CC: George Pelecanos

January 13, 2016 5:49 AM

Bug Man Pete and I are out on the front porch at Hank Dietle’s Tavern, the last roadhouse in Montgomery County, watching the traffic crawl by on Rockville Pike. An exterminator by trade, he’s finished battling vermin for the day and is ready for a few cold ones. A pitcher of draft beer is on the table, and a lit Maverick cigarette is in his hand. He’s feeling good, as he usually is at Dietle’s. [He] has been coming here for almost half of his 56 years. But people like him have been coming to Dietle’s for a century. They were here when the Pike was a rural toll road. They were here when cold, cheap beers were illegal. They were here when Metro dug its tunnels underneath and when a gleaming new mall went up across the road. Now that the mall has been shuttered, they’re still here. -- Washingtonian Magazine on the Last Roadside Divebar in Suburbia.
posted by Potomac Avenue (37 comments total)

The major problem with this article is, now Dietle's is gonna be inundated with hipsters.....
posted by easily confused at 6:02 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

I must've driven by that place tons of times, but I've never noticed it. I imagine the patrons are happy about that.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:12 AM on January 13, 2016

I am a hipster but I am not rushing from New England down to that place. Besides, how many divebars are there in the suburbs? Many more in big cities but these too vanishing. If gentrification is annoying for housing, it also happens to bars, eateries.
posted by Postroad at 6:13 AM on January 13, 2016

Are you implying that hipsters read Washingtonian, or that MeFi is populated with hipsters?

I've driven that stretch of the Pike umpteen times, and even lived nearby for a couple years, and honestly I never noticed a dive bar right on the Pike. Given what wretched suburban excess is on display on that road, it tickles me to no end that a place like Dietle's survives and thrives there. Oh, to have been a regular long enough to see both the construction and demolition of White Flint across the way....
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 6:13 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

"Hey... This isn't faux dive! This is a dive!"
posted by entropicamericana at 6:15 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't make it to Dietle's that often, but in an area where almost everything I remember from my childhood and early adulthood has either been erased entirely or is under constant threat of being turned into a gleaming condo for Scrooge McDuck-style fatcats, its seeming invulnerability to the larger economy is a deep relief. ^*

* Also the Bethesda Tastee Diner, Rodman's, the American Legion post on the Hill, and sort-of The Raven. That might be it!
posted by ryanshepard at 6:16 AM on January 13, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've also driven by it many times, but I've been told it's not a place for a brown person to hang out. Don't know if that's true. Aw, Rodman's; where you can else can you get your matzo and your mobility scooter in under 10 minutes?
posted by bluefly at 6:19 AM on January 13, 2016

Honestly, I'm surprised I never heard of this place from my (limited) time at the Montgomery County Public Defender's office. The Tastee Diner on the other hand, was part of a lot of stories that ended with people getting arrested for something stupid.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:19 AM on January 13, 2016

The Raven in DC is my best friend's local of choice. She lives two blocks away from it; I always end up there with her when I visit.
posted by Kitteh at 6:22 AM on January 13, 2016

At Doc & Annie's in Brooklyn Park, you can get a Yeungling on draft for $1.25.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:28 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

> If gentrification is annoying for housing, it also happens to bars, eateries.

This looks like the "real" version of the branded saloon franchise Tom Cruise opens at the end of Cocktail.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:32 AM on January 13, 2016

This place is the stereotypical "real dive" that I've always meant to drink at but never managed to. 75-cent drafts! Free snacks! It's near the train station, though, and a friend's dad, who worked for the railroad for many years, thinks of it as "the kind of place where you get stabbed," so...
posted by uncleozzy at 6:35 AM on January 13, 2016

Also, I don't know how wide they're casting their "suburbia" net, but Town Hall in College Park is surely a roadside dive bar. I've always found it a little grim, though.
posted by ryanshepard at 6:36 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

If you're in Toronto and you want the full "dive bar in the midst of rampant gentrification" experience, allow me to recommend Tasty Chicken House. Although I wouldn't really recommend it, as I've seen people get arrested inside/in front of it multiple times.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:43 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

Though I don't like the place, The Vienna Inn, in Vienna, VA is pretty close to a dive bar.
posted by KaizenSoze at 6:46 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

I just want to know how they prounounce Dietle’s there.
posted by exogenous at 6:50 AM on January 13, 2016

Rhyming with "beetles", I would imagine, and fitting for a bar frequented by the Bug Man.
posted by The Nutmeg of Consolation at 6:52 AM on January 13, 2016

Are you implying that hipsters read Washingtonian, or that MeFi is populated with hipsters?

I have heard that the Washingtonian is making a concerted effort to be more relevant. Which is not saying very much.

I am from DC and used to know someone whose last name was Dietle, who pronounced it to rhyme with beetle. No idea if the Dietle of the bar was any relation.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:01 AM on January 13, 2016

Oh, this is great. I work for a craft beer distributor, and two months ago got local craft beer into Dietle's for the first time--Union Craft, Brewer's Art, RAR, Raven lager, and Oliver's. It's been one of the best parts of my job getting to know the folks and spend time there. What a classic.
posted by oneironaut at 7:02 AM on January 13, 2016 [9 favorites]

oneironaut: Thank You! Union Craft Duckpin is indeed a craft beer, but it is my fervent hope that it grows to be a staple. May we be drinking it on our 90th birthdays!
posted by joecacti at 7:13 AM on January 13, 2016

The major problem with this article is, now Dietle's is gonna be inundated with hipsters.....

If it survived being named best dive bar by the City Paper in 2008, I think it will survive a Washingtonian article.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 7:18 AM on January 13, 2016

A friend of mine told me about Dietle's when we drove by it about 5 or 6 years ago. He mentioned that they had been in there once or twice, and that it was (indeed) a compellingly divey dive bar. Town Hall, mentioned above, hits similar notes - they even have (or had) a pinball league, which seems appropriate. It really is a depressing place though.

My friends belong to a club bar in Baltimore, which is really just a private bar. My understanding of the institutions was that they were a way to skirt segregation laws, as well as get cherry deals on liquor sales. The city doesn't issue any new liquor licenses for clubs of that type, but there are a number of them still in existence. It's got the dive atmosphere down to a tee. Dollar beers, a variety of snacks for .50 to .75 cents. Wood paneling, formica counters, and well worn bar stools. You can get a game of shuffleboard or darts going too, if you want to.

Peppers, in Ocean City, MD, was my all-time favorite dive bar (and maybe just my favorite bar altogether). It's now closed, and is slated for demolition so that they can put a chain hotel in the location. However, while it was around there was a pool table, a bloody mary bar (~6 dollars for a glass of smirnoff and access to all the tomato juice and fixings you could want), and a few decades of names carved into the rafters. You could sit out on the deck, look at the ocean, and drink pitchers of Boh. I'm really going to miss the place on the one or two weekends a year I make it down to OC.

Unlike the above, Peppers has always felt like a place that anyone was welcome. The other bars definite have that insular, xenophobic vibe to them, but Peppers (largely because of Denny-o) was a very welcoming place.
posted by codacorolla at 7:19 AM on January 13, 2016

Well, these days craft beers and staple beers are not mutually exclusive. I got Duckpin in, Brewer's Art Resurrection, RAR Nanticoke Nectar (another comer), Oliver's Blonde (draft), and the aforementioned Raven lager.

We are going to try to organize some events in there--for those lamenting the arrival of hipsters, there are already hipsters there on the weekend, when they have bands. Tony, the manager, would like more hipsters. He is fully aware of the place's throwback appeal. During the week it is all old men drinking cheap beer, and while he is loyal to his loyal clientele, I think he wants to mix things up a bit.

Last time I was in there, there was an old dude with an eyepatch in a wheelchair, pulling himself around with his feet and drinking from a mini pitcher, then pretending to use his pool cue like a javelin.
posted by oneironaut at 7:22 AM on January 13, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm interested in how this qualifies as the Last Great Roadhouse / Roadside Divebar in Suburbia. Does it have to be a stand-out in an otherwise gentrified neighborhood? Or of a certain vintage? I'm sure there are still a number of these sort of bars around the country, including The Merrimaker, the bar used to depict "dive bar" on Wikipedia for years (but this is the only bar in Los Osos, which I wouldn't exactly call "suburban" -- does the Gaslight Lounge in SLO count I wonder?). Sure, they're not lasting, but nothing lasts forever.

From the article:

Pete tells me he saw it all coming, and his gloating turns to cold diagnosis: “The last time I was at White Flint, I looked around and everything that was offered was nonessential. Maybe stuff you wanted, but there wasn’t anything in the whole mall that you really needed.”

He says while standing in front of a 2016 Golden Tee arcade, which boldly states "SEE YOUR GREATEST SHOTS ON YOUTUBE - get a great shot hole out to qualify."

Bars change, and like oneironaut mentioned, bar owners need steady, paying customers. You don't have to sell out to stay in business, but you have to bring in enough money one way or another to pay your bills.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:33 AM on January 13, 2016

I'm in Texas but I know this place in my bones. My wife and I have long been aficionados of dive bars. I spent a quarter of a century in the bar and restaurant business. Most of the places I worked were upscale, trendy or themed. On my own time I avoided those like the plague and sought the comfort of a dive with cold beer, opinionated regulars and a well-stocked jukebox. Our current haunt in the genre is Nolan's Shining Moon Saloon...
posted by jim in austin at 7:35 AM on January 13, 2016

Pretty neat about their liquor license. This post reminds me, we've had a couple of MeFi trivia meetups at the dive bar Trusty's in DC, which happens to be right off ... Potomac Avenue.
posted by exogenous at 7:35 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's a stand-out in many ways. Mostly, visually, it stands out--a run-down but welcoming-looking road house on Rockville Pike. There is nothing that looks like it around. It is very clearly a relic, but also clearly alive. But inside as well, there is just no place around what is otherwise a fairly sanitized area with as much gritty charm, nowhere that starts serving beer at 8AM and looks it. People are who they are in there--and they have been going for decades.

Now, on Rockville Pike, there are plenty of amazing little worlds in strip malls--Joe's Noodle House is the best Szechuan in the region, and there is a Russian market right next to it...you've got the Kielbasa Factory, for all things Polish, and a Japanese market right next to it...as well as bottle shops that have been there for ages and feel like it, like Belby's. Each one its own universe.
posted by oneironaut at 7:42 AM on January 13, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now, on Rockville Pike, there are plenty of amazing little worlds in strip malls--Joe's Noodle House is the best Szechuan in the region, and there is a Russian market right next to it...you've got the Kielbasa Factory, for all things Polish, and a Japanese market right next to it...as well as bottle shops that have been there for ages and feel like it, like Belby's. Each one its own universe.

QFT - they're a pain in the ass to get to as a Washingtonian, but by and large the suburbs are more interesting food-wise than DC is now, despite the tidal wave of hype.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:49 AM on January 13, 2016

Trusty's in DC

The reason I used to live in that hood! The best place in DC to play D&D at 2pm on a Sunday!

Probably too hip now, but man I love that spot.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:56 AM on January 13, 2016

I've got relatives that live nearby in Garrett Park - which was one of the first of the railroad suburbs back before it got engulfed by urban expansion. We had a cousin's birthday party at this place. Good place. I too am kind of amazed that somehow it has remained in place and operating while big box bookstores, a joint Chinese/Sushi place, an Anthropologie, and indeed the entirety of White Flint mall across the street, have come and gone.
posted by Naberius at 8:07 AM on January 13, 2016

Are you implying that hipsters read Washingtonian, or that MeFi is populated with hipsters?

to the unhip, everyone else is a hipster
posted by Postroad at 8:09 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you replace hipster with young people there's almost no change in meaning.
posted by Ham Snadwich at 9:03 AM on January 13, 2016

Sadly I haven't been to Trusty's in about a year, but I doubt it has gotten significantly hipster-fied since you've lived here. Lots of crime in Hill East has "helped."
posted by exogenous at 9:14 AM on January 13, 2016

*looks up at a plane with a plume of white trail smoke flying overhead in the Rockville sky and solemnly intones, “They’re spraying us again.”*
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 9:42 AM on January 13, 2016

The Raven in DC is my best friend's local of choice.

Trust me, no matter how sleepy you are, The Raven's bathroom floors are not a good place to lie down for a nap. Also, Edgar Allen Poe's birthday is six days away, they used to do a reading of "The Raven" to commemorate the occasion. I don't know if that's still a thing but you should mention it to your friend. All the mice come out thinking it's after closing time when the whole place gets quiet, more cute than gross because they are mice not rats.

Also, I don't know how wide they're casting their "suburbia" net, but Town Hall in College Park is surely a roadside dive bar.

S & J's in Riverdale Park is far superior. Not so much a roadside dive bar, but a MARC station dive bar.

Though I don't like the place, The Vienna Inn, in Vienna, VA is pretty close to a dive bar.

Back in the 90's I worked in Tysons and would go there weekly with the dudes from work for beers and chili dogs. We stopped going there when the bartender told us they'd like us better if we stopped bringing our black friend. So fuck that place.
posted by peeedro at 10:48 AM on January 13, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Raven's bathrooms are terrifying to pee in no matter your state of drunkenness, IIRC. She was working there as a bartender a few years ago to make some extra money before her gov't job kicked in a raise.
posted by Kitteh at 10:51 AM on January 13, 2016

Meanwhile, in Washington Grove…

Never mind, I've said too much…but if you don't mind your batter on the salty side—
posted by sonascope at 1:03 PM on January 14, 2016