I wonder if it's a timing or location thing. A neighborhood bar on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in a smallish city is going to be really different from a large b

I wonder if it's a timing or location thing. A neighborhood bar on a rainy Wednesday afternoon in a smallish city is going to be really different from a large bar in a big city on Friday/ Saturday night. I'm wondering, given you were visiting the states, if you'd be more likely to be in the latter. I think it's interesting how the meaning of "dive bar" has changed in the couple of decades I've been legally allowed in them. When I was in college, a dive bar was a place that you were taking your chances visiting and half the point was the frisson of "danger" to go along with shitty beer. Now it seems to often mean a good place you call a "dive bar" because you don't want it getting popular. I miss our local in our town. It got popular, moved across the street to a larger building and started to be a full restaurant and then, fairly unsurprisingly, died because they weren't ready to be a different thing. Some of it was probably managing a larger staff, but I think a lot of it is dealing with the "General Public". A good dive bar is/ can be like an extended family and regulars sense the pace of the place and adjust accordingly, whether it's too let the bartender(s) grab a breath when it's busy or to be patient with the new bartender while they learn the ropes or usher a fellow regular out on a day they've lost the plot. To abuse an overused cliche of our times, there are no Karens in dive bars. Not for more than a minute or two anyway, because the entire place will let them know exactly what the world thinks of them in a way McDonalds' patrons will not.