Comments (1) Best Dive Bar - 2010

Seven Seas

It's 5 p.m. on a steamy Tuesday, and the plumbers have disappeared. So too the electricians, the produce truck driver, and the neighborhood retiree in ratty golf clothes. Intrigued, you spot Jim, the welder wiping his brow, tossing his tools in his pickup and heading along Red Road. So you follow, past Coral Way, into the heart of West Miami's main artery, where Jim parks next to a rusty blue jalopy with a surfboard strapped to the roof and buoys dangling from the tail fins. The sign is a little confusing: "Se7as Bar," it says. But when you wander in, it's all forgotten: From floor to ceiling, the perfectly dim, smoky enclave is packed with yellowed nautical doodads: naked mermaid mastheads, wooden ship effigies, diver suits. And there, drinking dirt-cheap Buds around a solid wooden bar, are every workmanlike fellow and lady in the hood. The bartender knows their names. She'd like to know yours too.