The soul of a dive bar is often found in its scratched countertops stained by decades of smoke, the low hum of neon signs and the regular who’s occupied the same stool for 40 years.
Those are the kinds of details that draw neighbors, college students and late-night workers into Snake and Jake’s Christmas Club Lounge. But the New Orleans shack lost a piece of its soul this week when Pabst Blue Ribbon discontinued Schlitz beer after more than a century.
Regulars poured into the dive Tuesday night and ordered rounds of Schlitz as a send-off. Dave Clements, owner of Snake and Jake’s, said “to hell with it” and drank the last cans alongside the crowd, not yet realizing it would be the last time. The distributor had already run out…