being unremarkable. This is the kind of place where you show up halfway through the night for a quick drink, then end up staying for three hours. The drinks are cheap, the bartenders will actually talk to you, and their jukebox is one of our favorites in the neighborhood.


Due to a series of good choices on your part, you’ve probably never been yelled at by someone named Sully in a South Boston bar. That’s why Sonny McLean’s, the aggressively Boston bar in Santa Monica, is one of our favorite spots in the city. The servers call you “Hon,” the pours are heavy, and the people care so much about the Pats that you’ll catch residual fandom during games. We like to come on Sundays for the full football experience, but this is still a great place to hang if there’s no game on. They’ve also got a great tap list, and surprisingly good wings and mozzarella sticks, if you’re hungry.


The Arts District has a lot of great places to spend $18 on a cocktail that involves falernum tinctures. Tony’s Saloon is not one of them. And although you won’t find a single thing inside a medicine dropper at this dive bar - you will find cheap, strong cocktails (we recommend their Old Fashioneds), friendly bartenders, and a great Happy Hour. And be sure to check out the patio out back for the foosball table and dart board.


If you’re looking to get a little rowdy tonight, but also get yelled at by someone who probably was a pirate at some point in their life, Ye Rustic Inn is where you should head. The dark, dingy bar on Hillhurst in Los Feliz has a surly waitstaff and loud music. This is the kind of place you would go to make out with someone who just explained all their arm tattoos to you. Oh, they also have some of our favorite wings in the city. Come Sundays, this place is slammed with people watching their favorite football teams lose.


Nowhere in Hollywood will you find a greater variety of human beings than at this dive. Located directly next to The Pantages on Hollywood Blvd., Frolic Room has been around since the 1930s and is a place where you can find broke musicians drinking next to studio execs and lost theatergoers wondering why they just bought an indie folk album from Dora The Explorer. Anything is possible at Frolic Room, and everyone’s here to enjoy the same cheap drinks and unhinged atmosphere.


Kibitz Room is not where you start the night. They’re where you end it after stumbling into Canter’s Deli at 1:15am and realizing you might have one more drink in you. Attached to the classic Fairfax deli, Kibitz Room offers bartenders who don’t care about you, a strange musical performance unfolding on the tiny stage, and a shockingly good beer list. The short ten-yard walk back to your pastrami sandwich is just the cherry on top.


Hinano Cafe is located near the beach, on that stretch of bars and restaurants on the Venice/Marina del Rey border that’s generally reserved for screaming tourists and underage LMU students. And because of that, you might be quick to write this place off. Don’t do that. Hinano is a quintessential beach dive with an unaffected crowd full of actual locals, a dangerous four-hour Happy Hour, and a burger we’d drive long distances to eat.


Despite some recent development, Playa del Rey is still a tiny beach neighborhood that feels perpetually trapped in the year 1967. Prince O’Whales (or pee-oh-dubs, as the locals call it) is doing their very best to keep it that way. The dingy bar in the heart of PDR is actually a lot bigger than it looks from the outside, with a stage for karaoke, ping-pong tables (that are only used for beer pong), and a big back patio for people who want to scream at football. Needless to say, your entire Saturday will pass fairly quickly at POW’s.


Hollywood is a neighborhood where bars seem to survive only if they have a heavy-handed theme or awkward celebrity promotion on Instagram. The Woods is an outlier. On the ground floor of a fantastically shady strip mall on La Brea, this tiny spot is everything you want in a neighborhood dive bar - zero lines, affordable drinks, and a laid-back crowd that showed up with nothing to prove. Come at the right time (after midnight) and the small open space in the back becomes the dance floor of your dreams.


After a long day of frolicking at the beach, you probably want some cold beer and a burger. Go to Ercoles to get both. The classic Manhattan Beach bar is just a few blocks from the beach and is the kind of place where boardshorts are the uniform and people will judge you if you don’t have sand on your feet. Everybody inside is drinking cheap beer, playing pool, and eating good greasy burgers - so it would be rude not to join in on the madness.


Another LA institution, this burlesque bar on Hollywood Blvd. is perhaps the only strip club in the country where waiting an hour to get in is time well spent. Once inside, you’ll find a mixed crowd full of every walk of life, absurdly talented dancers, and an energy that simply can’t be replicated. Whatever your opinions are about strip clubs, toss them out. Jumbo’s is special and a night everyone in LA needs to experience at least once.


Located on a stretch of inland Santa Monica dominated by framing stores and supermarkets, The Gaslite remains one of the wildest bars on the Westside. The crowd seems to change nightly here, but you can always expect things to be unpretentious and on the brink of complete chaos. If you sign up for karaoke, you’ll probably end up singing Meat Loaf with a stranger before being carried off into the night on someone’s shoulders.


When you get sick of going to the same bar over and over again, go to Plaza. The drag bar on La Brea is one of the most unique nights out in LA. Despite a rather nondescript exterior, the place is actually quite big with a full proscenium stage, a huge dance floor, and plenty of seating for big groups. They’re a cash bar, but the beer is affordable and you get a bag of Doritos every time you order a drink.


This spot is Permanently Closed.

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If you’re a Green Bay Packers fan living in Los Angeles, you know exactly what Tattle Tale is - and you’re probably there right now. If you’re not a Packers fan, you still need to be drinking there. Open every day at 6am, this iconic Culver City bar has karaoke every night (with wireless mics for added performance value) and snacks that, depending on the mood, are completely free for everyone inside. As an added bonus, they’re right next door to Scarlet Lady Saloon, another excellent Culver dive bar.


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