The bar inside Dickey’s feels like the below-deck bar on some kind of floating dive bar yacht. It’s cramped, the walls are close, the bar is low and the air conditioners vintage, all in a very good way. Though the bar includes no windows that face the outside world, a series of windows, and a drinking ledge mind you, provide ample view of the eight bowling lanes that were, on this reviewer’s visit, packed with weekly bowling leagues.
And if you’re thinking that regularly-scheduled bowling leagues means loads of regularly-scheduled bar patrons, you’ll be happy to learn that that combo does hold true, with the bar on our visit packed with shouts of first names, off-color nicknames and warm welcomes. The owner, in fact, saw our group as the non-bowling interlopers that we were, sat with us, chatted about the history of the bar and introduced us to a handful of said regulars. The vibe was crowded but comfortable, familiar but not standoffish.
That history, as mentioned, goes back to 1945 and includes a long history of single family ownership across those years. A painted mural in the bar area includes Dickey’s founding year, but one look at the space might result in a guess pretty damn close to the right answer. The bar area features a U-shaped serving area that probably hasn’t changed much from the day the bar opened. Above the bowling alleys, no weird ‘strike’ animations exist, no screens hang from the ceiling, all scores are kept by hand at Dickey’s, as they should be.
