Belly up at the 10 best dive bars in Phoenix

It's been a long week. If you need a drink, our guide to the Top 100 Bars in Phoenix has you covered with tons of options all around the Valley. If you're specifically looking for a no-fuss spot with a dark corner to sip a strong drink, the Valley's dive bars might just do the trick. Wander in and belly up to the bar at these top 10 Phoenix dive bars.

JT's Bar & Grill

4829 E. Indian School Road

The strip malls spread throughout the Arcadia area are some of the most dense in the Valley. They are jam-packed with all sorts of small businesses including JT's Bar & Grill. Inside the Indian School Road haunt, you'll find a mix of regulars chatting with the bartenders and groups of friends gathering to watch the game. Sports memorabilia and flags adorn the walls and ceiling in this shoebox-sized spot. Behind the bar, servers pour pints and craft simple cocktails while a team of cooks puts out baskets upon baskets of wings. JT's serves burgers, some Mexican food and other fried snacks. But the fried and grilled wings are the money maker. Customers can order two sauce flavors per basket, and if you truly can't decide, order The Works, a blend of teriyaki, Buffalo and barbecue that creates the perfect pairing for a cold beer.

Gypsy's Roadhouse

5122 E. McDowell Road

This kinda-biker bar, kinda-sports bar in the shadow of Papago Park has gone by many names over the years: Baja Red’s Cantina, Daisy Duke’s, The Lark. In 2014, Bill Voss, a Harley-Davidson enthusiast with a wife named Gypsy, took over. Gypsy's namesake roadhouse is a reliable pit stop for cold beer, burgers and perhaps a Steelers game. There's a sturdy crowd of day-drinking retirees at Gypsy’s, too. Stop in for a stiff drink and a plate of wings and find out if its toga night or a pirate party — anything's possible at Gypsy's.

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Palo Verde Lounge.

Jacob Tyler Dunn

Palo Verde Lounge

1015 W. Broadway Road, Tempe

A perplexing question is, "What’s the crowd like at Palo Verde Lounge?" All kinds park themselves at this dark, cash-only Tempe bar: construction workers in hi-vis gear at a prolonged happy hour, weekly regulars from the neighborhood, new drinkers from nearby ASU. Like the clientele, the atmosphere can be hard to predict. Some nights you may walk into a quiet bar filled with laid-back folks nursing beers, shooting pool and watching TV while “Neon Moon” plays serenely over the speakers. Other nights you’ll find a packed bike rack outside and a DJ presiding over a full dance floor inside. And then there are those evenings when you’ll have to squeeze past a metal band unloading gear in the parking lot in order to enter. The man who oversees it all, Chuck Marthaler, is a former patron turned bartender turned owner, and he retains a keen sense of what drinkers are looking for in their local bar: cheap drinks, poured strong, by a bartender who’s quick to commit a regular’s order to memory.

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The Bikini Lounge on Grand Avenue in downtown Phoenix.

Benjamin Leatherman

Bikini Lounge

1502 Grand Ave.

In a town as young as Phoenix, a bar that’s been around since 1947 certainly counts as a grande dame of the local drinking scene. Long before Interstate 10 connected us to California, The Bikini Lounge welcomed visitors from the west into town as they exited the U.S. 60. Today, there are divier dive bars and tiki-er tiki bars, but there’s no other establishment in the Valley with The Bikini’s exact flavor of lowbrow kitsch. The bar has no windows, so the place is always as dark as a confessional, conferring intimacy on the most casual of interactions. Thatched coverings, vintage paintings and tiki masks watch over the patrons, who are a mix of grizzled regulars and hipsters dropping in after First Fridays or a show at The Van Buren. Drinks aren’t fancy, but they’re strong and cheap — just how we like them (make sure you bring cash, though). Over the decades, The Bikini has seen plenty of growth around its Grand Avenue location, but we love it best because, despite the passing of the years, it never seems to change.

Swizzle Inn

5835 N. 16th Street

The first rule of Swizzle Inn: no Starbucks parking. The parking lot in this plaza at the southeast corner of 16th Street and Bethany Home Road is tight, and the Swizz can’t be sharing spots with the multitudes of Starbucks fiends the intersection attracts. Opened in 1996, Swizzle's plain outside gives little indication of the fun within. Inside, there's a very specific theme of Christmas at the beach. It is one of finest neighborhood bars in uptown Phoenix, a low-key place with a couple of TVs; a pool table; a jukebox pumping out Queen, The B-52’s and Willie Nelson; and a half-circle bar behind which the bartender pours nothing particularly fancy — but that’s not why you’re here. Just about every square inch of the ceiling is dressed with tinsel and lights sure to bring anyone a little cheer.

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Yucca Tap Room is a Tempe institution.

Jennifer Goldberg

Yucca Tap Room

29 W. Southern Ave., Tempe

Yucca Tap Room is foremost a music venue — and a legendary one at that. It’s been around since the early 1970s and is known for offering a stage to the practitioners of the Tempe Sound, touring punk bands and many other alternative acts. But this windowless, wood-paneled strip mall tenant is also an excellent neighborhood tavern, frequented by regulars who sometimes arrive when the doors swing open at 6 a.m. to slap the bar and down bloody marys. Yucca has expanded in recent years, taking over neighboring suites in order to add the Electric Bat Arcade. The place boasts good food, too, from breakfast burritos to late-night bites. There’s an impressive selection of craft beers and daily drink specials, as well as a busy dance floor most weekends.

Chopper John's

2547 E. Indian School Road

Chopper John’s is primarily known as a biker bar, thanks to owner John McCormack’s taste for steel steeds and the open road. It’s also one of central Phoenix’s best small venues — a rip-roaring dive, neighborhood hang and low-key sports bar. Music fans have known about the place for years, as the former residence was home to a string of blues bars from the ’70s onward, including Louie’s, VJ’s, McGuires, Warsaw Wally’s and Bogie’s. Once McCormack took over in 2008, the multiroom establishment became a rock haven with framed T-shirts from local bands covering the walls, rowdy shows, cheap drinks and cheap thrills. Punks, tattoo artists and other rock ’n’ roll types hang out here even when there isn’t a show, and the turnout is big on Sundays when Chopper John’s whips up loaded Bloody Marys topped with impossible amounts of skewered food items (we’re talking full-sized cheeseburgers and and Sonoran hot dogs loaded with fixings). At only $5 a pop, they’re a steal and tend to go quickly. Rock on.

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Grab a seat at the bar or cozy up in a cracked-leather booth at The Dirty Drummer in Phoenix.

Lauren Cusimano

The Dirty Drummer

2303 N. 44th Street

The wood-paneled walls, the open grill behind the bar, the jukebox packed with Merle, Willie, Waylon and the Hanks: There’s much to love about The Dirty Drummer. Maybe its most lovable quality, though, is its origin story. The first location of this sports bar, honky-tonk and music venue at 44th and Oak streets was opened in 1975 by Frank “Drummer” Armstrong and his partner, “Dirty Dave” Werner. Armstrong died in 2012, and the original Drummer closed in 2018. But the following year, the former owner’s daughter, Dana Armstrong, along with business partners Andrew Smith and Tom Bernard, reopened the spot with a strong nod to the Drummer of yesteryear. Armstrong is the creator of Valley Fever, a DJ night of Arizona country that started in 2005 at Yucca Tap Room. She’s brought much of that outlaw ambiance to The Drummer. Here, patrons are encouraged to play some George Jones, order a Drummer Burger and tip back a house beer — Miller Lite.

Gabby's

635 N. Country Club Dr., Mesa

Gabby’s Sports Bar & Grill has been around since 1983 along the Old 87, making it one of the closest bars to the grave of legendary Phoenix drinker-musician Waylon Jennings. Over the years, Gabby’s has stuck to its roadhouse-style roots. Expect karaoke nights, a lively patio, TVs and two pool tables. There's even a menu of fried bar food. If you’re looking for a full meal, go with the gigantic, excessively juicy burgers made on the open grill; for a snack, we like the mozzarella sticks. Gabby's got a face lift a few years ago, but despite the renovation, that great, old bar vibe remains.

Roosters Country

3731 E. Main St., Mesa

There’s a lot to crow about at Roosters. It’s been a cornerstone of the Valley’s country scene since 1972 with all the amenities you’d expect: a large stage and red-and-black checkered dance floor in the front, pool tables in the back, and rustic-wood ambiance and photos of Johnny Cash and other legendary recording artists throughout, and 12 tap handles built into a repurposed fire truck cab behind the bar. Roosters has hosted local country, rock and country-rock artists for more than five decades. Outdoor gigs are performed on the venue's giant smoking patio, which is equipped with a second stage, two grills and multiple beer tubs. The patrons here are as solid as the brick walls, friendly folk who say hello when you walk through the door, introduce you to their boozing buddies, razz the bartenders or sing along with the lyrics during its many live shows, open mics and karaoke nights.