Riptide Lounge

This is a solid dive bar complete with sketchy-looking men bitching about child-support, and the self medicating women who love/hate them along with the standard crazy, cackling old guys and fishwives slurping PBR...I have seen the same guys drinking beers here with a newborn in a car seat...on multiple occassions...There's probably SOMETHING illegal in SOMEONE'S pocket/purse at all times...However...the juke box rocks, its got Marbleheads only pool table, said table has decent sticks...and they serve what is THE BEST CHEESBURGER, fries and onion rings in town...and that is no small thing...Take your friends here to freak them out...

this is a divy bar.  the locals scrowl at you, but don't seem to bite.  the beer is about 2/3 the price at the Jack Tarr, and the food looks great and 1/2 the price of the Jack Tarr.  Divier than Maddies.   worth trying if you are that sort of person.

Ohmygod. The Riptide. When I was growing up in M'head, the Riptide was the diviest dive in town. That's back when we still had more Townies named Hooper, Snow, Crocker, Peach and Woodfin, than Van Otterloo types, and fishing was still a viable industry with as many or more fishing- and lobster boats in the harbor as rich folks' toy boats. Yup, I've been around that long.

Anyhoo. The Riptide. We used to go to a movie at the Warwick at night, when most of the Rip's nightly denizens were just heading into the bar. Several hours later, like clockwork, they'd come rolling, howling, yodelling, staggering out. It was so predictible, so regular, that it was one of those comforting 'Header rituals, sort of like getting that copy of the Marblehead Messenger delivered by a real paperboy every week, or buying a quarter's worth of penny candy (which meant up to 50 pieces of candy if you chose wisely) from the wood-floored, glass-countered, dimly-lit penny-candy shop that used to be where the Marblehead Grand Bank now stands.

So I have to be the one to sadly inform the younger generations that the dive-nature of the Riptide now is more of a studied effect, intentionally divey and proud of it. Back in the day, it was divey because it just was. As soon as we consciously pursue Tao, it is no longer the Tao. Ya know?

Still, it's a good spot to get a quick brewski and chill for a while, without feeling like you're selling out to a tourist trap or an enclave of the upscale residents (though I bet a couple will occasionally "slum" there when they're not convening at the private bar at the posh Tedesco Country Club.

Just don't think that Marblehead can get away with having any truly divey dives anymore. The overhead is just too high to get away with it.