A quick bit of investigation into Detroit’s Cass Corridor quickly returns phrases like “Detroit’s Skid Row” in describing the sometimes notorious reputation of the area centered around Cass Avenue just north of Detroit’s urban core. Decades of change have ebbed and flowed here, its rough reputation well-earned through years of rotating storefronts, housing turnover and civil unrest that has unfolded nearby. Today, Detroit’s resurgence is well-documented, but has left great chunks of the city largely untouched, allowing some of the city’s best dive bars to survive and endure as they have for so long.

Sure, there are new touches like breweries taking over rustic, ancient buildings, but some of the longest-standing and most authentic places to grab a drink still call Cass Corridor home. And because that level of authenticity still exists here, businesses that do choose Cass Avenue as home do so with a level of reverence and determination to fit the neighborhood rather than replace it. In many ways, Cass Corridor embodies Detroit in the purest sense, a neighborhood that might not have had all glory days all the time, but has nonetheless endured.

And if that wasn’t lofty enough to convince you to grab a dive bar beer and some chicken & waffles down the street, I may need to put some work into my persuasive writing abilities. This crawl begins with one of the great dive bars in all of Detroit, the perfect jumping off point for all points south along Cass Avenue and its surrounding area.