Up Over

Covington, Kentucky

Field Note

The Mainstrasse Village district of Covington, Kentucky, just across the river from Cincinnati is one of the area’s underrated attractions. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Mainstrasse Village packs a long row of bars, restaurants and shops onto a piece of Covington that feels about as European as Kentucky gets. A number of great dive bars can be found in this area and Up Over one of the best of the bunch.

Larry’s a few blocks away boasts a pool room with a colorful past and nearby Gypsy’s is a shotgun-style, hockey-friendly dive, but Up Over makes a case for the area’s destination dive bar thanks to a New Orleans vibe and great location. Owner Amy Kummler is no stranger to the bar scene, starting her career just two buildings south of Up Over at Strasse Haus in 1984. Up Over is so named as a contrast to Kummler’s now shuttered dive bar Down Under in nearby Roebling Point. Where Down Under existed below street level as a classic basement-style dive bar, Up Over dares to operate on the ground floor.

Kummler is a staple of the Covington community, a fact difficult to argue after she was chosen in 2022 to read the city’s new manifesto and was given a community contribution award that same year. And that devotion to the Covington community may be what keeps Up Over as purely divey as it is despite the area’s sometimes high-end neighbors. Kummler has said she believes that the city needs spaces of all types to cater to people of all types, Up Over occupying the space of no-frills dive bar.

The phrase “It’s Always Mardi Gras At Up Over” has been used a time or two to describe the bar where beads hang from the lamps overhead and blues bands have been known to take the stage. Kummler is one of the organizers of the area’s Mardi Gras parade that operates along the road outside Up Over’s front door, another example of the strong link between Up Over and its surroundings. A green, yellow and purple paint scheme on the Cincinnati dive bar’s exterior again plays up the theme.

As with many Mainstrasse Village bars and restaurants, entering Up Over feels like entering a neighbor’s home. Through the bar’s purple door, a typical dive bar layout unfolds with an L-shaped bar in one corner and tables sprinkled throughout what is a fairly snug space. The lights here are kept low and most of those lights are colored in some way, painting a palette of reds, greens and purples inside Up Over. Everything here feels ornate, a classic set of dive bar decor melded with the flavor and flair of New Orleans.

Amid a handful of typical dive bar wall decorations like a Budweiser sign or two, Up Over is covered in visual oddities that range from pieces of local artwork to a leg lamp suspended from the ceiling. The area behind the bar is particularly dense with beads, masks, liquor bottles and small bits of paper housing doodles from regulars mixing together. The artwork here is not confined to flat pieces of paper as a number of sculptures can be found throughout the bar. Up Over’s dive bar sticker collage can be found along a cabinet just above an old-school cigarette machine.