If Toronto excels at one type of bar, it’s the divey local, cheap, well-worn, unassuming but distinctive in character.
I’m not referring to the kind of place where depression is palpable or where you might feel a not entirely irrational pang of concern for your well-being, but rather to the bar equivalent of your favourite stained and shredded T-shirt.
Let’s just get one thing straight: a bar cannot be a dive if it has any sort of corporate or bro-fessional affiliation and an aggressive social media presence. Label your flashy facades Premium Dive Bar all you want, but most of us – those who really appreciate the questionable charms of a dive bar and were born before 1996 – will see through your inauthentic bullshit.
The dives I’m talking about are coated in a reassuring layer of grime and stuffed with accumulated kitsch. These are the kinds of establishments where the bartender brusquely pours you a shot of $3 whisky and a third on the house if you tip well.
You know the sort: the Communist’s Daughter, Sweaty Betty’s, the Done Right Inn, Ronnie’s, the Embassy, Wide Open, Mezzrow’s, the Gem, Thirsty and Miserable. There may be a juke box, a pool table or pinball game and some pickled eggs or plain chips on hand. Maybe even a BYO snacks policy. These are the places you return to again and again because they make you feel at home, with no agenda other than providing a place to drink and keep company.
What these bars have that their contrived counterparts don’t is an elusive but vital ingredient: soul.
Newly opened Swan Dive (1631 Dundas West, @swandiveTO) isn’t trying to be cool, which makes it way radder than the average consciously dingy hipster “dive” or other cash-grabbing pretenders.
It’s only a few weeks old, but it feels like it’s been there for much longer. Already regulars cluster around the bar, which has the aura of a dimly lit space-rockabilly Cheers, to talk shit and down pints.
There’s a pool table (like I said, a telltale sign) and funny money plastered all over and behind the bar. Beers are drinkable (predictably, this includes bottles of Labatt 50) and cocktails surprisingly good (not usually a dive trademark, but I dig it).
Owner Abra Shiner says she wants the bar, her first, to be cozy but elegant, “like a graceful plummet.” Highbrow-lowbrow might be my favourite pair of opposites.
Usually, I’d say that the first rule of the dive bar is that you cannot strive to be a dive bar, but in the case of Swan Dive I’ll have to make an exception.
Hours Daily 4 pm to 2 am
Access No barrier at entrance, washrooms in basement
