Upscale Dive Bars

When you walk into Gilly’s House of Cocktails in San Diego’s North Park neighborhood, you’ll catch folks circling around one of the two billiards tables playing pool for free, likely with a beer in hand. You’ll see an $11 Adios Motherfucker on the menu painted on the wall next to its room-length bar, touting ingredients like overproof rum and navy-strength gin. You’ll likely notice its brightness and cleanliness. Belly up to the bar, and you may spot a black wooden message board trumpeting the blue Powerade they have on a soda gun.

If you’re lucky, you may spot co-owner Erick Castro behind the stick — the same bar-industry titan who helped open acclaimed San Diego spots Polite Provisions and Raised by Wolves. The other co-owner, Jacob Mentel, made his bones at places like Polite and Youngblood, which landed on the list of North America’s 50 Best Bars in 2023. Last November, the two officially took over what used to be Gilly’s Cocktails, an old, seedy neighborhood dive bar that began life as Gil’s back in 1968. They tweaked the name, removed the blackout windows to reduce the dank, and added cocktails to the mix, including elevated versions of disco drinks.

Their efforts produced a space that can be described as an upscale dive bar: an of-the-moment concept that’s meant to be a step above a sticky-floored dive offering beers and stale pretzels but a notch below a high-volume joint slinging highfalutin $20 cocktails. It’s a stylistic trend that’s gained momentum in the post-Covid bar scene, and the investment of big names like Castro into the trend suggest it has legs. As it grows, a concurrent question is also arising: Isn’t an upscale dive bar just… a bar?

Click here to continue reading...