I’ve found another fantastic “dive bar” quality: Iron gates. Upon entrance there are floor-to-ceiling large, heavy, decorative iron gates to lock out any potential beer burglars. I noticed last week at The Pegasus’ Unicorn Room, and once again this week at the legendary Pup Room in Fife.

The Pup Room is adjacent to Fife’s very own kajillion-year-old Poodle Dog Restaurant. Built in 1923, the Pup Room is one of the best-built dive bars I’ve ever seen. It was darned near fancy with high ceilings, a huge fireplace, exposed brick, decorative wood paneling, and exposed wood beams on the ceiling. I bet it was smoker’s jackets wall-to-wall back in 1923. Now, in 2008, it’s just a really fancy dive bar.

Next to us, the homeless guy opened and re-opened the same pull-tabs just to make it look like he was doing something, so he could simply stay in and be warm.

The table across from us had the three middle aged single men meeting for a drink after work. One bald guy talked the entire time about his drunken escapades that all took place in 1998. Another talked about the interesting disparities of Playboy as we know it now versus Playboy back when Marilyn Monroe was on the cover.

The Pup Room had its two token 50-year-old female barflies who had a gaggle of men around them vying for the girls’ raspy smoker’s voices to say something to them.

I knew it was time to leave when a man in a cowboy hat had played the same country song enough times over and over that Damon had begun making up his own lyrics describing the quality of meat found in the Poodle Dog chicken strips. Let’s just say we might’ve figured out why they named the restaurant after a dog, and why there’s a shortage of stray animals in Fife. My advice: Stick with the pancakes.

The Pup Room

Food: mystery meat
Service: excellent
Mullet count: 2
Bar Exam Dive Grade: B+