This story was originally published in February 2024.

In an age where $15 cocktails have become the norm, beer lists read like novels and words like “elevated” and “gastronomy” appear on menus, a dive bar can really hit the spot.

It’s hard to define what exactly a dive bar is, but it’s probably unglamorous, lived-in and decidedly unpretentious.

The decor isn’t fancy, though it can certainly be fanciful. There’s probably a pool table or a jukebox. It’s likely cash only. The food — if there is any — is simple.

Dive bars in some places in Maine can be a dying breed, as profit margins shrink in the face of rising costs of doing business. But make no mistake: there are many that continue to thrive, offering a place where the beer is cheap, the company is colorful and nobody is worried about how cool they look.

Here are some of the greatest dive bars in Maine, from the farthest points east all the way to the south. Do you think we missed one? Let us know in the comments.

The New Waverly

36 Merchants Plaza, Bangor

This cash only staple in Bangor has been run by four generations of the Puiia family since it first opened on Exchange Street in 1918, and barely lost a step when it moved to its current home in Merchants Plaza in 1974. You’ll find an eclectic mix of old timers nursing a beer at the bar and younger folks playing pool and dominating the jukebox upstairs. Buddy the chocolate lab is not just the Wave’s mascot: he’s also the mayor of downtown Bangor. It says so on the T-shirts.

The Main Tavern

152 Main St., Bangor

Another local institution, the Main Tavern is also a multi-generational family business, with the Brountas family holding down the fort on Main Street since 1939, under a few different names like the Jaguar or Peter’s Candlelighter. It’s famous for a lot of stuff, including as the go-to place for karaoke in downtown Bangor, and for its infamous Bong Water shots — a proprietary blend of various sweet liquors that might get you in trouble if you have more than one.

Caps Tavern

494 South Main St., Brewer

This South Brewer bar was rebuilt and reopened in 2018 after a fire in 2017 burned the original to the ground, and aside from the building itself, not much else changed. Cheap beer. Fun mixed drinks. Lots of motorcycles in the parking lot. Classic rock and country, either on the jukebox or played by a live band.

Peppers Pub

20 Water St., Ellsworth

Peppers Pub keeps it real by focusing on friendly bartenders and simple — and good — food. Its Sunday breakfasts are a popular stop after church or before another long work week. The bar does a lot of fundraisers for people in the community struggling with medical bills or other issues. There’s a reason it’s been beloved by locals for years now.

Ole Hookers

106 Water St., Eastport

Nothing makes you feel like more of a salty sea dog than sidling up to a bar in a town like Eastport — and Ole Hookers East, across the street from the Coast Guard station, certainly fosters those vibes. You kind of feel like you’re in somebody’s house. The decor is funky, the food is home cooked and it gets extra spicy during the Eastport Pirate Festival in September.

Myrtle Street Tavern

12 Myrtle St., Rockland

Does a bar automatically get to be a dive if they have pickled sausages and eggs? Because Myrtle Street Tavern in Rockland does. There’s lots of other reasons why it’s a classic dive, however — not least because it’s been around for a whopping 127 years. You can truly let loose at Myrtle. Generations of people have.

Amigos

9 Dana St., Portland

Amigos is supposed to be a Mexican restaurant, and it is — but it’s at night when the longest-running bar in the Old Port really shines. There’s live music on the patio during the warmer months. It has one of the best happy hours in town. They may have spruced up the menu and there’s craft beer available, sure, but Amigo’s is still a divey classic amid a sea of trendy newcomers in the Old Port.

Ruski’s

212 Danforth St., Portland

The oldest continually operating bar on this list, Ruski’s opened under a different name in 1892 as an Irish-run beer hall — before cars, before phones and before widespread electricity. It’s hard not to love this place. It’s one of the few remaining bars of its kind in Portland, as mom and pop businesses get priced out.

Skip’s Lounge

288 Narragansett Trail, Buxton

This longtime rural joint has been around since the 1970s, as its elegant wood paneling suggests. It’s got six pool tables and a function room large enough to hold professional wrestling in, and a fully carpeted, floor to ceiling stage — but its dive bar credentials came first. It started out as a house trailer and has grown and grown. It’s the only roadhouse for miles around.

CAMDEN ‚— The Camden-Rockport Historical Society invites the public to celebrate Maine Maple Sunday on March 23 from noon to 3 p.m. and get immersed in the tradition of maple syrup production.

Maine Maple Sunday is celebrated annually on the fourth Sunday of March, with various sugarhouses across the state participating  in this sweet tradition.

Learn about the tree tapping and sap boiling process firsthand from Camden and Rockport locals who have passed down the tradition for generations. This year, Keryn Annis, owner of the Goose River Greenery farmstand in Rockport, will be manning the Sugar Shack and sharing some of his favorite tricks of the sap trade.  

Marshmallows will be roasted over the fire pit and ice cream will be served, made perfec with drizzled syrup. The historic homestead, barn and blacksmith shop will all be open, and there will be fiddle music in the museum.

The event is free and open to all, making it an ideal outing for families and individuals eager to experience a quintessential Maine tradition. 

Event Details:

• Date: Sunday, March 23, 2025
• Time: noon to 3 p.m.
• Location: Camden-Rockport Historical Society, 7 Commercial St., Rockport, ME 04856 (next door to Hannaford and across the street from Maritime Farms)

For more information, visit the website, call 207-236-2257 or email camdenrockportme@gmail.com

Updates will also be posted on the society’s Facebook page.

About Camden-Rockport Historical Society:

The Camden-Rockport Historical Society is dedicated to preserving and sharing the rich history of the Camden and Rockport communities. Through educational programs, events, and the maintenance of historical sites, we strive to connect the past with the present, fostering a deeper appreciation for our local heritage.

Some Mainers may have to drive an hour or more to dispose of the propane canister they used when camping or at a cookout, which is why the small containers often end up in household trash or tossed into the woods.

That’s a problem lawmakers aim to solve with a new bill to study the safe disposal of single-use propane canisters, which often still contain enough propane to cause an explosion if punctured. There currently is no central repository or list of places that take the one-pound, nonrefillable propane canisters, making it hit or miss for people who want to dispose of them responsibly. The Maine Legislature’s environment committee will hear testimony on the bill on Monday.

“The problem of litter was one of the main motivators around it,” Rep. Ambureen Rana, D-Bangor, said. “People don’t have an option or any convenient or efficient way of disposing of them, so they just end up being littered.”

Rana introduced the bill, which has six co-sponsors in the Maine Senate and House. The bill requires the Maine Department of Environmental Protection to evaluate the current infrastructure for disposing of single-use propane canisters and make recommendations for improvements to the environment committee by Dec. 3. Possible outcomes might be a trade-in program or outright banning of the single-use canisters.

“The problem is, there is no kind of disposal or recycling system for these,” Alexander Cole, a research engineer at the University of Maine in Orono, said. “And there’s no incentive for them [the manufacturers] to go into the market of refillable propane tanks.”

Cole, who lives in Bangor, proposed the bill to Rana after noticing the canisters tossed into the woods and stacked in people’s garages. He spends a lot of time in the woods camping, but he found the closest facility to dispose of the small canisters is in Lewiston, about a two-hour drive for him. He solved the problem by purchasing a five-pound propane tank that can be refilled.

The one-pound canisters are popular among campers both for cooking and warmth at night. They are widely available from supermarkets to sporting goods stores. Amazon.com advertises two Coleman single-use canisters for $22.59. Refillable canisters are more expensive, with two Flame Kind canisters running $35.68 on Amazon.com.

Camping continues to be popular in Maine state parks, where 288,000 visitors camped last year, according to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands. Total park visitors were up more than 6 percent at 3.12 million compared with 2023.

Currently, there is limited evidence of how many of the one-pound propane canisters are used in Maine. Nancy Driscoll, office manager at N ‘n M Recycling in Hancock, New Hampshire, said her company collects about 428 canisters each week from 15 locations in Maine. The recycling service collects several thousand weekly throughout New England. Other than the canisters her company collects, Driscoll has no idea how people are disposing of them. She supports Rana’s bill.

“They may just put them in a black garbage bag and throw them in the dumpster,” Driscoll said. “That’s no good because, if there’s any propane in it, it’s going to explode.”

Some canisters make it into the waste stream, causing concern for Jon Chalmers, director of administration at the Hatch Hill Solid Waste Disposal Facility in Augusta.

“It’s definitely an ongoing safety concern because it’s a fuel source under pressure,” Chalmers said. “We found them in our single-stream recyclables and mixed in with tin cans and glass.”

The landfill charges $2 to people disposing of the canisters and then recycles them with N ‘n M. Chalmers figured he sees several hundred canisters in the landfill’s waste stream over the course of a year.

He is happy to see that the Legislature may weigh in on hazardous disposal, saying other items such as lithium batteries and marine flares also are big concerns because of an ongoing fire risk.

Chalmers said he can’t definitely identify canisters as the cause of any fires at the Augusta landfill. But canisters have caused fires elsewhere. The explosion of a propane tank at a waste processing plant in Hampden in January 2020 injured a worker and forced the plant to temporarily shut down. The canister came to the former Coastal Resources of Maine plant with a delivery of household trash and exploded as it made its way through the plant’s processing equipment, according to a plant spokesperson at the time. The tank still had fuel in it, and the puncture caused a fireball.

It can be difficult to tell if a canister is empty, Victor Horton, executive director of the Maine Resource Recovery Association in Newport, said. The center helps communities develop sustainable waste management practices.

“It’s a problem because it’s not convenient for a lot of people to get to places that will take the canisters,” said Horton, who plans to testify in favor of the bill. “Someone who lives up in Caribou or Frenchville is not going to be able to drive to Augusta or Lewiston with four or five canisters.”

There are two hazardous waste collection facilities, in Lewiston and Portland, that will take hazardous waste from anywhere in the state. Riverside Recycling in Portland charges $5 per canister disposal and the Environmental Depot in Lewiston charges $8 per canister. Some transfer stations will take them, but others will not, Horton said, saying it is best to call first.

If the bill passes, one option would be to study how to manage the canisters through its Stewardship Program for Packaging, David Madore, deputy commissioner of the state’s environmental department, said. Single-use propane canisters would fit under the program, he said, which aims to push some of the burden of recycling onto product manufacturers starting in 2027. Producers that send the canisters into the state would have to report sales and pay a fee, or set up their own program to collect and manage the canisters.

Other states are looking into how to handle disposal of the single-use canisters. California took the strongest action so far last September when it became the first state to ban canisters that are not reusable or refillable by Jan. 1, 2028. The state consumes some 10 percent of the up to 60 million single-use canisters sold in the United States, according to Sen. John Laird, D-Santa Cruz. When the law was announced he said the propane cylinders have placed a great burden on California’s park systems, beaches, trash facilities and local governments.

“The hope is to look into all of the options to mitigate harm,” said Rana of the proposed bill in Maine. “It is a possibility that the study will come back and say banning is the best option, or maybe recycling might make more sense such as the stewardship program that fits into policies that already exist.”

Lori Valigra reports on the environment for the BDN’s Maine Focus investigative team. Reach her at lvaligra@bangordailynews.com. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation and donations by BDN readers.