I wonder about the etymology of the word dive, at least in its use to define a place. I assume it refers to an establishment, usually a bar, that was once reputable but has gone downhill, taken a dive, in quality. Personally, I’ve always relied on the clientele to be the real defining factor. Sleaziness isn’t required but it helps.
So can you declare yourself a dive? Is it something to aspire to? The owners of Mid Drive Dive apparently think so. It’s a new restaurant on Edgewater Drive in College Park that is a joint project of Jacob Zepf of Freehand Goods and Matt Hinckley of Hinckley’s Fancy Meats at East End Market.
It takes over the space that had been a Graffiti Junktion – the burger chain with its own aspirations of diviness – on the corner of Vassar Street (named for a tony college with few if any dive bars nearby). The space is open and bright – dives are notoriously dark – and any graffito from the previous tenant has been excised. A central bar is the focus of the room with seating there as well as at tables, high and low, about the room and out front. The floor features what was likely the building’s original terrazzo, some of it patched and in the sort of disrepair that would be the envy of any dive.
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