Dark, cheap, seedy: Group explores kitschy, inexpensive pleasures of dive bar

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - They work in sales, IT, construction, some for the state of California. There's a DJ, a couple of doctoral students, even a college professor.

A wide variety of backgrounds, one common goal: to find dive bars.

They call themselves the Dive Bar Connoisseurs and for five years they've gathered twice a month at a new Sacramento-area establishment in search of cheap drinks and an utter lack of pretension.

To them, cover charge is a deal breaker, dress code a no-no. Sex on the Beach drink specials might as well be a U-turn sign. Metrosexual? You have to be kidding.

They just want to tip a few back on the cheap, belly up to the bar with the beer-belly crowd, get some kitsch with the kegs.

A slice of Americana? They want a whole fistful.

"You have to pay to park, it's 10 bucks to get in, you have to dress nice - who wants that?" says DBC member Dawn Mantell, a project manager for a hazardous waste company. "I want a pool table, I want bad drinks, I want a bartender with an attitude. Why else would you go to a bar? No one wants to pay $10 for the same stale atmosphere."

Problem is, dives often aren't the kinds of places most people would feel comfortable wandering into by themselves; you never know if Norm from "Cheers" or Clay Morrow from "Sons of Anarchy" will be sitting at the bar.

Started by a group of social-drinking friends, the Dive Bar Connoisseurs club gives wannabe-adventurous imbibers the confidence to explore shady-but-interesting-looking joints together, without fear of being run out by the scruff of their necks.

Hitting a different dive every other Thursday, they've raised their glasses at more than 50 bars, from country joints with dust on the floor to worried-about-getting-stabbed places. It's always a good time - even a sketchy place in Del Paso Heights was good for a few stories - and new friends are made at every stop.

The club has about 200 members, including one married couple that met through the group, and each outing draws anywhere from 10 to 50 people. There's no fee to join, no paperwork, just an appreciation for the simple beauty of the dive bar.

"Every dive bar is like a snowflake: diverse and unique," says DBC founding member Steve Vinsen, a system integrator for an IT company. "You always get a local subculture and every time is an adventure. It's different. I think people like the idea. It gets them going to places they might not go otherwise. And also, cheap drinks."

The corner bar has always had an appeal in a gritty, leather-jacket-and-jeans kind of way. And the slumping economy has made it an attractively low-cost alternative to trendy spots with $20 covers and $10 Long Island Ice Teas.

It's Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap, guys with name tags sewn into their grease-splattered shirts, jukebox cranking Bob Seger. It's poorly lit, plastic bowl filled with stale peanuts and who-knows-how-many germs on the counter, moose head mounted behind the bar, underwear hanging off the antlers.

The bartender insults your choice of hats - with a wink, of course - and would rather smash a pomegranate on your head than put one in your margarita. The Coke is only there to give the Captain some extra colour and every night is two-for-one compared to prices at the trendy bars.