Southwest Florida Has One Of The Best U.S. Cities for Dive Bars

It’s 1997, and you just turned 25. You see a cutie across the bar. You exchange a couple of bashful yet confident glances with each other until you finally gain enough courage to grab a stool near them and introduce yourself. After countless hours that feel like mere minutes of chatting, you ask the sassy bartender for a napkin and pen. You write your number with a saucy wink face and “Call me!” next to it.

Dating in the ’90s was cute, and in dive bars, we can pretend it’s the ’90s once again. From the delicious food to the giant mugs of beer, dive bars are a special place that explode with character and personality you can’t find anywhere else. That’s why we want to share where the best ones are with you. To capture that old-school romance, read on to check out the best U.S. cities for dive bars!

Methodology

Let’s dive in! To find out the best cities to dive-bar hop, Shane & Co. began with a list of 75 of the largest cities in the U.S. We collected data on nine factors sourced from Yelp and compiled them in several categories, including entertainment, parking, and average star ratings. Our team assigned each factor a weight. From there, we converted the data into a score between 0 and 5; the closer to 5, the better. The calculated scores were multiplied by their factors’ weight and added together for a possible total score of 50. Read on to see what we found!

Factors:

  • Number of Dive Bars
    • Weight: 2.5
  • Average Star Rating of Dive Bars
    • Weight: 2.0
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Live Music
    • Weight: 0.5
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Karaoke
    • Weight: 0.5
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Outdoor Seating
    • Weight: .75
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Street Parking
    • Weight: .75
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Garage Parking
    • Weight: .75
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ Private Lot Parking
    • Weight: .75
  • Number of Dive Bars w/ a Pool Table
    • Weight: 1.5

The Top 20 Best U.S. Cities for Dive Bars

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