Joined the locals at this long standing dive bar on main in Ventura on Sunday afternoon. Â The band was totally awesome "Masters of the Past" and that they were! Â tHEY HAD THE WHOLE PLACE A ROCK N. The female bartender was a blast and really fast she was always moving. Â Lots of folks having great games on the pool tables. I got to dance so all together a great afternoon. Â All the people have the wonderful Cali layed back tude and just wanna have a good time. Â Cant wait to go back and party again.
Review Source:Not the nicest bar I have ever been too, but definitely one of the funnest! They do karaoke every Tuesday and Thursday, and even people who arent regulars get numerous chances to pick a song from there large library. Drinks are cheap, service is good, bathrooms are clean, and most the patrons are nice as well.
Review Source:This is a great dive bar on Main Street in Ventura. It's tiny but just great. Daisy is a fantastic bartender and we never fail to have a great time. There are two pool tables that take up the majority of the place, live music on weekends and I think they have karaoke a couple nights a week.
Bathrooms are clean and the place doesn't smell bad.
This became our go-to watering hole during our visit to Ventura. The lights are low, the jukebox is stocked and the bartenders are just nice enough. Thursday night is karaoke, there are two pool tables, the ladies room is clean and the bar stools swivel. Not really sure what more you could want in life.
Review Source:Popped in, was told "premium beers" where $6 a can/bottle. Included in the premium beers list.... PBR, Michelob... you get the idea.
I understand part of SoCal is about conspicuous consumption, but I just think this crosses the line from conspicuous to ridiculous. Then again, I also never understood/liked Ed Hardy T-shirts, so maybe it's me?
That said, bartender was really nice. Got to hear some interesting stories till my date showed up. Then, we went elsewhere.
The Star Lounge is a divey little bar in the heart of Ventura. Â There isn't much in the way of seating or decor, but the lounge offers a couple of pool tables and plenty of bar seating. Â Everyone here seems friendly and the bartenders rock! Â Love this place because you can go in dressed up or down and still feel like you belong.
Review Source:On wikipedia, if you look up dive bar there is a picture of one of two bars in my hometown. That being said, my standards for a good dive bar are kinda high, if that makes sense. The first time I went to the star lounge I was hooked. I had been looking for a good dive bar since I moved to ventura County and finally found one. This place is just what you want in a dive bar: its loud with good music, small pool tables, and a nice simple wood bar to lean on. Which is why it's always so busy! I make a point to stop here every time I go downtown.
Review Source:Best dive bar in Ventura! Â Great location on Main St. so always easy to just stop in if you're down there shopping or eating. Â Sometimes my wife will be shopping on Main St. and I'll just hang here and shoot some pool. Â Servers are always nice and friendly. Â They have some fun bands come in and play on Friday/Saturday nights. Â Their beer on tap is always very cold! Â Never a bad time had at the Star Lounge!
Review Source:When you are in Ventura, you gotta check this place out--very funky old time dive bar but with hip vibe and live music on weekends. Â You can get a righteous drink from a real barmaid who knows her craft or a big PBR if that's what you are after. Â This is a drinking person's bar--so go to drink and have a good time.
Review Source:Too bad about the morons they have for "bouncers". Not the slightest hint of being humans. Sometimes the bands are actually very good.
Clubs should go back to house bands, where bands play at least 2-3 weeks straight. Then you know what to expect. When there is a good band, you know you can go back in a night or 2 and the same good band is there - it's great!
This dive isn't so bad, the bar is nice but in all the 100's of bars I have been to (and I am a non-confrontational type guy) these are by far the pushiest, ego-driven rudest pre-humanoids hands down anywhere consistently.
I check back every few months and the same guys who ate too many paint chips are still there. Makes me stay away. Otherwise, I would be there once a week at least!
It was OK. There were two swamped bartenders, and drinks were a little on the slow side but my friends had their drinks paid for so it wasn't much of an issue. The music was great, we were there close to 1 AM and everyone inside was plastered drunk.
Outside, we were approached by several homeless people asking for money but without pockets, we weren't much help for them. I'd offer to buy them a drink but you can't bring beer outside.
The vibe inside is relaxed, everyone was cool.
The Star Lounge is my local dive bar of choice. You never know what you'll stumble into there on a Friday or Saturday night but you can most certainly stumble out. Between the mix of local bands, decent drinks, colorful clientele and dodging possible cue stick jabs to the groin a fun time can be had. It's almost a badge of honor to wake up the next morning with the vibrant paper wrist band still in place as your single fuzzy rememberance.
Review Source:Ok for a typical little whole in the wall bar......Stopped in on Sunday for a few beers only to find we actually came on a good night to get some free LIVE entertainment from a few drunk girls putting on a show to Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen... HILARIOUS!!! Â Two of the girls were twins and wow was it comedy... Â Needless to say the whole bar clapped for them when they were finished.... Funny Shit! The bartender that night seemed like she hated her job and was annoyed by the live entertainment which I thought was amusing.... Â Too bad the place is small, would be better if it had more pool tables... and maybe some foose ball and darts .. And more TV's... Just sayin!!
Review Source:Jamie V to bartender: I'd lkke ttow beeerrss annd a snot of wihissky!
Bartender: What?
Jamie V: tow beers whisskey I pay you.
Bartender: What?
Jamie V: Beerrs two and a shot one of jack you take money.
Bartender: Coming up.
Bartender: Here you go.
Jamie V: Tanks!
Bartender: That stuff will kill you.
Jamie V: Brring it!
Dive bar by day, Dive bar with live music by night
The first night of our long weekend, among other places we hit the Star Lounge. Â While cracking back pitchers of beer, a G & T, and a 24oz can of PBR, we hung and watched The Fugitive on TBS with no sound on a maybe a 24 inch old tube TV. Â A band was setting up and eventually started playing some kind of roots rock, but don't quote me on that. Â Couple of pool tables there, one with a guy getting smoked by a cougar
The second night there was an 80's cover band playing things like Love Shack
Good times. Â Gotta like a bar where almost all of the seating is along the bar
Even dive bars have their stellar moments.
No, I'm not talking about that woman wearing a loose fitting sun dress that climbed a top our pool table, breasts spilling out, as she writhed to the live music. Normally I'd call that a pretty stellar moment, but in this case, I'm talking about the surprise performance by the talented singer, LeAnn Rimes who joined that night's band for a couple of songs.
You never know what or who you'll see, so check this place out.
Inna Rude Mood:  <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DRM4up6brMao&s=cee27c7d06687c7b9c3cc361a6d060ee3abb0f5d969216746f1a0cf94d6545db" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/w…</a>
LeAnn Rimes:  <a href="/redir?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvjMGtb3MDWo%26feature%3Dfvw&s=69490bbeefb8f1bb1a5b0b3ebd9fa63371db872516695bbcca0eabb0788e36e9" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/w…</a>
Cool place to visit when your in Ventura but there are better bars in the area. This is a good bar for older folks who wants to get drunk while listening to a live band sing old school hits. Our bartender made some strong ass drinks and when going to a bar that's never a bad thing, but the lady must of been drunk because she spilled the drink she made all over my
girlfriend and still had the nerve to charge us for the drink whack!! But other then that cool spot won't hate when my margarita has more liquor and less juice.
Walk by Star Lounge at about 2PM and peek in: you're sure to see some pretty scroungy eyes peering back at you. Â But that's why they call it ... STAR... it *sParKleS* with it's own special magic.
Seriously, it's a unique little dive where the young and geriatric come to play pool on one of the 3 or 5 pool tables--I'm never sober enough to remember how many pool tables they have.
You can have a pitcher or a pint, maybe watch the live band, maybe listen to the juke, or see a game playing on the Tele'.
It's a good crowd on live-music nights, but if you go on game night you should probably wear your favorite flannel and get your best bar-whore voice going... cuz it's going to be one of *those* nights.
Some thngs change for the better, some stay the same, and some just get flushed down the shitter. I haven't decided which is true of the Star Lounge.
This dive bar's located on the Main street of the moderately sized city I grew up in. The amazing thing about Ventura is that there is a considerable amount of people, it's neighbors to both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, and yet it still manages to lack much culture or entertainment (in regards to businesses).
After spending some time in a new, slightly stuffy jazz club, I decided it was time for a dive bar. Apparently, dive bars in Ventura are much different than those in Portland. The Star Lounge was more of a honkey tonk bar.
I was deceived when we entered, lured in by the soothing sounds of some good old classic rock and the sight of two pool tables. When we approached we were confronted by a very large primitive bouncer who's vocabulary was limited to the occasional grunt. Another very large bouncer sat at the end of the bar drinking a gigantic redbull (storing up energy in case any hoodlums needed a good old fashioned ass whoopin').
When I returned from the restroom, I was gleeful to find that my friend had ordered me a 24oz PBR. Oh PBR. How you have attached yourself to my heart like a malignant tumor... But my joy dimmed when I found it'd cost me $5 (you can get a 40oz PBR from the Delta Cafe for about $4). Such are the ways of southern California, even in dive bars.
My mind frame dimmed further as I took a better look around the place, noting that the floors were significantly debris-riddled. And that the music had turned to the less enjoyable (at least for me) genre of country.
A joke kept running through my head: What do you get when you play a country song backwards? ... You get your dog back, your house back, your wife back...
Yep. It's bad.
The major redeeming feature was the patio. It was long and narrow, with brick walls and comfy couches. Â The bathroom was up to par. And the bartender was friendly.
I guess if you're desperate for a game of pool and a "cheap" drink, it's not a bad place to stop, when you consider the other limited options. But really, if this bar were in Portland, I'd have no reason to return.
I don't know what this place is like at night. We came in here to escape the glare of the early afternoon sun--and because the homeless guys were getting really aggro about my man using their backstreet open-air latrine.
This dark, dingy stop has a sense of humor. How else could you explain the paint-by-number paintings of naked women and the Jagermeister on tap? The bartender matron seemed nice, so I was a little hurt when she didn't automatically float a lemon wedge in my draft Hefeweizen and instead flirtatiously offered my man two heady mugs of draft Coors Light because  she "had a hard time working the tap," tee hee.
During my exaggerated eye roll, I caught sight of the other patrons (rather quiet touristy types) and then a couple of wisecracking barflies--oh, wait, that's us--I'm looking in the gray-cast mirror behind the bar. Anyway, this place is okay. It's on a groovy street, and the drinks do their job, and you can use the loo.
As far as Dive Bars goes, this place is GREAT! the girls behind the bar are friendly and pour a plethora of things to get you from sober to hammered quick... Â try the seabee bomb..... its not too bad and does the trick if you're in the "bomb" kind of mood... although I'm pretty sure that Mary is the only one that knows how to make it. Â
It's fun, a great place to hang with friends and get kicked out when you're gotten outa-hand.... only to be let back in  ...
:)
If youve been on Main St in Ventura, you have had to see the sign for Star Lounge. It sports one of the best signs on the street.
There are goods and bads about the place...
First the good stuff - Ive been visiting this sleepy town every other week for a couple months. Become sort of an out of towner regular. Theres perks for that, such as; free drinks, great conversation and flirting with Daisy and  your every once in awhile sighting of a really hot young lady.
They treat me well there, period, so I continue to spend some of my cash there. Ive always had a good drunken time, dont really feel out of place and theres more random conversations with strangers than you can imagine.
The down side is that... well there is no down side. Go there, be yourself, have some drinks, play some pool and the juke and youll agree.
As for the up-keep of the place - its been remodeled a little bit since Ive been patronizing SL. The doors are always open when its a nice day out, so its not doom and gloom, have a drink then slit your wrists time.
Go, have fun, then try all the other cool places around there with a good buzz!
The drinks are cheap and the live cover band isn't so bad, but I seriously felt physically threatened in there. The first time I went, I felt like it was just a normal dive bar for your average construction worker or truck driver. The second time I went, it felt like I was thrown to the lions. I seriously thought I would not walk out of there with either my virtue in check or without my wallet. It seemed so seedy. There were gross 45+ yr old men trying to grope me. Everything just felt shady and dirty. I did not feel safe and have never returned since.
I give 2 stars instead of 1 b/c the drinks are reasonably priced.
UPDATE TO BELOW THOUGHTS: Someone's purtied up the place, at least the signage for the bar and the hotel. Both signs look awesome...the interior however hasn't changed and the carpet's still nappy at the enterance...
Reasonably good dive bar just waiting to be taken over. Houses one of the area's last flophouses upstairs at the State Hotel. When I lived in Ventura I wanted to renovate the bar, do plate glass windows so the patrons could gaze out onto Main Street, and then live in the old flop upstairs. I know the evils of gentrification, and I love a good dive bar like anyone, but this place is begging for a re-do. And the upsatirs could be a killer loft.
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