In its February issue, Stuff magazine declares the Old Town Ale House one of the “20 Best Dives in America.” We at the Guy Page were outraged at that insult. Then we got jealous of the Stuff reporters. Then all those emotions made us thirsty, so we headed to the bar.
It’s bright and crisp on this snowy afternoon, but inside the Old Town Ale House, 219 W. North Ave., shadows swallow the light. Dusty Christmas decorations hang from the dark walls. The Happy New Year banner seems like a bad joke.
“You come in here to get drunk,” says bartender Anna Marie Crespo, serving a $3 Budweiser. “You leave your drama at the door.”
Although the door catches the drama, portraits of old-time regulars are captured in a massive mural on the east wall. Most of its models are deceased.
“That’s one problem with a dive bar,” says resident artist Bruce Elliot. “We lose a lot of customers to death.”
Along the south wall are portraits Elliot has painted of living, breathing, drinking regulars–there’s Frank Ale, Carriage Jim and one of Ruben Tyrone making love to Crespo.
The pornographic paintings blend in nicely with the other bric-a-brac. The pinball and Golden Tee machines, however, stick out like gaudy robots that snuck into this boozy time capsule. More appropriate are the skulls and skeletons and mannequins that lounge behind the bar.
The dictionary describes “dive” as a dingy or disreputable bar or nightclub.
Dingy? Yeah. Hell, yeah. But the Old Town Ale House disreputable? Not a chance.
The Watch Your Belongings sign on the wall reads more like a joke than a warning. Thievery wouldn’t work here–everybody knows each other. If Bruce were to steal Ruben’s wallet, Bruce would use the money to buy a round.
The Old Town Ale House might rob you of an afternoon. And it might pirate a few hundred thousand of your brain cells. But with characters this colorful in a setting this dark, sure, it’s a dive, but it’s also a treasure.