On Dive Bars and Taprooms

Dive bars are beautiful places. Sure, they’re dirty, loud, and cluttered. But in that chaos beauty exists. Authenticity exists. That authenticity is not something that can’t be manufactured, though many bars and especially craft brewery taprooms try (no, that giant Jenga set isn’t making your space any more real). This is where dive bars find a niche as places where real people want a real beer with no frills and on the cheap.

No place is this truer than with one of DC’s best-kept secrets, The Pug. A lighted bar sign above the entrance proclaims, “YOU ARE WELCOME HERE.” The message is put into practice at the Pug as its patrons are people from all walks of life from the diverse, though quickly gentrifying, H Street neighborhood. According to owner Tony Tomelden, referred to as Tony T, the Pug is meant to be the anti-Hill, anti-exclusivity, punk rock watering hole.

The Pug checks all the boxes for a great dive bar. The aforementioned requirements of a dirty and loud atmospher

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