Arts & Culture

What makes a great dive bar? 5 San Diego favorites

By Anthony Wallace / Producer, The Finest, Julia Dixon Evans / Arts & Culture Reporter and Host, The Finest

Published October 14, 2026 at 7:33 AM PDT

A dog sits at the bar at Cheers Bar in University Heights. According to Voice of San Diego reporter and dive bar enthusiast Jakob McWhinney, a dive bar is a place "where you can be known" and where people build community.

Jakob McWhinney is an education reporter at Voice of San Diego and the co-host of the weekly VOSD Podcast. He's also a passionate explorer of San Diego's local dive bar scene.

"A dive bar at its best is not just a place that you can get a cheap drink," Jakob said. "It's a place where you can be a regular, you can be known, where you can walk in and everybody will know your name, right? That's like the ideal of a place, and those are the places that I think really build community."

Beyond being a place where you feel like a regular, Jakob has two other criteria for what qualifies a dive bar: It should have either sticky floors or carpeting, and "you should be able to tell that people used to smoke cigarettes there."

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Jakob said dive bars are a dying breed. But a few great ones remain. Here are five of his favorites.

Grab a drink at these local dives

Downtown San Diego

Chee Chee Club

929 Broadway, San Diego

"It is one of those places that you just don't necessarily see a lot anymore, a regulars bar. And still holding out as a dive bar downtown is worthy of applause and respect by itself. It's a great spot, I love going there. I once — um, no, I'm not gonna say that story — but I once saw something very interesting on a Halloween night there."

University Heights

Cheers

1839 Adams Ave., San Diego

"It's an old-school gay bar over in University Heights. It has the most garish carpet throughout the bar, and it's a custom carpet that has their logo. It's beautiful. It is a beautiful space. The bartenders are so kind. They have a little smoking patio on the side that is also carpeted, which is just an incredible decision. I salute them every time I go out there. Choices were made, and they were the correct choices.

"It's just such a homey place. I'm very big on unpretentiousness, and it feels that way through and through. It really is delightful."

Hillcrest/Uptown

Cherrybomb

2237 First Ave., San Diego

"It is a loud, kinda chaotic bar often playing metal or something like that, and it's delightful. It is exactly what you want in sort of a little hole-in-the-wall spot.

"Go to Cherry Bomb, order one shot, and that's all you will need. They fill their shot glasses up all the way."

City Heights

High Seas Bar

3339 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego

"One of the spaces that I used to go to every now and then was Cricket's Pub over on El Cajon Blvd. I think it tipped over into almost too divey. It was the kind of place where you went in and you're like, 'Oh, maybe I'll get stabbed tonight.' But the drinks are cheap. You know, that trade-off is worth it.

"It recently got purchased and turned into High Seas, which retains a lot of the seediness but feels a lot more welcoming. And so I just love that, that it was purchased and it was not turned into something that drained all of the neighborhood feel out of it. It is still very much a regulars bar, and I have so much love and respect for the fact that it is."

Hillcrest/Uptown

SRO Lounge

1807 Fifth Ave., San Diego

"It is a very small bar… and it is always bustling. It is, historically, a gay bar, and it retains that sort of vibe, that sort of really exciting, you-never-know-what's-gonna-happen thing. And I love that they have incredibly strong drinks. So beware of that.

"Despite it being a pretty upscale neighborhood, Bankers Hill just holds onto these gems in a way that I admire so much."

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.