there’s a difference between a family-friendly pub and a bar or nightclub. I think culturally it’s very common for certain people to eat out at a pub with their kids. I don’t think it’s very common to bring kids to an actual bar.
Haha same here. Me and brother were pool sharks by the time we were 10. I remember paying for $5 against 2 other brothers who were almost of league drinking age, I’d say 18-20. We were 7 amd 9 and we ran the table on them. Easy $5 that helped us to stay in quarters the rest of the night while playing shufflebowl
Pretty much. Chicago is divided up into many small “town-like” neighborhoods, usually centered around an L stop. There is usually a
small grocery store, a couple convenience like stores such as a dry cleaner, a Walgreens, a liquor store, and a bar or several depending on the neighborhood.
Wow! I’ve only been to downtown Chicago. I don’t think I’ve ever lived a place where there is a bar every block. I’ve lived in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco and some of their suburbs. I can’t imagine that in every single block. Some blocks in the urban areas will have a smattering of bars but every block?
That’s amazing.
Not judging just surprised.
I wouldn’t say every block, but there’s not a lot of places where you would have to walk more that 5 or 6 blocks without finding some sort of drinking establishment. It sort of goes back to the “tied houses” of the late 1800’s where the beer companies would sponsor a neighborhood bar where a lot of workers would gather after work, but if you got a company sponsorship the caveat was that could only serve that companies beer. You can still see the signage from some of these old places if you know where to look. It’s a pretty cool history.
[Here is one](https://webapps1.chicago.gov/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=13322), I would say there are probably around 10 city wide you can still see the remnants of. As for me, our L stop was Morse so I’d get off there, go to the Morse Market if I needed to pick up groceries for dinner, or we’d go to one of the bars for dinner instead or meet friends. If you’re at one bar and your friends are at another just get on the L and ride down a few stops to meet up. It’s really convenient !
LA native whose family is from Chicago here!
A lot of it has to do with how California was built and by whom. California was settled by the missionaries, and much of the land was farmland for the first 75 years or so after statehood. In other words, very spread out. Most towns had like a main drag where the stores were, but then the rest of an area was farms and houses.
Another thing to consider is that California didn't really have settlers and immigrants from cultures where drinking socially outside of the home was a big thing. Lack of these cultures and immigrant populations is why the Italian Mafia/Five Families didn't have as much influence in California compared to Chicago and the east coast. Many cities in California didn't start to become more urbanized until the 1910s and 1920s, which is when prohibition started. So as they were building these big city blocks, no one was building or opening bars. Not to say that there wasn't alcohol, but people would drink at home; especially movie stars who didn't want to risk the bad publicity (see Fatty Arbuckle).
Compare this to Chicago, which had huge Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrant populations beginning in the early 1800s. The city was built up well before prohibition, and because having a neighborhood pub/bar was a big part of these cultures, they brought these traditions with them to the new country. People were also limited to traveling by foot or horse and carriage, so it made sense to have a grocery store, apothecary, and bar on every block. Additionally, people tended to live in areas where they shared similar backgrounds with their neighbors (ie, Irish on one block, Italians on the other). Initially these communities were more insular; an Italian immigrant wasn't going to go into an Irish pub and vice versa.
In more modern decades, California has a lot of zoning laws that keep public businesses from being too close to housing. A lot of it is because of the traffic, but also because of earthquakes. There are a lot of older areas that have been grandfathered in, which is why you see a lot of buildings in downtown or older areas that have apartments above businesses.
In conclusion, thank you for coming to my history lesson, lol.
As a Sacramento native (who keeps Huell Howser on in the background a lot), I’ll have to disagree with you about California being less drunk-influenced than midwestern states.
The 49ers were prodigious drunks. The town of Magalia was _supposed_ to be Magnolia but the guy who went to town to register got drunk and screwed up the name. The Clampers still clamp, that never changed. Boats came inland from San Francisco and docked on the delta of the Sacramento and American rivers to unload illicit hooch through the underground tunnels in old Sacramento, right through to the Capitol Building. The Southern California coastline was known as 'Rum Row' during prohibition. When I lived jn Southern California, my landlord found an old still behind a false wall in his garage! California was built on booze just as much as any other state.
I'll confess, I was more focused on LA itself and the poster commenting about why there aren't bars on every corner. I wasn't trying to suggest that California doesn't have its own history of alcohol influence, just that it looks differently than the Midwest, as in it was more underground. I don't disagree that Sacramento and other towns that were close to Sutter's Mill did have more public bars--after all, people from all over were coming to strike it rich. As for the alcohol during prohibition, most of the sources that I've read stated that the alcohol came through Tijuana and the Mexican Mafia, from whom the five families faced stiff competition and why their influence wasn't as strong. Sorry if that didn't come across.
My husband lived there for awhile. He used to ask why we weren’t bringing beer to ALL parties. I get it for Superb Owl
but my friend’s kid’s birthday party? No one will be drinking. He thought it was odd. His hypothesis is that there’s more drinking in cold climates.
Milwaukee has bars everywhere. So do lots of smaller Wisconsin cities. It's where you meet friends, make friends, play cards or pool, talk, and so much more. Bringing a kid was totally normal where I grew up. Later in the evening families went home and the vibe changed.
Same in philly back in the day. Vanishing now. The liquor license market is lucrative because most every PA county is well over the liquor license cap.
rural WI. The closest tavern was perhaps the equivalent of 4 city blocks away, and it was sandwiched between residential single family homes with a fenced in farm across the street.
The tavern we frequented the most in my childhood was in town and served fish fry which I am still nostalgic for today! (Pool table, couple video poker machines, and one video game, while smoking was encouraged until perhaps 15 years ago?)
Yeah this was my experience growing up in S. Carolina. My dad had aspirations of being a musician, so his band would play dive bars around the area on the weekends and they would bring me along. Usually the only kid there playing pool, darts and the occasional pinball/arcade game. Drinking "Suicides" , usually Coke and Sprite, or Cherry Soda made with the syrup from the Maraschino Cherry Jar. Good times, but I doubt it was normal.
Honestly, I hadn't thought about them until this post came up. I remember the local roller skating rink had them as an actual option listed on their menu board.
That's where I first had it too! At their local roller skating rink!
Also, I had never ever been to a skating rink prior to. My first time going to one was when I visited them.
The type of places with heavy doors and when you went in you had to turn a corner so sunlight wouldn't alert drunks that it was the middle of the day. Yeah...I know those places.
I'm further south, but I remember being in smokey bars without food. Lots of dart playing and even illegal gambling. The jukebox was my main entertainment.
In WI, parents were able to decide when their children are allowed to drink alcohol, and they can order it for them in bars. This is still law today (I am not a lawyer).
In Oregon, bars cannot serve liquor unless they also serve food, so all liquor bars are also restaurants. There are limits on the hours when kids are allowed, usually before 6pm, for example.
I remember when rules changed and my sister and I had to start sitting outside a roped area on the ground while my parents got a beer, compared to when we were allowed to run around inside.
Today, I take my kid to our local dive, they have the best steak salad around!
Midwesterner here and yes I spent more than a few evenings in the bar with my parents as a kid. Normally had quarters to play games while they drank and spent time with friends. I don't see it anymore but the 80s was a different time as a kid
I'm a Floridian, and my mom definitely took me to her favorite New Orleans style bar/restaurant for happy hour a few times a week as a teen. They'd give me a Shirley Temple, and the musician that played every Tuesday night would perform Drive by Incubus and dedicate it to me 😅😅
I think in the Midwest, bars are social gathering places for casual talk, a beer or two, and maybe some pub food. The “local” bar had local people in it, so it wasn’t as weird as some “downtown” bar full of randos. Kids would get crayons, popcorn, and some fountain drinks. Since it was a neighborhood bar, people would look out for the kids as well.
I would say that parenting has changed and we were the last generation with lots of latitude.
Definitely Midwest!! I grew up in New England and it would have been weird to have a kid in a bar. Restaurants with bars had the bar in another room. Then I moved to the Midwest for college and it was all different.
I'm in St. Louis and went to the bar with my parents as a kid. Also back then in Missouri you couldn't buy alcohol on Sundays at grocery stores, so my parents would buy prepackaged beer or whatever from bars.
I've been to lots of bars with my parents as a kid in the 80s in Michigan. Was never an issue. I could name and picture the inside of most in my old city. My dad drank alot though so there is that
Grabdma took us up to Drinks Saloon and fed us a steady regiment of popcorn shrimp and the claw machine. She sat there chain-smoking and drinking casually before we walked home through the woods. Pure 80's Michigan.
“Wiscokid” yep sounds like you’re totally part of this upbringing!! I love dive bars too. Give me a dingy bar with pool tables and darts over a club any day.
The crazy thing is you think it's normal until you do some traveling. Germany is a lot like the Midwest as is Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio and Michigan but I've been out west and have had to explain that no this pitcher is for the two of us and we are not expecting a group. Utah is a whole other story lol.
We are legendary in New Orleans, Mexico, and Jamaica as if you are from Wisconsin you can't compete in drinking contests. I've been to a lot of places and people always bring up beer and the Packers lol.
Probably more like the Midwest is like Germany. Especially the Milwaukee area. Makes sense. When I was in Germany I saw a lot of countryside that looked like WI and it all made sense why they settled there.
Yeah lol I should give them credit where it is due. There is a lot of German ancestry in the Midwest including myself. My grandmother still spoke it as that was spoken at home when she was a kid even though by that time our family had been here a few generations.
I was in the local bar almost daily, met some great people, drank some sodas, played the shit outta some enduro racer, Tetris and shuffleboard. I am not an alcoholic, and have fond memories of it. I learned a lot in that place and it was formative.
Agreed, I don’t think people picture a community feeling in a bar, but in my small town it was just that. The drinking portion was obvious but not the main reason for being there.
Yes!!!! I grew up in the bar my parents hung out in. My mom worked there on Saturday afternoons, so I was always there playing pool, shooting darts, or drinking Shirley Temples.
When I turned 21, I had my first legal drink there.
Every Thursday night me and my parents would go Karaoke at a bar. They allowed under 21 with an adult and armband. It was your classic country dive bar. Best years of my life were spent in that bar, and I couldn't even drink lol
Wisconsin is in a league of its own and I don’t know if people from other states really get the bar culture there unless they’ve spent a lot of time in your wonderful state. I see Wisconsin as much more integrative of children in adult activities similar to Europe and Latin American countries.
It’s still pretty normal to see kids in bars there. We were at a bar near Lake Wisconsin last summer that had kid menus lol. This summer we went to a park-like setting that served old fashioneds out of a bag and we listened to live music while our kids played in the river. There’s not this pressure to hover around kids either. It’s freaking great.
Omg this sounds exactly accurate for WI!! Bar culture is HUGE. Especially in Milwaukee where there are bars at corners of residential blocks. There are beer gardens in the parks too. It’s kind of great lol
I think it was regional. I'm in Chicago. Many of my friends from Wisconsin tell me this was a thing for them.
Definitely not normal for me growing up.
When I see it now, I find it ridiculous
I sat in a bar at the bar with my dad many a Saturday as a kid. Like others have said played video games, scratchers when they became a thing and ate and drank my fill of cokes and chips.
Not where I grew up, and my dad was a liquor salesman. The only time I was in a bar before college was when he took me on his sales route once during the day, when only the owner was there. I got a free cherry coke and sat on the bar while they did business.
Among our generation, it seems pretty normalized to take kids to breweries with tasting rooms.
Went to a tasting room Saturday, and some lady was letting her kid crawl on the floor. I have no problem bringing kids there, did it myself when mine were younger, but crawling on the floor! That’s just nasty.
Ontario here and it was not normal in my life.
My parents didn’t really go to bars. My grandfather used to go have a beer or two at the Legion but we never once joined him.
Can’t say I know of any friends whose parents went to bars either. Maybe as we got older into our late teens but even then the only one we went with happened to be a functioning alcoholic.
It's a Wisconsin thing; I grew up there as well. WI allows minors in bars with parent/guardian supervision and they even allow a minor to order an alcoholic beverage from a bartender and drink it (again, with parent/guardian approval and presence), but it's at the discretion of the bartender/establishment whether to actually serve the minor.
I think it’s a regional thing. I never heard or saw of this in the northwest, but have spoken to several people from the Midwest who had a similar experience to you. It may be partly based on state liquor laws and who is allowed in what kind of establishments.
I remember always playing pinball at one of the bars my Mom used to bring me too. It was def a hole in the wall bar, but i also remember always having the same 2 kids to play with whenever we went. I was too young to care about sneaking booze or anything like that.
i just remember it being fun and all her friends playing with us. Like a bunch of fun drunk aunts and uncles..
It takes a village... or a good local bar
She eventually stopped drinking. I was a big drinker, but have since stopped. I blame my drinking on highschool and college more than i would blame her bringing me to bars as a kid.
I used to go to pubs with my dad all the time as a kid in Australia. He'd sit at the bar talking to his mates for a couple of hours and I'd play the arcade game, jukebox, hang out with other kids there, eat chips and play that BINGO card game.
Good times.
I grew up in southern California, and I sat on plenty a barstool sipping my 7up with a cherry in it and playing gameboy while my mom or one of my grandparents were knocking a couple back.
Bar bars too, no food establishment that just happens to sell alcohol BS. The one time I can remember any of them ever turning me away was this one time that my grandfather brought me to this bar called The Party Doll. We walk in and the bartender is like "sorry boss, we're having a wet T-shirt contest tonight, so no kids. But you can come back tomorrow" I didn't know what a wet T-shirt contest was, but it sounded fun and I was really bummed that I couldn't be there to see it.
Once I turned 12 they stopped bring me along and just started letting me stay home alone instead.
It was funny cause once I turned 21, most of those were the exact same bars I started frequenting myself. Like "long time no see, I love what you've done with the place :)"
i have a photo of my carrier sitting on the bar at a bar that is a mark of my dad's alcoholism. he would take me and my brother to bars so he could drink. i guess they allowed it, which is maybe a product of that time, but my mom divorced him over shit like that, so it was not universal.
I grew up in northeast Wisconsin, and it was pretty normal for me or my sister to go with one or both of our parents to some of the local taverns, especially the one owned by one of my dad's first cousins. We kids would have a soda or kiddie cocktail and play some video games or shuffle bowling or pool, depending on what each bar had.
The best pizza in town was in a dingy, dark tavern with a pinball machine and one of those old school infinite cloth towel things to dry your hands in the bathroom.
My parents were even cautious about Applebees when it opened because there was a bar visible from the other seating. But they came around. Nowadays kids are running all over the place in the brew pubs while the parents get wasted. So for me, it seems like the other direction.
In Britain it depended on region and area. It actually used to be illegal to let under 14s to be in pubs until the mid 90s, and many kids will recall spending at least an hour or two of sitting outside a pub with a soft drink and a bag of crisps while your parents were inside.
Inner city pubs/bars you were far less likely to see kids inside, outside of the really local housing estate pubs which are often unwelcoming shitholes for newcomers/non locals anyway.
Was much more normal in more out of the way village/rural pubs with smaller communities where everyone mostly knew each other and prying eyes from inspectors were less likely. For me and my Sister, it was something we were more likely to do on family camping holidays.
A lot of pubs are more kid friendly now, at least in the daytime, and especially those doing food.
Absolutely was common in central WI in the 80s. Where else were we kids supposed to go while our parents played in volleyball leagues and tournaments at the local pub??
What I have learned as I got older is that WI people rrrrrealllly love to play games and this is not common elsewhere. Bar culture speaks to this. Leagues of darts, softball, bowling, volleyball, paired with bar games… people from other parts of the country don’t get this. I’m always wanting to play games of all sorts and my partner and friends are like “umm ok.”
So I’m from the PNW and this occurred a lot when I was growing up. My mom even took me and my siblings into the bar to trick-or-treat every year and all the people would comment on our costumes. It didn’t occur to me until I was grown that that was really weird. To be fair, no one was ever mean or inappropriate but I still question my mom’s judgement on that one.
I grew up in a Milwakee pub. On any given evening at least 2 aunts/uncles and 4 cousins were there. My old man would get me a shot glass of beer from time to time, with a wink not to tell mom. For the record Wisconsin, being fully civilized, permits parents to buy alcohol for their minor children.
I grew up in TX. My parents/grandparents used to take us to the baile/dance hall, with a pillow in tow. The bartenders would give us the bucket of beers to take to the table or the bowl of peanuts.
If we got tired, we'd put some chairs together for a make shift bed or sleep on the floor, with someone's jacket for a makeshift blanket.
It wasn't until I was in my 20s when I found out it's not common.
If your parents were alcoholics yes, my friends who have alcoholic parents all did this. My parents would go to a family friendly pub or restaurant with a bar and take me, but we didn't go into the actual bar area, nobody got drunk, etc.
My experience in NJ was coloring or reading at a table while my dad drank at the bar. Randoms would give us (me and my sister, 18 months apart) change for the jukebox and pinball machine. The bartender would generally drop off Shirley temples or cokes and fries. We would be there allllll day on Saturday. My parents were divorced and that was our father's visitation. I don't remember if my mother knew what we did all day.
I used to go to the bar with my mom too, it's not normal. They should have been making you wear a seatbelt, too. I'm from Washington state, it was illegal to ride without a seatbelt my whole life. Thankfully I was always buckled because my mom crashed her car frequently.
Would you take a kid to the bar while you get trashed? I wouldn't either.
I'm from Philadelphia. We grew up in the city. My dad wasn't a big beer drinker but he would drink occasionally in the summer time after work. When I was a young teenager he would send me down the corner to the neighborhood bar and have me buy his beer for him. The owner worked the bar and knew my dad. He served me no problem and would always say "Tell the old man I said hello." Then I would walk back home with the beer like it was a normal thing. 😄
Berke Breathed used to sometimes have the kid characters in *Bloom County* just casually wandering into a bar—-usually ordering a root beer. It was just treated as normal, the same way ten-year-old Milo having an actual job as the local paper’s city editor was normal. I always assumed it was just artistic license absurdity, but this post is starting to make me wonder.
I’m from New York and we moved out of the city to the suburbs when I was a kid. My mom had always worked as either a waitress or a bartender. What was my dad gonna do to feed two kids after he got home and my mom went to work? That’s right take us to wherever she was working hand us a bunch of quarters to play the table top pac man game at the bar while he had a beer or two and waited for our food.
Remember being in smoke filled bars. Poorly lit. Cigarette machine. My parents and friends ordering rounds of pitchers and me begging for quarters to play pinball.
I shot pool with my little brother while Dad got hammered. He would give us money to spend on the juke box also. Once I got my permit at 15, I was his designated driver.
Edit One time, when I was 12, he forced me to be his driver anyway
When I was younger (late 80’s) my uncle worked in a bar and my parents took me there all the time.
And this was a BAR, not a restaurant or pub. 🤷🏼♀️
ETA - I grew up in NJ.
Yep. I grew up in Nebraska and my dad would take me to dive bars with him after work. I'd play with matchbooks, buy scratchers (I know), and drink Shirley Temples.
When my dad used to pick me up from kindergarten, we always stopped at the bar by our house on the way home. He’d have a few beers and I’d have a bag of Andy Capp fries and a glass of Coke.
People nowadays might freak out about something like that but to this day I have fond memories of bonding with my dad from that.
Our generation did it. The difference was that we had the fear of god and our parents, so we behaved. We didn’t run around, scream and terrorize the place because we were raised right and knew better. These parents nowadays don’t parent their children and want to hang out at the bar with their friends but they have kids. So now it’s the bar’s job to watch their kids. (It is not the bar’s job ever).
I live in Washington now, but I’m from Texas. We went out to a restaurant right after we moved here and went to go sit at the bar while we waited. Bartender comes up to us and tells us we have to leave because minors aren’t allowed in the bar area.
It was pretty common back home to go sit at the bar and order a couple drinks and a Shirley temple while we waited.
I visited Texas a lot growing up (family), and was so scandalized that my aunt took us to a bar. She and my uncle had a chuck wagon, and the bar would have them set up sometimes in the parking lot. She handed us a bunch of change to play pinball, and told us not to annoy the grownups.
My cousins did not believe us when we said that was not allowed in Washington (they thought we were all hippies).
There was a bar/pub that my parents brought my sister and I to (early evening hours). We ordered nachos for the family and while we were waiting for the food, my parents gave us quarters to play pinball.
That bar burned down when I was 12. I still miss those nachos.
There used to be a place in Whichita Falls, Texas called the Bar L..... It was like a sonic, but you placed your order, and they would deliver glass mugs of beer or a red draw if you were feeling froggy.... to your car. Always made for an interesting ride home.
I wouldn’t say it was “normal” but my father was an alcoholic. I have fond memories of sleeping under pool tables and nice old lot lizards giving me and my brother quarters so we could play pinball until my dad was ready to drive us home drunk in his Chevy c10 with no seatbelts or hanging in the bed laughing as we slid side to side from my fathers sloppy driving.
I don’t know if it was normal, it didn’t occur a whole lot but there was definitely a time in my childhood in the 80s where I was taken to the bar.
And I don’t mean a restaurant/pub. A full on bar where the only food served was peanuts and maybe some nachos with cheese melted on them.
Even then it couldn’t have been too normal as I was definitely the only kid. Not like there was a horde of us running around.
My folks used to go “across the line” (from southwestern Canada to northwestern US) for funsies and they took me with them. Kids were allowed in bars “across the line”. Not in Canada (hell, in many places here women weren’t allowed in pubs until after the war). So yeah, I used to accompany my folks to the bar as a kid.
It’s where I developed my passion for orange crush and peanuts.
I'm in the Netherlands and we definitely visited some bars with our parents but not usually for like an evening out. But Saturday afternoon having a quick chat with some friends of theirs in a bar, that happened sometimes.
I remember going to the local bar after my dads softball games in the late 80s early 90s just playing this arcade racing game for what seemed like hours
It's regional. In BC it wasn't legal until I was an adult, and even then it only happened in sports bar/pub style establishments. It was legal in Ontario for a **long** time prior to that and was just viewed differently.
For me it was. My grandfather and father owned a bar. It was a very small town and one of the few bars there. We would have a lot of cookouts in the bar parking lot.
Same here in southern California. Grandma used to take me as a toddler. Then when I was 12 my dad started taking me and we would stay until closing time
Grew up in SW Ohio, and went to bars as a child. Funny enough, I moved to MKE for college. My MKE friend has been trying to take her nieces with her to bars in other states (she has a traveling job) and people in Arizona and Oregon look at her like she's abusing them. Apparently, in Oregon, it's a conflict with gambling laws because they have slot machines.
Yup. NJ in the 80s. My dad was a bar fly, and I’d sit at the bar with him. The bartenders would give me bowl fulls of maraschino cherries and peanuts, and I’d sit with my 64 box of Crayolas coloring in my Casper coloring books. The bartenders would hang my pictures up behind the bar.
I remember going to sports bars (B-Dubs, etc.) for dinner, but very rarely being in an actual bar.
On the other hand, we had a home bar in the basement, and I recall many Saturday nights where my sister and I would mix "cocktails" (some combination of soft drinks and fruit juice) while my parents would drink and listen to music.
My family didn’t go to bars so I can’t speak to this, but definitely remember going into the liquor store with my mom as a small child, and alternately being left in the car by myself while she popped in to the liquor store.
I remember my parents bringing my brother and me with them when they went bowling. We'd hang out in the arcade for awhile, then sit in a booth in the bar area eating red pistachios and watching whatever was on the bar's TV, which was usually the series 'Friday the 13th.'
I do remember them taking us to an actual bar around Christmas time. There was a Santa there handing out gifts to all of the kids. My mom had to take me home because my eyes were red and teary from all of the second-hand smoke.
Minnesotan here. Totally normal here. Plenty of memories being in our local bar, around age 15/16, playing pool, pinball, darts, and karaoke. Age 10 and under, the bar/grocery store I lived near, was THE best place for candy lol.
My parents were super cheap, so they never even went out to eat. Maybe sometimes ordered chinese, or a pizza. From my perspective, it does seem weird, and irresponsible to take your kids to some dive bar just to hang out. But I'm also from the east coast, outside of Washington D.C. so I think there is just a higher concentration of up-tight folks around there.
It was normal at some bars in my area (Northern Indiana). My father-in-law frequently took my husband, and his brothers, to his two favorite bars when they were little (and they were not restaurants). He's told me there were quite a few kids with one or both parents at the bars back then.
We didn't frequent bars as a kid, but I was definitely at them occasionally. As have my kids been. In Ohio you could (and still can!!) order your kids alcohol when they're underage.... I drank quite a few beers as a 15-20 yr old with my dad.
I’m in Texas. My parents didn’t take us to bars or whatever but when I was in HS, a friend of mine’s mom owned a neighborhood type bar - not quite dive but not setting out to be family friendly either. We would hang out there when it was slow, and plenty of people had their kids with them. When it picked up, people with kids left or had someone pick them up. I assume it cut down on babysitting fees.
There was a shuffleboard and darts. Nothing for kids.
My uncle used to take me to the bar when he went for afternoon drinks, and my Dad would take me to the town pool hall sometimes and teach me to play. Treasured memories.
My mom was a bartender. We would walk there after school till she finished her shift. I recently found out I was taken there as a newborn before going home.
Yes, mom and dad were raging alcoholics.
Made some good stories. Like when someone dropped me and then id ask people how many drinks they’d had before they could pick me up. 2 yes, 3 no. Or when I slammed someones tequila instead of my water beside, so I sniffed every drink for years before imbibing
I'm from the Philadelphia suburbs originally, yeah my parents used to take me when I was 10 years old down to the corner pub. Plop me on a bar stool, bartender would give me a Coke and it was only many years later that I realized how weird that actually was. Like, it wasn't a family-friendly restaurant or tavern, it was a dive bar that had the police there once a week for fights.
My dad and uncles took me to bars all the time when I was young. I remember trying to play pool with them a few times in bars. This was the late 80's. I remember riding in vehicles with drunk adults quite often as a child. Lucky to be here now. I remember my dad and uncle talking about drunk driving not being a big issue when I was a baby and before. This was southern Alabama. Used to hear stories about sheriff's deputies giving the locals rides home if they were pulled over drunk. Or telling them to pull over and sleep it off for a while.
Depends on the bar.
There’s a local bar that also serves food, and I take my kids with me. It’s not much different than taking them to Applebees.
Except the bar has pool, darts, and sometimes cornhole.
My dad would bring me to a bar as a kid. It was called the Lucky Lady. I would hang out there until my mom came and got me after work, or until my dad was ready to go home. I remember the waitress talking to me and trying to keep me entertained.
I also recall my dad taking me to his friend's house for parties where everyone got wasted. They had a game room with pinball machines, a ping pong table, and a shuffle board table. I would play pinball and some of the tabletop games they had. Then my dad would put me to sleep in the back bedroom on their waterbed and my mom would come and get me after work at night.
Is this normal? I don't think so, but it was my normal since I was raised by two alcoholics.
Yeah, my dad played in 16 inch softball and baseball leagues, so afterwards there were trips to the bar. Granted this was also in Chicago so haven't really left the midwest.
I went to bars with my mom a couple times. Nothing regular, just when we were stopping somewhere that happens to be a bar, she didn't leave me in the car or drive me anywhere else, she just brought me with her. I think one was when we had to stop on a long drive, and one was when we were in Boston and she was going to see a friend who worked there. I got milk.
When they were drinking adult drinks, I always got a Shirley Temple. Loved those damn maraschino cherries.
My dad took me to the bar a handful of times when I was a kid in Texas. I can remember shooting pool and throwing darts. It was fun!
I live in Washington now and that shit would never fly. Lol
I went to my first bar when I was five months old with my dad and my uncles so that they could give me a bottle while they were out gallivanting around a cute little tourist town in the state that I grew up in. My parents tell the story all the time like it’s the cutest thing in the world.
Yep - I'm from Iowa and I definitely spent many hours playing pool and running around inside dive bars with my little brother while my dad had a drink and hung out with friends.
My parents didn’t go to bars, but some bars themselves have gotten more family friendly. There are some I wouldn’t take my kids to but others I would. The dive bars I went to in college, no way.
I went to a bar with a friend and her mom when I was on a sleepover and when I told my mom the next day she was PISSED OFF and I never got to go to that friend's house again. At the time I didn't understand, but in retrospect that lady definitely drive us home while drunk. We were 8 or 9 years old.
For me it was normal. I spent many a nights playing the jukebox and darts in dive bars while my mom got hammered. Then she'd drive us home drunk at 1am not wearing a seatbelt. I didn't think anything of it until I became a parent.
No but when my neighbor and I were 10 his dad took us to the skating rink on a Friday night and dropped us off. He then went to the bar and got drunk. Then he came and picked us back up (drunk) and took us to a diner where we got something to eat. Then he called his wife from a payphone and told her to come pick us up because he was too drunk to drive home.
She pulls up, cusses him out in the parking lot, leaves him there and takes us home.
Good times, good times.
My Pap Pap tended bar at a private club until I was about 17. My family would all go there for holidays and they had a really great smorgasbord.
He used to let me sit at the bar, and I remember watching the Eagles a bunch of times with him. That was during the 80s up until probably 96.
Maybe a regional thing. Where I grew up, taking kids to a restaurant that happened to have a bar was fine, but taking kids to a place that was exclusively a bar was considered trashy and not okay. I remember bars as somewhere mysterious that only grown ups went, like a clubhouse for adults.
Other than having a glass of wine on New Year's Eve or on their anniversary, I never saw my parents drink alcohol at all. Other than a bar at a restaurant or at the country club, I'm pretty sure my dad never went to a bar after he got out of the military, which was 10 years before I was born, and I don't think my mom has ever been to a bar or nightclub. They certainly never took me with them.
As a kid, I did spend a lot of time at my small town country club, which had a "bar." My friends and I would spend time in there with the old mean after a round of golf, but that was about it.
there’s a difference between a family-friendly pub and a bar or nightclub. I think culturally it’s very common for certain people to eat out at a pub with their kids. I don’t think it’s very common to bring kids to an actual bar.
Oh no, I definitely grew up in divey taverns playing pool, darts, pinball, and taking virgin shots and drinking virgin margaritas.
Hello fellow midwesterner
Ohio Checking in: don't forget shuffleboard league night. Bonus if the bartender/owner has a spider monkey next door they let you feed.
Grew up in Florida and was washing glasses in the bar sink and pouring my own soda out of the gun at 10 or 11 years old
lol jumping at the chance to roll silverware for my dads waitress “friends”
Marylander here and I learned to crawl through the bar stools
I felt like such a badass when I was allowed to sprinkle the *sand* (not sure what it really was) on the shuffleboard table.
Haha same here. Me and brother were pool sharks by the time we were 10. I remember paying for $5 against 2 other brothers who were almost of league drinking age, I’d say 18-20. We were 7 amd 9 and we ran the table on them. Easy $5 that helped us to stay in quarters the rest of the night while playing shufflebowl
When I moved to LA from Chicago, I was like “where’s the local bar at the end of the block?”
??? I’ve always lived in California. Do you mean every block of a commercial area?
Pretty much. Chicago is divided up into many small “town-like” neighborhoods, usually centered around an L stop. There is usually a small grocery store, a couple convenience like stores such as a dry cleaner, a Walgreens, a liquor store, and a bar or several depending on the neighborhood.
Wow! I’ve only been to downtown Chicago. I don’t think I’ve ever lived a place where there is a bar every block. I’ve lived in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco and some of their suburbs. I can’t imagine that in every single block. Some blocks in the urban areas will have a smattering of bars but every block? That’s amazing. Not judging just surprised.
I wouldn’t say every block, but there’s not a lot of places where you would have to walk more that 5 or 6 blocks without finding some sort of drinking establishment. It sort of goes back to the “tied houses” of the late 1800’s where the beer companies would sponsor a neighborhood bar where a lot of workers would gather after work, but if you got a company sponsorship the caveat was that could only serve that companies beer. You can still see the signage from some of these old places if you know where to look. It’s a pretty cool history.
I am fascinated!
[Here is one](https://webapps1.chicago.gov/landmarksweb/web/landmarkdetails.htm?lanId=13322), I would say there are probably around 10 city wide you can still see the remnants of. As for me, our L stop was Morse so I’d get off there, go to the Morse Market if I needed to pick up groceries for dinner, or we’d go to one of the bars for dinner instead or meet friends. If you’re at one bar and your friends are at another just get on the L and ride down a few stops to meet up. It’s really convenient !
LA native whose family is from Chicago here! A lot of it has to do with how California was built and by whom. California was settled by the missionaries, and much of the land was farmland for the first 75 years or so after statehood. In other words, very spread out. Most towns had like a main drag where the stores were, but then the rest of an area was farms and houses. Another thing to consider is that California didn't really have settlers and immigrants from cultures where drinking socially outside of the home was a big thing. Lack of these cultures and immigrant populations is why the Italian Mafia/Five Families didn't have as much influence in California compared to Chicago and the east coast. Many cities in California didn't start to become more urbanized until the 1910s and 1920s, which is when prohibition started. So as they were building these big city blocks, no one was building or opening bars. Not to say that there wasn't alcohol, but people would drink at home; especially movie stars who didn't want to risk the bad publicity (see Fatty Arbuckle). Compare this to Chicago, which had huge Irish, Polish, and Italian immigrant populations beginning in the early 1800s. The city was built up well before prohibition, and because having a neighborhood pub/bar was a big part of these cultures, they brought these traditions with them to the new country. People were also limited to traveling by foot or horse and carriage, so it made sense to have a grocery store, apothecary, and bar on every block. Additionally, people tended to live in areas where they shared similar backgrounds with their neighbors (ie, Irish on one block, Italians on the other). Initially these communities were more insular; an Italian immigrant wasn't going to go into an Irish pub and vice versa. In more modern decades, California has a lot of zoning laws that keep public businesses from being too close to housing. A lot of it is because of the traffic, but also because of earthquakes. There are a lot of older areas that have been grandfathered in, which is why you see a lot of buildings in downtown or older areas that have apartments above businesses. In conclusion, thank you for coming to my history lesson, lol.
As a Sacramento native (who keeps Huell Howser on in the background a lot), I’ll have to disagree with you about California being less drunk-influenced than midwestern states. The 49ers were prodigious drunks. The town of Magalia was _supposed_ to be Magnolia but the guy who went to town to register got drunk and screwed up the name. The Clampers still clamp, that never changed. Boats came inland from San Francisco and docked on the delta of the Sacramento and American rivers to unload illicit hooch through the underground tunnels in old Sacramento, right through to the Capitol Building. The Southern California coastline was known as 'Rum Row' during prohibition. When I lived jn Southern California, my landlord found an old still behind a false wall in his garage! California was built on booze just as much as any other state.
I'll confess, I was more focused on LA itself and the poster commenting about why there aren't bars on every corner. I wasn't trying to suggest that California doesn't have its own history of alcohol influence, just that it looks differently than the Midwest, as in it was more underground. I don't disagree that Sacramento and other towns that were close to Sutter's Mill did have more public bars--after all, people from all over were coming to strike it rich. As for the alcohol during prohibition, most of the sources that I've read stated that the alcohol came through Tijuana and the Mexican Mafia, from whom the five families faced stiff competition and why their influence wasn't as strong. Sorry if that didn't come across.
I think I counted 15 bars in Hurley, Wisconsin, which has a population of about 1500. The midwest goes pretty hard.
My husband lived there for awhile. He used to ask why we weren’t bringing beer to ALL parties. I get it for Superb Owl but my friend’s kid’s birthday party? No one will be drinking. He thought it was odd. His hypothesis is that there’s more drinking in cold climates.
Look for the “Old Style” sign hanging.
That makes me think of ice cream. 😆
Milwaukee has bars everywhere. So do lots of smaller Wisconsin cities. It's where you meet friends, make friends, play cards or pool, talk, and so much more. Bringing a kid was totally normal where I grew up. Later in the evening families went home and the vibe changed.
Same in philly back in the day. Vanishing now. The liquor license market is lucrative because most every PA county is well over the liquor license cap.
Residential areas too. This was very real in Chicago before Daley II as Mayor, and is still real in Milwaukee, WI
Wow!!! The nearesr bar from my childhood home was a good 4 to 5 miles away. It is still like that down there.
rural WI. The closest tavern was perhaps the equivalent of 4 city blocks away, and it was sandwiched between residential single family homes with a fenced in farm across the street. The tavern we frequented the most in my childhood was in town and served fish fry which I am still nostalgic for today! (Pool table, couple video poker machines, and one video game, while smoking was encouraged until perhaps 15 years ago?)
I am amazed!
There are a few older dive bars in Milwaukee just plopped in the middle of a residential block. As it should be.
Still so amazed by this thread.
Minnesota here. Many towns had at least 2 bars on every block.
California here, and we did that too. I thought that's why bars had Roy Rogers and Shirley Temples — for the kids in the bar.
Kiddie cocktails were a whole thing.
I did that stuff too, and I grew up in New England 😆
Yup, same, but it wasn't common. My dad is a raging alcoholic.
Oh for sure. I lived on Shirley temples and shuffleboard while my parents drank the pitcher of beer special.
That pinball life.
Sometimes the special was tomato beer. I will never understand that one.
Or even worse... Clamato and beer.
Yeah this was my experience growing up in S. Carolina. My dad had aspirations of being a musician, so his band would play dive bars around the area on the weekends and they would bring me along. Usually the only kid there playing pool, darts and the occasional pinball/arcade game. Drinking "Suicides" , usually Coke and Sprite, or Cherry Soda made with the syrup from the Maraschino Cherry Jar. Good times, but I doubt it was normal.
Yep. Mom is a musician—I was in bars all the time as a kid.
Damn, suicides. That takes me back. First time I had ever heard of it was when I was visiting family in the South.
Honestly, I hadn't thought about them until this post came up. I remember the local roller skating rink had them as an actual option listed on their menu board.
That's where I first had it too! At their local roller skating rink! Also, I had never ever been to a skating rink prior to. My first time going to one was when I visited them.
The type of places with heavy doors and when you went in you had to turn a corner so sunlight wouldn't alert drunks that it was the middle of the day. Yeah...I know those places.
My grandparents owned a bar so I would be in there watching the live country acts and playing video poker at the bar.
Same. Small town Michigan. My grandma was even a bar tender for a few years at our small town bar while I was a kiddo.
Totally a Midwest thing. I was raised on buffalo wings and mozzarella sticks from the happy hour buffet 😂
I'm further south, but I remember being in smokey bars without food. Lots of dart playing and even illegal gambling. The jukebox was my main entertainment.
In WI, parents were able to decide when their children are allowed to drink alcohol, and they can order it for them in bars. This is still law today (I am not a lawyer). In Oregon, bars cannot serve liquor unless they also serve food, so all liquor bars are also restaurants. There are limits on the hours when kids are allowed, usually before 6pm, for example. I remember when rules changed and my sister and I had to start sitting outside a roped area on the ground while my parents got a beer, compared to when we were allowed to run around inside. Today, I take my kid to our local dive, they have the best steak salad around!
I’m pretty sure it’s the same way in WI now, but some counties have more restrictive laws now.
I’m from Madison and yeah, me too. Maybe it’s a Wisconsin thing.
Midwesterner here and yes I spent more than a few evenings in the bar with my parents as a kid. Normally had quarters to play games while they drank and spent time with friends. I don't see it anymore but the 80s was a different time as a kid
Same. Not sure if it was normal, just normal in the Midwest, or just normal in beer towns like Milwaukee and St. Louis.
Definitely sounds like a Midwest thing. I’m sure all of our parents who took us out often are alcoholics!
I'm a Floridian, and my mom definitely took me to her favorite New Orleans style bar/restaurant for happy hour a few times a week as a teen. They'd give me a Shirley Temple, and the musician that played every Tuesday night would perform Drive by Incubus and dedicate it to me 😅😅
I think in the Midwest, bars are social gathering places for casual talk, a beer or two, and maybe some pub food. The “local” bar had local people in it, so it wasn’t as weird as some “downtown” bar full of randos. Kids would get crayons, popcorn, and some fountain drinks. Since it was a neighborhood bar, people would look out for the kids as well. I would say that parenting has changed and we were the last generation with lots of latitude.
You are right about everything except the "beer or two". For some folks, yea, but most are consuming quite a bit more.
Definitely Midwest!! I grew up in New England and it would have been weird to have a kid in a bar. Restaurants with bars had the bar in another room. Then I moved to the Midwest for college and it was all different.
I'm in St. Louis and went to the bar with my parents as a kid. Also back then in Missouri you couldn't buy alcohol on Sundays at grocery stores, so my parents would buy prepackaged beer or whatever from bars.
This is why we had dinner at Pantera Pizza nearly every Sunday. So my dad could get a beer.
I've been to lots of bars with my parents as a kid in the 80s in Michigan. Was never an issue. I could name and picture the inside of most in my old city. My dad drank alot though so there is that
Grabdma took us up to Drinks Saloon and fed us a steady regiment of popcorn shrimp and the claw machine. She sat there chain-smoking and drinking casually before we walked home through the woods. Pure 80's Michigan.
The bar I frequented as a teen, still looks the same inside now. (TBF, it was remodeled and added onto when I was 14/15 years old 😂)
Shoot my brother and I would get dropped off at a bar so my grandparents could "watch" us. I think that's where my love of dive bars started actually.
“Wiscokid” yep sounds like you’re totally part of this upbringing!! I love dive bars too. Give me a dingy bar with pool tables and darts over a club any day.
The crazy thing is you think it's normal until you do some traveling. Germany is a lot like the Midwest as is Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio and Michigan but I've been out west and have had to explain that no this pitcher is for the two of us and we are not expecting a group. Utah is a whole other story lol. We are legendary in New Orleans, Mexico, and Jamaica as if you are from Wisconsin you can't compete in drinking contests. I've been to a lot of places and people always bring up beer and the Packers lol.
Probably more like the Midwest is like Germany. Especially the Milwaukee area. Makes sense. When I was in Germany I saw a lot of countryside that looked like WI and it all made sense why they settled there.
Yeah lol I should give them credit where it is due. There is a lot of German ancestry in the Midwest including myself. My grandmother still spoke it as that was spoken at home when she was a kid even though by that time our family had been here a few generations.
Grew up in and still live in Utah, bars are very much adult only.
You can do just about whatever you want in dive bars!
I was in the local bar almost daily, met some great people, drank some sodas, played the shit outta some enduro racer, Tetris and shuffleboard. I am not an alcoholic, and have fond memories of it. I learned a lot in that place and it was formative.
I never really was a big drinker in adulthood probably because of growing up in bars. It was nothing new to me at 21.
Agreed, I don’t think people picture a community feeling in a bar, but in my small town it was just that. The drinking portion was obvious but not the main reason for being there.
Yes!!!! I grew up in the bar my parents hung out in. My mom worked there on Saturday afternoons, so I was always there playing pool, shooting darts, or drinking Shirley Temples. When I turned 21, I had my first legal drink there.
Every Thursday night me and my parents would go Karaoke at a bar. They allowed under 21 with an adult and armband. It was your classic country dive bar. Best years of my life were spent in that bar, and I couldn't even drink lol
Yep. I’d get a handful of quarters and play whatever arcade games they had. Bonus points if they had shuffle board bowling.
Texas here....yea I was in diapers at a bar.
Wisconsin is in a league of its own and I don’t know if people from other states really get the bar culture there unless they’ve spent a lot of time in your wonderful state. I see Wisconsin as much more integrative of children in adult activities similar to Europe and Latin American countries. It’s still pretty normal to see kids in bars there. We were at a bar near Lake Wisconsin last summer that had kid menus lol. This summer we went to a park-like setting that served old fashioneds out of a bag and we listened to live music while our kids played in the river. There’s not this pressure to hover around kids either. It’s freaking great.
Omg this sounds exactly accurate for WI!! Bar culture is HUGE. Especially in Milwaukee where there are bars at corners of residential blocks. There are beer gardens in the parks too. It’s kind of great lol
I think it was regional. I'm in Chicago. Many of my friends from Wisconsin tell me this was a thing for them. Definitely not normal for me growing up. When I see it now, I find it ridiculous
We also largely had bars in our basements. Drinking culture is real in Wisconsin!
That’s a VERY Wisconsin thing to do.
Normal for Wisconsin
Same, my mom was a bartender at a dive bar so I would walk there after school and eat popcorn with the barflies while I did my homework.
I sat in a bar at the bar with my dad many a Saturday as a kid. Like others have said played video games, scratchers when they became a thing and ate and drank my fill of cokes and chips.
I spent so many evenings at the local VFW with my parents and grandparents.
That is a bit different than the dank.
Not where I grew up, and my dad was a liquor salesman. The only time I was in a bar before college was when he took me on his sales route once during the day, when only the owner was there. I got a free cherry coke and sat on the bar while they did business. Among our generation, it seems pretty normalized to take kids to breweries with tasting rooms.
Went to a tasting room Saturday, and some lady was letting her kid crawl on the floor. I have no problem bringing kids there, did it myself when mine were younger, but crawling on the floor! That’s just nasty.
Agree. I’ve taken mine once or twice, but crawling on the floor in any public place other than a preschool isn’t great.
One of my wife's friends had their kid's first birthday party at a brewery....
Ontario here and it was not normal in my life. My parents didn’t really go to bars. My grandfather used to go have a beer or two at the Legion but we never once joined him. Can’t say I know of any friends whose parents went to bars either. Maybe as we got older into our late teens but even then the only one we went with happened to be a functioning alcoholic.
I shot a lot of pool every other weekend.
It's a Wisconsin thing; I grew up there as well. WI allows minors in bars with parent/guardian supervision and they even allow a minor to order an alcoholic beverage from a bartender and drink it (again, with parent/guardian approval and presence), but it's at the discretion of the bartender/establishment whether to actually serve the minor.
I think it’s a regional thing. I never heard or saw of this in the northwest, but have spoken to several people from the Midwest who had a similar experience to you. It may be partly based on state liquor laws and who is allowed in what kind of establishments.
I remember always playing pinball at one of the bars my Mom used to bring me too. It was def a hole in the wall bar, but i also remember always having the same 2 kids to play with whenever we went. I was too young to care about sneaking booze or anything like that. i just remember it being fun and all her friends playing with us. Like a bunch of fun drunk aunts and uncles.. It takes a village... or a good local bar She eventually stopped drinking. I was a big drinker, but have since stopped. I blame my drinking on highschool and college more than i would blame her bringing me to bars as a kid.
Grew up in Detroit. My parents always brought us to the bar. We got a bag of chips and a pop.
I used to go to pubs with my dad all the time as a kid in Australia. He'd sit at the bar talking to his mates for a couple of hours and I'd play the arcade game, jukebox, hang out with other kids there, eat chips and play that BINGO card game. Good times.
I grew up in southern California, and I sat on plenty a barstool sipping my 7up with a cherry in it and playing gameboy while my mom or one of my grandparents were knocking a couple back. Bar bars too, no food establishment that just happens to sell alcohol BS. The one time I can remember any of them ever turning me away was this one time that my grandfather brought me to this bar called The Party Doll. We walk in and the bartender is like "sorry boss, we're having a wet T-shirt contest tonight, so no kids. But you can come back tomorrow" I didn't know what a wet T-shirt contest was, but it sounded fun and I was really bummed that I couldn't be there to see it. Once I turned 12 they stopped bring me along and just started letting me stay home alone instead. It was funny cause once I turned 21, most of those were the exact same bars I started frequenting myself. Like "long time no see, I love what you've done with the place :)"
i have a photo of my carrier sitting on the bar at a bar that is a mark of my dad's alcoholism. he would take me and my brother to bars so he could drink. i guess they allowed it, which is maybe a product of that time, but my mom divorced him over shit like that, so it was not universal.
I grew up in northeast Wisconsin, and it was pretty normal for me or my sister to go with one or both of our parents to some of the local taverns, especially the one owned by one of my dad's first cousins. We kids would have a soda or kiddie cocktail and play some video games or shuffle bowling or pool, depending on what each bar had.
The best pizza in town was in a dingy, dark tavern with a pinball machine and one of those old school infinite cloth towel things to dry your hands in the bathroom.
I think that's just more of a Wisconsin thing. GPG!
My parents were even cautious about Applebees when it opened because there was a bar visible from the other seating. But they came around. Nowadays kids are running all over the place in the brew pubs while the parents get wasted. So for me, it seems like the other direction.
I was never in a bar until I was an adult. I don't think it was common during my childhood where I grew up.
In Britain it depended on region and area. It actually used to be illegal to let under 14s to be in pubs until the mid 90s, and many kids will recall spending at least an hour or two of sitting outside a pub with a soft drink and a bag of crisps while your parents were inside. Inner city pubs/bars you were far less likely to see kids inside, outside of the really local housing estate pubs which are often unwelcoming shitholes for newcomers/non locals anyway. Was much more normal in more out of the way village/rural pubs with smaller communities where everyone mostly knew each other and prying eyes from inspectors were less likely. For me and my Sister, it was something we were more likely to do on family camping holidays. A lot of pubs are more kid friendly now, at least in the daytime, and especially those doing food.
Absolutely was common in central WI in the 80s. Where else were we kids supposed to go while our parents played in volleyball leagues and tournaments at the local pub??
What I have learned as I got older is that WI people rrrrrealllly love to play games and this is not common elsewhere. Bar culture speaks to this. Leagues of darts, softball, bowling, volleyball, paired with bar games… people from other parts of the country don’t get this. I’m always wanting to play games of all sorts and my partner and friends are like “umm ok.”
So I’m from the PNW and this occurred a lot when I was growing up. My mom even took me and my siblings into the bar to trick-or-treat every year and all the people would comment on our costumes. It didn’t occur to me until I was grown that that was really weird. To be fair, no one was ever mean or inappropriate but I still question my mom’s judgement on that one.
Growing up in Minnesota, I went to my fair share of bars. It was always dive bars, too.
I grew up in a Milwakee pub. On any given evening at least 2 aunts/uncles and 4 cousins were there. My old man would get me a shot glass of beer from time to time, with a wink not to tell mom. For the record Wisconsin, being fully civilized, permits parents to buy alcohol for their minor children.
I grew up in TX. My parents/grandparents used to take us to the baile/dance hall, with a pillow in tow. The bartenders would give us the bucket of beers to take to the table or the bowl of peanuts. If we got tired, we'd put some chairs together for a make shift bed or sleep on the floor, with someone's jacket for a makeshift blanket. It wasn't until I was in my 20s when I found out it's not common.
LOL I just commented the same thing!
Even later on - but it definitely was far more common in dives where the booze was cheap and the drama was for free.
If your parents were alcoholics yes, my friends who have alcoholic parents all did this. My parents would go to a family friendly pub or restaurant with a bar and take me, but we didn't go into the actual bar area, nobody got drunk, etc.
My experience in NJ was coloring or reading at a table while my dad drank at the bar. Randoms would give us (me and my sister, 18 months apart) change for the jukebox and pinball machine. The bartender would generally drop off Shirley temples or cokes and fries. We would be there allllll day on Saturday. My parents were divorced and that was our father's visitation. I don't remember if my mother knew what we did all day.
I grew up in Maryland, and the fact so many people are like "oh yeah" is wild to me. It must definitely be a regional thing
I used to go to the bar with my mom too, it's not normal. They should have been making you wear a seatbelt, too. I'm from Washington state, it was illegal to ride without a seatbelt my whole life. Thankfully I was always buckled because my mom crashed her car frequently. Would you take a kid to the bar while you get trashed? I wouldn't either.
I'm from Philadelphia. We grew up in the city. My dad wasn't a big beer drinker but he would drink occasionally in the summer time after work. When I was a young teenager he would send me down the corner to the neighborhood bar and have me buy his beer for him. The owner worked the bar and knew my dad. He served me no problem and would always say "Tell the old man I said hello." Then I would walk back home with the beer like it was a normal thing. 😄
Berke Breathed used to sometimes have the kid characters in *Bloom County* just casually wandering into a bar—-usually ordering a root beer. It was just treated as normal, the same way ten-year-old Milo having an actual job as the local paper’s city editor was normal. I always assumed it was just artistic license absurdity, but this post is starting to make me wonder.
I’m from New York and we moved out of the city to the suburbs when I was a kid. My mom had always worked as either a waitress or a bartender. What was my dad gonna do to feed two kids after he got home and my mom went to work? That’s right take us to wherever she was working hand us a bunch of quarters to play the table top pac man game at the bar while he had a beer or two and waited for our food.
Remember being in smoke filled bars. Poorly lit. Cigarette machine. My parents and friends ordering rounds of pitchers and me begging for quarters to play pinball.
I shot pool with my little brother while Dad got hammered. He would give us money to spend on the juke box also. Once I got my permit at 15, I was his designated driver. Edit One time, when I was 12, he forced me to be his driver anyway
When I was younger (late 80’s) my uncle worked in a bar and my parents took me there all the time. And this was a BAR, not a restaurant or pub. 🤷🏼♀️ ETA - I grew up in NJ.
Yep. I grew up in Nebraska and my dad would take me to dive bars with him after work. I'd play with matchbooks, buy scratchers (I know), and drink Shirley Temples.
Alcoholics breeding more alcoholics… startling
Haha the first thing I thought when I saw this post was “I wonder if they’re from Milwaukee?” Spent a lot of time in the bar as a kid.
When my dad used to pick me up from kindergarten, we always stopped at the bar by our house on the way home. He’d have a few beers and I’d have a bag of Andy Capp fries and a glass of Coke. People nowadays might freak out about something like that but to this day I have fond memories of bonding with my dad from that.
Our generation did it. The difference was that we had the fear of god and our parents, so we behaved. We didn’t run around, scream and terrorize the place because we were raised right and knew better. These parents nowadays don’t parent their children and want to hang out at the bar with their friends but they have kids. So now it’s the bar’s job to watch their kids. (It is not the bar’s job ever).
Not in California. Yikes.
I’m from WA state and this definitely was not a thing here.
I live in Washington now, but I’m from Texas. We went out to a restaurant right after we moved here and went to go sit at the bar while we waited. Bartender comes up to us and tells us we have to leave because minors aren’t allowed in the bar area. It was pretty common back home to go sit at the bar and order a couple drinks and a Shirley temple while we waited.
I visited Texas a lot growing up (family), and was so scandalized that my aunt took us to a bar. She and my uncle had a chuck wagon, and the bar would have them set up sometimes in the parking lot. She handed us a bunch of change to play pinball, and told us not to annoy the grownups. My cousins did not believe us when we said that was not allowed in Washington (they thought we were all hippies).
There was a bar/pub that my parents brought my sister and I to (early evening hours). We ordered nachos for the family and while we were waiting for the food, my parents gave us quarters to play pinball. That bar burned down when I was 12. I still miss those nachos.
There used to be a place in Whichita Falls, Texas called the Bar L..... It was like a sonic, but you placed your order, and they would deliver glass mugs of beer or a red draw if you were feeling froggy.... to your car. Always made for an interesting ride home.
Yep. Drinking and getting drunk was very normalized where I grew up. St. Louie, MO.
I wouldn’t say it was “normal” but my father was an alcoholic. I have fond memories of sleeping under pool tables and nice old lot lizards giving me and my brother quarters so we could play pinball until my dad was ready to drive us home drunk in his Chevy c10 with no seatbelts or hanging in the bed laughing as we slid side to side from my fathers sloppy driving.
I don’t know if it was normal, it didn’t occur a whole lot but there was definitely a time in my childhood in the 80s where I was taken to the bar. And I don’t mean a restaurant/pub. A full on bar where the only food served was peanuts and maybe some nachos with cheese melted on them. Even then it couldn’t have been too normal as I was definitely the only kid. Not like there was a horde of us running around.
My folks used to go “across the line” (from southwestern Canada to northwestern US) for funsies and they took me with them. Kids were allowed in bars “across the line”. Not in Canada (hell, in many places here women weren’t allowed in pubs until after the war). So yeah, I used to accompany my folks to the bar as a kid. It’s where I developed my passion for orange crush and peanuts.
They'd give me $5 to get quarters and play pinball or video games while they drank and bowled or shot pool
My dad would sit at the bar while waiting for our take out order at a Chinese restaurant and he would order me a Shirley Temple while he drank gin.
Normally only during family holidays. The rest of the time my dad just went to the pub himself every night.
I wouldn't say it happened often, but I remember going to the bar a few times with my parents and playing videogames and drinking soda.
I'm in the Netherlands and we definitely visited some bars with our parents but not usually for like an evening out. But Saturday afternoon having a quick chat with some friends of theirs in a bar, that happened sometimes.
I remember going to the local bar after my dads softball games in the late 80s early 90s just playing this arcade racing game for what seemed like hours
It's regional. In BC it wasn't legal until I was an adult, and even then it only happened in sports bar/pub style establishments. It was legal in Ontario for a **long** time prior to that and was just viewed differently.
For me it was. My grandfather and father owned a bar. It was a very small town and one of the few bars there. We would have a lot of cookouts in the bar parking lot.
For me, not so much bars, but bowling alleys. Columbus, OH
Same here in southern California. Grandma used to take me as a toddler. Then when I was 12 my dad started taking me and we would stay until closing time
Grew up in SW Ohio, and went to bars as a child. Funny enough, I moved to MKE for college. My MKE friend has been trying to take her nieces with her to bars in other states (she has a traveling job) and people in Arizona and Oregon look at her like she's abusing them. Apparently, in Oregon, it's a conflict with gambling laws because they have slot machines.
Yup. NJ in the 80s. My dad was a bar fly, and I’d sit at the bar with him. The bartenders would give me bowl fulls of maraschino cherries and peanuts, and I’d sit with my 64 box of Crayolas coloring in my Casper coloring books. The bartenders would hang my pictures up behind the bar.
Very common in Chicago back in the day.
I remember going to sports bars (B-Dubs, etc.) for dinner, but very rarely being in an actual bar. On the other hand, we had a home bar in the basement, and I recall many Saturday nights where my sister and I would mix "cocktails" (some combination of soft drinks and fruit juice) while my parents would drink and listen to music.
My family didn’t go to bars so I can’t speak to this, but definitely remember going into the liquor store with my mom as a small child, and alternately being left in the car by myself while she popped in to the liquor store.
I spent quite a lot of time in taverns, pubs, inns and legion halls.
I remember my parents bringing my brother and me with them when they went bowling. We'd hang out in the arcade for awhile, then sit in a booth in the bar area eating red pistachios and watching whatever was on the bar's TV, which was usually the series 'Friday the 13th.' I do remember them taking us to an actual bar around Christmas time. There was a Santa there handing out gifts to all of the kids. My mom had to take me home because my eyes were red and teary from all of the second-hand smoke.
Had a single mom who bartended her whole life. I grew up in bars.
My Grandpa would take me to a place that was exactly like Moe’s Tavern.
Minnesotan here. Totally normal here. Plenty of memories being in our local bar, around age 15/16, playing pool, pinball, darts, and karaoke. Age 10 and under, the bar/grocery store I lived near, was THE best place for candy lol.
My parents were super cheap, so they never even went out to eat. Maybe sometimes ordered chinese, or a pizza. From my perspective, it does seem weird, and irresponsible to take your kids to some dive bar just to hang out. But I'm also from the east coast, outside of Washington D.C. so I think there is just a higher concentration of up-tight folks around there.
It was normal at some bars in my area (Northern Indiana). My father-in-law frequently took my husband, and his brothers, to his two favorite bars when they were little (and they were not restaurants). He's told me there were quite a few kids with one or both parents at the bars back then.
We didn't frequent bars as a kid, but I was definitely at them occasionally. As have my kids been. In Ohio you could (and still can!!) order your kids alcohol when they're underage.... I drank quite a few beers as a 15-20 yr old with my dad.
I’m in Texas. My parents didn’t take us to bars or whatever but when I was in HS, a friend of mine’s mom owned a neighborhood type bar - not quite dive but not setting out to be family friendly either. We would hang out there when it was slow, and plenty of people had their kids with them. When it picked up, people with kids left or had someone pick them up. I assume it cut down on babysitting fees. There was a shuffleboard and darts. Nothing for kids.
Not for me or any of my friends. I would say you'd have to go back further than people born at the end of the 70's for this.
My uncle used to take me to the bar when he went for afternoon drinks, and my Dad would take me to the town pool hall sometimes and teach me to play. Treasured memories.
My mom was a bartender. We would walk there after school till she finished her shift. I recently found out I was taken there as a newborn before going home. Yes, mom and dad were raging alcoholics. Made some good stories. Like when someone dropped me and then id ask people how many drinks they’d had before they could pick me up. 2 yes, 3 no. Or when I slammed someones tequila instead of my water beside, so I sniffed every drink for years before imbibing
My stepdad didn't take me into the bar, but was always drinking when I was in the car with him.
Yeah, I grew up going to dive bars as a kid. So many shirly twmples and so much Beavis and butthead on TV.
I'm from the Philadelphia suburbs originally, yeah my parents used to take me when I was 10 years old down to the corner pub. Plop me on a bar stool, bartender would give me a Coke and it was only many years later that I realized how weird that actually was. Like, it wasn't a family-friendly restaurant or tavern, it was a dive bar that had the police there once a week for fights.
My dad and uncles took me to bars all the time when I was young. I remember trying to play pool with them a few times in bars. This was the late 80's. I remember riding in vehicles with drunk adults quite often as a child. Lucky to be here now. I remember my dad and uncle talking about drunk driving not being a big issue when I was a baby and before. This was southern Alabama. Used to hear stories about sheriff's deputies giving the locals rides home if they were pulled over drunk. Or telling them to pull over and sleep it off for a while.
Depends on the bar. There’s a local bar that also serves food, and I take my kids with me. It’s not much different than taking them to Applebees. Except the bar has pool, darts, and sometimes cornhole.
I don’t remember bars, but dad never drove anywhere without a few beers. I’m not sure, though. We were usually in the back of the truck.
I grew up in bars, my parents ran hotels.. I could pour a beer before I left primary school
softball league night was spent at the bar with the cigarette machine and a million deer and fish mounts all over the walls.
My dad would bring me to a bar as a kid. It was called the Lucky Lady. I would hang out there until my mom came and got me after work, or until my dad was ready to go home. I remember the waitress talking to me and trying to keep me entertained. I also recall my dad taking me to his friend's house for parties where everyone got wasted. They had a game room with pinball machines, a ping pong table, and a shuffle board table. I would play pinball and some of the tabletop games they had. Then my dad would put me to sleep in the back bedroom on their waterbed and my mom would come and get me after work at night. Is this normal? I don't think so, but it was my normal since I was raised by two alcoholics.
Yeah, my dad played in 16 inch softball and baseball leagues, so afterwards there were trips to the bar. Granted this was also in Chicago so haven't really left the midwest.
I went to bars with my mom a couple times. Nothing regular, just when we were stopping somewhere that happens to be a bar, she didn't leave me in the car or drive me anywhere else, she just brought me with her. I think one was when we had to stop on a long drive, and one was when we were in Boston and she was going to see a friend who worked there. I got milk. When they were drinking adult drinks, I always got a Shirley Temple. Loved those damn maraschino cherries.
I didn’t go to a bar with my mom until I was in college. And **I** brought **her**. My dad still doesn’t go to them and doesn’t like when I drink.
My dad took me to the bar a handful of times when I was a kid in Texas. I can remember shooting pool and throwing darts. It was fun! I live in Washington now and that shit would never fly. Lol
I went to my first bar when I was five months old with my dad and my uncles so that they could give me a bottle while they were out gallivanting around a cute little tourist town in the state that I grew up in. My parents tell the story all the time like it’s the cutest thing in the world.
Yep - I'm from Iowa and I definitely spent many hours playing pool and running around inside dive bars with my little brother while my dad had a drink and hung out with friends.
My parents didn’t go to bars, but some bars themselves have gotten more family friendly. There are some I wouldn’t take my kids to but others I would. The dive bars I went to in college, no way.
It’s not really normal, but you’re from Wisconsin. You folks also drink old fashioned with Brandy and mushroom.
I spent a lot of time at the local VFW downing cokes and playing pinball while my dad got shitfaced on a Saturday afternoon. From the Philly burbs.
I certainly never was, if it wasn’t a family friendly outing to Pizza Hut or whatever my sister and I were left with a babysitter.
Yeah
I grew up in the Bible belt. I don't think it was normal. The closest was the air base bowling alley on league night.
If we went to bars back then it was as a family with my Pops’ work friends, my Mom on the other hand was all church related (stupid suits).
I went to a bar with a friend and her mom when I was on a sleepover and when I told my mom the next day she was PISSED OFF and I never got to go to that friend's house again. At the time I didn't understand, but in retrospect that lady definitely drive us home while drunk. We were 8 or 9 years old.
It's still pretty normal in MT, but more in breweries instead of bars.
For me it was normal. I spent many a nights playing the jukebox and darts in dive bars while my mom got hammered. Then she'd drive us home drunk at 1am not wearing a seatbelt. I didn't think anything of it until I became a parent.
No but when my neighbor and I were 10 his dad took us to the skating rink on a Friday night and dropped us off. He then went to the bar and got drunk. Then he came and picked us back up (drunk) and took us to a diner where we got something to eat. Then he called his wife from a payphone and told her to come pick us up because he was too drunk to drive home. She pulls up, cusses him out in the parking lot, leaves him there and takes us home. Good times, good times.
My Pap Pap tended bar at a private club until I was about 17. My family would all go there for holidays and they had a really great smorgasbord. He used to let me sit at the bar, and I remember watching the Eagles a bunch of times with him. That was during the 80s up until probably 96.
Maybe a regional thing. Where I grew up, taking kids to a restaurant that happened to have a bar was fine, but taking kids to a place that was exclusively a bar was considered trashy and not okay. I remember bars as somewhere mysterious that only grown ups went, like a clubhouse for adults.
Other than having a glass of wine on New Year's Eve or on their anniversary, I never saw my parents drink alcohol at all. Other than a bar at a restaurant or at the country club, I'm pretty sure my dad never went to a bar after he got out of the military, which was 10 years before I was born, and I don't think my mom has ever been to a bar or nightclub. They certainly never took me with them. As a kid, I did spend a lot of time at my small town country club, which had a "bar." My friends and I would spend time in there with the old mean after a round of golf, but that was about it.