Philadelphia Weekly

Dive talking: The Irish Pub's owner worries a word could hurt business.

The warm, glowing interior of the Irish Pub and Inn in Atlantic City--complete with Christmas decorations and stained glass windows--provides a stark contrast to the chilly December day outside on St. James Place just off the Boardwalk.

Inside, co-owner Cathy Burke sits sipping cinnamon hazelnut coffee from a delicate old-fashioned teacup. She's owned the place with her husband Richard Burke since 1972.

Though Burke appears nonchalant and carefree, she's in the throes of a legal battle with Metrocorp, publisher of Philadelphia magazine. Last winter's edition of A.C. Now, a Philly mag supplement, called the Irish Pub a "dive bar," and loosely defined its customers as "broken-down blackjack addicts" and "black sheep of the family."

"We are the antithesis of a dive bar," says Burke. "Look up the definition, and see that a dive is everything we're not."

The definition of "dive bar" is elusive. But Burke says the lawsuit is about misrepresentation--and that the pub is an Irish-American landmark.

She wanders the rooms of the establishment, from the dining rooms to the outdoor patio area to the old wooden bar, pointing out a "No Irish Need Apply" sign and a baseball signed by Joe DiMaggio.

"The whole place is like an oasis, really, away from the casinos," she says, recounting how DiMaggio stayed there regularly despite the casinos' willingness to comp rooms for him.

She climbs a staircase tucked away behind a door in the corner of one of the dining rooms. It leads up to the antique sitting room between the rooms of the inn and the restaurant and bar area. Rooms are still available to rent during the summer months.

Christmas decorations take up most of the porch, but Burke says that in the summertime guests can be found there, soaking up the sun in old-fashioned oak rocking chairs. "It's like a trip back in history," she says.

Tommy "Tune-in Tom" Hawkins, a piano and guitar tech for Willie Nelson, says one of the reasons he moved to Atlantic City was so he could live across the street from the Pub.

"Every day is Christmas at the Irish Pub," he says, admiring the garland and lights that deck the walls everywhere he looks. "You can't get any further from a dive."

Philadelphia magazine editor Larry Platt politely declined an interview with PW on the lawsuit, and issued an email statement instead: "It seems clear to me that the context was positive and, moreover, that the contemporary definition of 'dive' is not negative," he wrote. "It's become another way of saying a place is kitschy or cool, which we think Atlantic City's Irish Pub is."

Platt didn't address A.C. Now's description of the Irish Pub's clientele.

Some employees and owners of so-called dives in Philadelphia see nothing wrong with the term.

"A dive bar is just a place where people can meet," says Harold Evans, a ponytailed Dirty Frank's bartender. "It's not always about decor. It's about community and hanging out."

"In 74 years, we haven't changed, so does that make it a dive bar?" Evans asks about his workplace. "Or does that make it have character? It has a patina. It has its own character. It lives and breathes by itself."

Evans points out that Philadelphia and Atlantic City are two different places. "There are a lot of people from Philly who go to A.C., but a lot of them are from New York too, so they wouldn't have read Philadelphia magazine."

Alia Burton, who tends bar at McGlinchey's, defines a dive as a cheap, seedy bar, and says she likes bars that have that feel. "I can't really see the Irish Pub really being considered a dive bar," says Burton, laughing. "The bathrooms are too clean. We used to get the best bathroom [graffiti] awards."