The Dive Bars of America: The Ducktown Tavern (Atlantic City, NJ)

by Dan Moore

@SouthieDanimal

This column features some of the greatest & grossest dive bars in the U.S. of A. My rating system has between 1 and 4 handlebar mustaches, which is the preferred mustache by 9 out of 10 old timers in dive bars.

Ducktown Tavern

2400 Atlantic Ave

Atlantic City, NJ 08401

One of the coolest logos in the dive bar world

In our journey to Jersey, the boys & I ventured outside of the casinos for awhile. Tough to believe, but it’s true. Outside of going to BullShots, we ended up heading past this spot, the Ducktown Tavern. It’s a huge, long bar with two rooms and it’s open 24 FUCKING HOURS A DAY. Yeah, that’s right.

Fun Factor:  The place was HUGE. There were two giant rooms in the joint. They had a ton of TVs and I think dartboards and such in the back…but we were all pinned in a corner, drinking beers and watching TVG to get our horse betting fix going. We made our own fun...and very little money. 

The man brought his own racing form.  He's got a problem.

Beer Choices: TONS. They excelled in this area. Pretty cheap in this joint, too. Stella, Bud Light, Guinness, Shocktop, you name it, they had it. 

A beer lover's dream

In fact, their beers spilled over into the goddamn liquor store right next to their bar. That’s right, if the bar isn’t the place you wanna get soused at all day, no worries, there’s a booze depository CONNECTED TO THE PLACE. Can't any of these places in Atlantic City just be a bar? One of them's connected to a strip club, the other to a liquor store. IS NOTHING SACRED, JERSEY!?!?!?!

And it had my personal favorite bum wine,
Mad Dog Blue Raspberry.  So chillin' over ice.

Cast of Regulars: Didn’t get a feel for the regulars in this place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a bar, it’s got regulars, but we were here on a bachelor party. There were a dozen of us hanging out in a corner. Didn’t really mingle with the locals, so this grade has to be void.

Stench: The main stink coming out this place was the food we ordered. It…wasn’t good. I mean look at this here. Look. These are nachos. NACHOS, people. That’s not an omelet.

I'll have the nachos, sunny side up.

OVERALL: This place seems like it’s a great spot to hang out in, but we just didn’t give it enough time. We were there for a couple hours and never went back. But I can see how awesome it would be. Cheap booze. Good atmosphere. And it’s open 24 hours a day. That’s pure insanity. I liked the place, but I didn’t love it. I will definitely give the Tavern another try on my next go round in Atlantic City (I’m never going back to AC).

But they did have an old-timey heater machine,
and smoking is always fun!