Inner Town Pub enters the story in 1983 when owner Denis Fogarty opened the dive bar in a heavily residential neighborhood in a period of transition. As the neighborhood evolved nearby, especially to the north, Inner Town Pub benefited from being grandfathered into rules that today would have restricted the zoning of a bar in such a heavily residential part of town. That unique trait serves Inner Town Pub well, creating what is very much a classic corner neighborhood bar community inside, all of it supported by maybe the best dive bar interior in the city.
Outside, the unique look of very skinny brick covers the exterior of the building, a handful of postage stamp-sized windows cutting through the brick in places. The sign is inscribed with “Home to the Arts” as a nod to the dive bar’s history as a haven for artists and musicians, a trait that can be found in other nearby Ukrainian Village staples like Rainbo Club and others. Maybe more intriguing is the graphic on the sign itself, a man in a trench coat with a flipped up collar and a blond woman set against the backdrop of city buildings. Your guess of the meaning of the sign is as good as any, but it stands as one of the most unique in a city filled with uniquely interesting dive bar signage.
Warm light bathes the interior of Inner Town Pub, a handful of stained glass windows, similarly-styled lamps and opaque glass block windows combining to create a very soft, very dim environment. Wood paneling creeps halfway up the walls throughout, giving way to pale brown walls that together only accentuate the soft lighting atmosphere inside. The stained glass window in the front of the building is one of the best, the name of the bar created via mosaic. Not to be missed is the ceiling-level stained glass window in the first bathroom on the right (sometimes the women’s restroom but often open on a gender neutral basis).
Local art mixes with a profound love of Elvis as the decorations stretch around the space. Paintings and framed photos of Elvis complement a bust of the king himself perched above the cash only bar’s ATM. Musical instruments, tools, old beer signs and fading photographs mix to create that perfect balance in dive bar decorations, the look of seemingly mismatched pieces mounted to the wall and forgotten for about 40 years. The pay phone just inside the front door plays into that same feeling, a throwback in a room that is very much a throwback dive bar in its entirety.