Beginning in New Orleans, Dry Ink is taking a summer-long dive bar tour across the U.S.A. Guided by trustworthy locals, we’ve uncovered a handful of the country’s finest dives where drinking is the singular activity and can be done on the cheap…

NEW ORLEANS - There’s a legion of people who descended on this city long ago for whatever reason and simply never left. Some of those people will tell you that the same things they fell in love with about the city they also hate. It’s another world here – some people are so enamored with the easy pace and the natives’ joie de vive they simply stay, while others can only stand the tourists, the humidity and the city’s quirks for a few booze-soaked days at a time.

My friend Mat is one of the former. At the ripe age of 25 he retired from his career as a professional librarian – he holds a master’s degree in Library Science – and moved to New Orleans.

His retirement, however, was short-lived; he has since gone back to work at a public library – part-time, mind you – perhaps as a service to the rebuilding city, but he still spends his days living the laid-back life of a typical Crescent City denizen, meaning much of it takes place in the city’s bars.

When I found him at the Balcony Bar on Magazine St. and told him I wanted to chronicle a handful of the city’s finest dive bars, he along with friends Molly and Marc presented me a short list after a long deliberation. Further, Mat and Molly, who teaches math at a girls’ school in town, would the next day lead the drinking tour of the Big Easy.

Part I: Pal’s Lounge (Mid-City)
On our way to Pal’s Lounge in Mid-City, Mat prefaced our arrival with this: “I saw a person murdered there.”

More morbidly intrigued than terrified, I asked Mat to explain. Sadly, the story is one of true horror. Twenty-eight year old Nia Robertson – an outgoing New Orleans native who moved to Atlanta after Katrina and earned a degree in communications from Clark Atlanta – had recently returned to the city to help rebuild. While sitting at the end of the bar at last summer, a crazed contractor from New Jersey nonchalantly stood up from his barstool, walked over to Robertson and randomly slit her throat.

(Click here for the story in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Mat is quoted about three-fourths of the way.)

With that tragedy aside and with the utmost respect for Robertson, Pal’s Lounge is a great New Orleans neighborhood dive. Its walls, painted two-toned blue and gold, are peeling away – except in the back room, which is adorned with black velvet wallpaper emblazoned with fleur-de-lis’ and holds a perfectly-sized air hockey table. Ancient pinups from Playboy magazines are framed throughout and serve as the bar’s theme.

The men’s room is covered wall-to-wall with old photos of nudes with big afros, voluptuous natural breasts and full bushes, with one exception – an old magazine tear out showing a hand with a hairy palm, which seems to serve as notice that, despite the temptation, servicing yourself in there would be in terribly poor taste. Besides, the door barely shut.

It was the first time Mat had been back since the incident, and even though he helped hold Robertson’s neck together on the barroom floor a few months back, he seemed somewhat composed – enough so to destroy Molly and me several times at air hockey. We didn’t stay long at Pal’s Lounge out of respect for Mat, but we did get in a few games of air hockey and knocked back a few cheap PBRs.

Mat and I also gambled and lost a buck each on the bar’s dice game; an ongoing neighborhood parlor game where you get one roll a day from a yahtzee cup to try for five of a kind and the ever-growing pot.

Our bartender, who was the only other person in the bar at the relatively early hour besides the one token regular playing one of the four video poker games, explained that, if you win the jackpot, you must “take care of you bartender and buy the house a drink.”

Fair enough – the pot that day was up to $907.

Click here to read Part II: the Mayfair, here for Part III: the 801 and here for Part IV, Pete’s Place.