What most defines a dive bar? Is it a place of mean streets where you can drink and dine (I use that word reservedly) with patrons prone to drinking too much too early? Or where you risk getting hepatitis from questionable food practices? Or where all the premium liquors are nothing better than the well at finer places?
Enter Tom Minervino, where Sangillo’s—a bonafide dive bar—once stood. He is the steward of Tomaso’s Canteen, the new householder of this legendary space where there were allegedly more gun shots than Jell-O shots.
Contemporary, fairly upscale look at Tomaso’s Canteen
Nowadays dive bars can have a cult following first before morphing into havens for hipsters. I’m not sure if that will happen to Tomasso’s, though the clean lines of gun-metal gray tabletops and bright, shiny bar stools give the look of a big order from Design Within Reach.
