Most of us drinkers stick to a fairly predictable schedule. During the week we drink when we get off work until the sun gets heavy in the sky, and then depending on how we feel we cap it off with one more at home. When Friday comes we're more liberal: We could care less about our interstellar orientation and we just drink until the bartender tells us to go home.
Not everyone works a steady 9 to 5, though. The shift workers and the artists who roll out of bed at 2:30 in the afternoon follow a different rhythm. Sadly, if you got off of work at 8 a.m., your desire to cap your shift off with a cold one is no less than your more standard circadian counterpart. Your options, on the other hand, are considerably restricted.
Here's where to drink if you work while the rest of us sleep, or if, one day, you just want to get an early start.
Ships (pictured above)
Ships is an institution. From the tales of murder in the apartment above to rumors that you're not allowed to swear, this dive bar continues to pull in drinkers if only for its folklore. It doesn't hurt that the beer is pretty cheap, but that will hardly get you ahead with a list like this.
Ships opens at 10 a.m. every day but Sunday, when it opens at noon.
The Hidden Door It's hidden in a few ways. First you have to find the building, just off of Mahanna Street, and then you have to find the door to get it. Order one drink and you're a member of the club for as long as the bartenders can remember your face. On one visit I watched an entire Madonna concert on DVD. You're not going to be bored here.
You can start drinking at 7 a.m. every day but Sunday, when the doors open at noon.
Starlight Lounge Not one bar on this list has as much dive as the Starlight Lounge. When the beer gets low one of the bartenders picks up a thirty-pack of Bud right down the street and frozen chicken wings have been known to be served fresh from the microwave.
The Starlight lounge opens at 9 a.m. every day but Sunday, when it opens at noon.
The Goat Oh Goat. Both hipster and barfly love you with equal passion, and Karaoke night has become the stuff of tone-deaf legend. The Goat can get pretty noisy after dark, but most mornings you can almost have the bartender and some guy working a mop to yourself.
The Goat wakes up at 7 a.m. every day but Sunday at noon.
The Dallasite The last time I was at the Dallasite, someone tried to sell me a neighborhood cookbook. The time before that there was a potluck of sorts, for someone's birthday. Before I even found out who had gotten older, I was handed a plate and told to fill up. The Dallasite is just that kind of place. A neighborhood dive for locals looking for a drink.
The Dallasite opens every day at 10 a.m. except Sunday, when it opens at noon.
