Front doors are always dead giveaways for dive bars and Hotz’s resembles the entrance to 1930s butcher counter more so than a bar, a good omen. The corner lot makes for a diagonal entrance into the space with Christmas lights typically strung around the door and windows, a simple sign above the doorway. Above that doorway is a second story, where the current Hotz in charge lived as a child.
Immediately upon entry, the shuffleboard table commands attention, running the length of the bar, not exactly a stunning feat given the short dimensions of the room. And the sentence says “the room” because that’s what Hotz is, a single room with a small hallway and bathrooms. It doesn’t take a dive bar review to know that shuffleboard table is old, wearing every one of its post-1936 years, but retaining a kind of stunning, beautiful quality that makes it a welcome center of attention. The table is functional, popular and worth the line.
The bar itself sits opposite the shuffleboard table, a shallow L-shaped mahogany original flanked by similarly original stools dating back to 1919. History is tightly packed into the small square footage, a storefront opened those 100 plus years ago to serve steelworkers coming off their day’s shift. The walls continue the theme, packed with framed photographs of the family members who have come in and out of the bar’s existence as well action shots of times gone by, black and white drinkers who sat on the same stools.
