I started writing professionally about bars in Texas sixteen years ago, concentrating on my favorite category of watering hole, the dive bar, mainly because it can be divisive. That’s also why I wrote Texas Dives: Enduring Neighborhood Bars of the Lone Star State with Austin photographer Kirk Weddle after getting to know the people who own, work at, and frequent dive bars. I’ll save you $35 right now and reveal the book’s big lesson: nobody’s ever unhappy about being at a dive.After the book came out last year, people asked me: “How do you become a regular?” I responded with an anecdote. Back in 2012, upon finding the Triple Crown—a cinder-block building in San Marcos that was formerly a brothel and was always dark as…The post How to Become a Regular at a Texas Dive Bar appeared first on Texas Monthly.