A charming little small town dive bar with very cheap beer on tap. We enjoyed the wall art... a…read moreseries of tastefully-done nude portraits, all of the same woman. I don't know if Annie was our bartender or if she was the woman in the art, but neither were particularly fat by any means. :) Both when we arrived and when we left, a little girl opened the door of the laundry next door and stared at us with a scowl. Whether she was curious about the strangers in town or concerned about the sinners drinking in the afternoon remains a mystery.

If you like small town atmosphere Annie's is the place. You can ride up on your horse and tie him…read moreoutside while you enjoy a COLD beer. Also a great place to stop in and have a refreshment if you are on a scenic Motorcycle ride through southern Iowa. Super friendly folks. You will be glad you stopped by.

Friday eve supper out Yea venture out…read moreFriday special was bbq pork ribs Cheesy potatoes and baked beans Well my two dinner partners Had the special I was hungry for a good tenderloin and onion rings No charge for water 2 bucks for a bottle of ice tea Out the door with tip was 50 bucks Not bad for three to eat! A bit loud inside but a quiet night early Service was good So a good tip was earned! All in all a good meal!

This was an amazing place! The atmosphere was... well, like a bar…read more The people who worked there were very friendly!! I got the bacon cheeseburger and the curly fries. The burger was standard but bomb nonetheless. And the curly fries were delicious! It took about an hour and a half for our food to get here. And the ribbon fries could use some more seasoning and were a little burnt. Not too bad tho, it's pretty standard for a bar:)

You know you've hit dive bar paydirt when you walk in to find a young female bartender pouring…read moredrinks for an old man who is chain-smoking through his tracheotomy hole. Checkers is done up like a (run down) 1950s diner on the inside. As we drank our beers, the tracheotomy dude told us about the town and said that come sundown, once the farmers come in from the fields, that Checkers would be packed.

A nice, clean biker-friendly bar on the square in downtown Lancaster. Better kept than many small…read moretown bars. The bartender was pretty nice, but also seemed a little skittish of us out-of-towners. This bar had the smallest beer bottles I'd ever seen, 7-oz bottles. I don't know if they were a promotion or something they normally carry, but we had to buy those since we'd never seen anything like it before. (In retrospect that probably made our beer very expensive. :) )

It's the best pork tenderloin sandwich around! That's it. That's all I got. Just the best pork…read moretenderloin sandwich around in a unique local bar.

You don't get more out of the way than Fat Annie's. The biggest pork cutlet sandwich that I have…read moreever seen. It was a little too thin for me. It made the pork to breading ration off for me. But, since everything it is homemade, I bet they could make it thicker if you want. Perfectly cooked though. Had the corn nuggets, again cooked perfectly. I came with ranch dressing that was by far the best I have ever had. Ends up, yep, you guessed it, homemade.

While the owls nest was highly recommended by several locals, which included those who worked at…read morehotel Ottumwa within walking distance (bc no Ubers) and ( fancy like)Applebees. We decided to give it a try, bc dive bar... Service started decent enough, beers were brought in a timely manner and without constant need to ask, bartender admitted there was party coming in later on in the evening. It was also her birthday...Emily I believe. She was excited to get off and go celebrate....it seemed quite early on in our visit that she'd already started celebrating, lots of shots, plenty of time not even in the bar, actually admitted and apologized that she went to the "thrift store". We spent approx 4-5 hours there, same patrons would come and go between the bar and the sidewalk. A little sketchy, even for a dive bar.

The food was delicious as always. The hardest part was ordering the food when I'm not bi- lingiul.read more

5 for corner dive bar! Cozy atmosphere, good people watching. Cheap cheap specials everyday! Pool…read moretable, jukebox, gaming machine and plenty of TVs for sports games. Bartenders are friendly and fast!

This place had a decent atmosphere to it. Solid set up with a pool table, darts,quite a few tvs,…read moreand a good crowd. The drinks were cheap and I could see my pals and I hanging around there for quite some time. But then came the bartender... A twenty-something brunette with a full sleeve of tats was on duty when I strolled in with four of my pals around 11:50. We had roughly 40 minutes til last call so my buddy went up and ordered two pitchers. The bartender told us she would not pour us two pitchers because we "would not have enough time to drink them". Immediately I felt bad. The poor thing must have had vision problems. I mean, obviously instead of a squad of college bros she had witnessed a group of prom queens stroll in. God forbid each of us try to take down 16 ounces of beer in 40 minutes, we might get HAMMERED. Anyways, we obliged. We took the single pitcher back to our table and slammed it, not to prove a point, but because we are not an ensemble of ballerinas who nurture a single beer for 20 minutes. So our friend goes up to order a second pitcher with a solid 25 minutes before last call. The bartender seems very annoyed. She clearly walks past him half a dozen times pretending not to notice him. After strolling by him a handful of time sand ignoring him she finally asks what he wants. She begrudgingly pours him another pitcher after he asks, and he returns to our table. With about 15 minutes left before last call our DD goes up to get a glass of water. He also waits a solid 10 minutes as she walks around the bar finding anything to do but go up to him. Finally, having run out of bs tasks to do she walks up to him. Before my boy can even ask for some water to quench his parched sober throat, she straight up says " NO, I'm done, seriously I'm DONE" and walks away super flustered. As if he just spit on her and called her a broad. HE SIMPLY WANTED A GLASS OF WATER. If you are having a bad day, no need to bring it to work and take it out on your customers. My friends and I were nothing but courteous. Anyways we slammed our beer and left that S**tshack pronto. Consensus: The bar has potential. The bartender who served us made our experience about as pleasant as getting teeth pulled by Micheal J Fox in an earthquake.

Chevy's is an awesome place with the good people of Novinger. Beer and liquor only. Small food…read moreoptions. The key to this place is it warmth by the team and community. Have a coors light and ask for Jes. She's awesome. Pork tenderloin is a must try also.

When we arrived in town we found three bars lined up in a row, but only the southern one was in…read morebusiness. Our bartender told us that she couldn't remember the name of the one in the middle but that the other one was named "Hotel California". She said that only one of the three bars ever seems to be in business at any given time, and that she has worked at each of them. Chevy's is basically what you'd expect from the only dive bar in a rural town. Domestic beers, stiff drinks, and your basic bar food/snacks. Our bartender was pretty cool and made the visit enjoyable.

Located near the unincorporated town of Thirty, south of Centerville, this roadhouse is a popular…read morecountry-rock themed destination among bikers and the working class. We seated ourselves at the horseshoe-shaped bar. The basics (Bud, Miller Light) are on tap, everything else is in bottles. We ended up getting a couple of bottles. Our bartender was nice and chatty (in a good way) and kept us entertained during our stay. I had some difficulty with the restroom. The men's room door would not close despite repeated attempts by me to do so. Oh well, when you've gotta ago, you've gotta go! I later heard an interesting anecdote about this bar from a patron at another bar. I have been unable to verify the veracity of his story, and it doesn't reflect on The Silver Spur at all as it could happen anywhere, but it's too interesting a bit of gossip not to share: "The Silver Spur used to be called Larry's Silver Spur. Larry was a really nice guy, but then one day his wife up and shot him in the head. She's in prison now." * "Then later there was a couple in there and they had an argument. The girlfriend stormed out and the boyfriend stayed inside, he was going to wait for her to cool off and knew she'd come back in. But she never did... because when she went outside she stepped onto the highway and got flattened by a semi." "They got most of her for the burial, but one arm was unattainable." Like I said, who knows if there's any truth to it or not, but if there is, those are some interesting tidbits about this bar's history. * (I've checked the liquor licenses back as far as 1998, the earliest available online, and it's been the same owner all that time and in fact she may have owned it since at least 1990. So if there's any truth to the shooting story, it was a LONG time ago. However the licenses DO list the official name as "Larry's Silver Spur" despite the fact that the name "Larry" does not appear anywhere on the bar's signage and the owner is a woman.)

One star is actually being nice. Unless you want flies in your drink and to not get served, this is…read morethe place to be! The bartender took forever to get us drinks because she was too busy flirting with every man in there and wasted out of her mind. The last straw was when my girlfriend had a baby ROACH in her screwdriver that she waited 20 minutes for..

Best bar staff in town and the coolest regulars of any bar I've ever been to. A great townie dive.read more

If you would like to wait 20 minutes for a drink, this is your spot. Came back for nostalgia during…read morehomecoming weekend with an old roomate. They decided bar should be closed by 1:30, we immediately booked an uber. Went to the restroom before we entered the uber (women understand) and were then greeted with the entire staff making disappointing comments. I understand they're supposed to be a "local" bar, but they are just blatantly rude for no reason. Not happy.