How to Use dive bar in a Sentence

dive bar

noun
  • Bar Tab Taran Dugal stops by a bookish dive bar.
    — Zoë Hopkins, New Yorker, 29 May 2026
  • They were surprised by the line snaking out the door and the $5 cover to get into the hockey dive bar.
    — Katelyn Umholtz, Kansas City Star, 1 July 2026
  • Ray’s The upscale dive bar plays it loose, with a disco ball, a pool table, beer and craft cocktails.
    — Hanna Wickes, Miami Herald, 1 May 2026
  • The artist performed some of the songs live in May at a gay dive bar in Los Angeles.
    — Kory Grow, Rolling Stone, 24 June 2026
  • Ryan remembers playing dive bars and having to ask bartenders to turn off the beer fridge because the hum was louder than their whole show.
    — Selena Fragassi, SPIN, 24 Apr. 2026
  • No festivals, no Lilith Fairs — not even a random dive bar on a drunken night out in the ’90s.
    — Devon Ivie, Vulture, 28 Apr. 2026
  • For Boise dive bar connoisseurs, the new BoDo tenant’s name could be slightly thorny.
    — Michael Deeds updated May 5, Idaho Statesman, 5 May 2026
  • One of the most popular dive bars in the city, Two Buck Saloon has expanded in recent years.
    — Evan Moore may 1, Charlotte Observer, 1 May 2026
  • Ray’s The upscale dive bar leans into the contradiction — disco ball, pool table, beer and craft cocktails.
    — Hanna Wickes, Charlotte Observer, 1 May 2026
  • Ray’s An upscale dive bar with a disco ball and a pool table, Ray’s serves beer and craft cocktails in a setting that draws a younger, of-the-moment celebrity crowd.
    — Hanna Wickes, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 1 May 2026
  • Allred described the space as more elevated than a typical dive bar pool hall, decorated with antique brass lighting, leather accents, and deep tones of red and purple.
    — Katelyn Umholtz, Kansas City Star, 3 June 2026
  • Paymaster Lounge, Portland, Oregon A good dive bar rarely lends itself to outdoor seating.
    — Scott Hocker, TheWeek, 30 June 2026
  • Recently it's gotten attention for a lively restaurant and bar scene—don't miss Gracie's Apizza and dive bar Slim's.
    — Hannah Wallace, Condé Nast Traveler, 30 Apr. 2026
  • The bar, in space once occupied by Edible Arrangements at mid-block, will offer low-cost beer and drinks — in the tradition of a hip, dive bar — plus a limited menu of food.
    — Kenneth R. Gosselin, Hartford Courant, 28 May 2026
  • Room for Improvement is a cozy dive bar serving up fun takes on classic cocktails and snacks like the Red Snapper, Maine’s illustrious neon-red hot dog.
    — Jacqueline Dole, Travel + Leisure, 13 June 2026
  • Kara isn’t the only superhero with a tragic origin story – but unlike, say, that guy who dresses up as a bat and fights crime after the deaths of his mom and dad, Kara hits up a dive bar and plays with her dog to cope.
    — Brian Truitt, USA Today, 25 June 2026
  • Many of the commercial strips in Omaha, a city of about half a million people, have the air of a nineties college town, with low-slung blocks of row houses punctuated by dive bars and cafés, thrift stores and record shops.
    — Hannah Goldfield, New Yorker, 8 June 2026
  • One person was gravely injured and another arrested after a crash that also damaged an iconic Minneapolis dive bar on Thursday.
    — Anthony Bettin, CBS News, 30 Apr. 2026
  • Bass High School was redeveloped into Bass Lofts, a three-story structure that sits in a bohemian neighborhood known for vintage clothing stores, dive bars and record shops.
    — Stacker, Boston Herald, 18 May 2026
  • Bungalows sit alongside vintage shops, dive bars and farm-to-table restaurants, attracting a crowd that values walkability and personality over uniformity.
    — Lauren Jarvis-Gibson, Charlotte Observer, 11 May 2026
  • The Lost Oldenburg — from 2012, shot at Marvin’s, the city’s legendary dive bar — paid homage to Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend.
    — Scott Roxborough, HollywoodReporter, 12 May 2026
  • The famously preppy Murray’s Toggery Shop also gets a shout-out in the eight-part series, as does another institution on the island — the Chicken Box, a beloved dive bar, and Cru, an oyster bar.
    — Rosemary Feitelberg, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Someone donned the Sasha costume and, at the behest of company leadership, traveled to Pennsylvania for photo-ops on Tuesday at landmarks and dive bars throughout the central part of the state, where the giant bear distributed free beer and merchandise.
    — Frederick Melo, Twin Cities, 22 Apr. 2026
  • Meeting up with my friends and fiancé at a local dive bar in Washington, DC, answering progressively trickier questions about geography, science, history, politics and my favorite, pop culture – what wasn't there to like?
    — David Oliver, USA Today, 29 Apr. 2026
  • With its Jewish delis, atmospheric dive bars, and underground music scene, the Mile End neighborhood minted the defining Montreal cool of the indie aughts—a place where cardiganed Italian grandmas rubbed shoulders with tattooed creatives.
    — Jen Rose Smith, Condé Nast Traveler, 22 June 2026
  • In a social media video, which has amassed nearly 300,000 views, Johnston calls Beaufort's Fillin' Station, located at 57 Sea Island Parkway, one of her favorite dive bars in the world.
    — Kait Hanson, Southern Living, 13 May 2026
  • It’s been less than a decade since the thrift stores, dive bars, and live-music venues on North 6th Street vanished to make room for a Nolita-like mix of indie boutiques and DTC mini-chains like Buck Mason, Everlane, and Warby Parker.
    — Anne Kadet, Curbed, 12 May 2026
  • Saturday afternoon included a famed West Hollywood dive bar before the group on Sunday headed to Naval Base Coronado to mingle with service members on an aircraft carrier deck and see a NASCAR race.
    — Jami Ganz, New York Daily News, 22 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'dive bar.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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