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PIPS Dive Bar Guide · No Frills, All Soul

Oakland

Sing-along pianos, blues history, and Uptown grit

Oakland's dives are the soul of the town — a 1933 sing-along piano bar, the birthplace of West Coast blues, and the country's oldest LGBTQ bar. Cheap, historic, and unpretentious to the core.

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Featured Dive Bar

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This month's dive

The Alley

A dimly lit 1933 piano bar where regulars belt out standards beneath walls papered with decades of business cards. Cash-friendly, boozy, and unapologetically old-school — the most iconic dive in Oakland.

Upcoming in Oakland

TBASoon

PIPS Last Call — Oakland

A family dive night. Members hear first.

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Dive bars are one chapter of Pip's Lifestyle — find the whiskey bars, lounges, steakhouses and the Domino Club below.