We treat the space as our second house, our second living room itself. Our goal is for you to find comfort here. In the front room, you'll find a chill, living-room-style bar with couches bellied right up to the counter. The back room hosts everything from karaoke and live shows to drag bingo. Outside, the patio offers lawn games and a relaxed atmosphere—and yes, we’re dog-friendly inside and outside! Our house corgi, Lady, is usually sniffing around saying hi.

We think she’s the best bar dog around. Here are some facts about her!

Birthday: 11/29/2020

Breed: Pembroke corgi

Origin of name: Levi waited nearly a month for this lovely creature to show its personality. With many customers offering ideas, slowly it became apparent that this cutie was in everyone’s hearts and she was a little Lady.

Favorite customer: Woodchuck, it was the first person she saw as a puppy at 5BAR

Favorite snack: bacon bits (please don’t feed her though!)

Routine: Morning time is full of yawns, stretchies, back to bed while Levi gets ready, light meal, light walk, yawns, back to bed while Levi takes care of computer work over coffee. In the mid afternoon Lady might get a walk up to the Castle to catch up on more work for Levi, where she gets a nice nap on the big couch. Early evening its time for a big dinner, big walkie towards Buchel and a Peck then back. If its light outside she will likely give a few welcome ‘borks’ to customers with a light tail wag. Then its smooth sailing resting near a couch and begging for ice cubes from the bartenders until she falls asleep.

Favorite other dog: TBD

It was an auto-text gone wrong. Levi texted an old drinking pal “When are we going to buy a divebar?” and the ‘dive-bar’ populated to five-bar. They spent the rest of that day floating the Sugar River and talking about a dive-bar that had great cocktails.

The more they talked, the more the number 5 showed up. $5 would be a fine price for a nice rail spirit drink. There’s 5 senses: hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling. There are also 5 perceptions of flavor: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, umami. Then the big idea came, for rotating a menu each month with 5 different drinks around a centralized themed. Boom, 5BAR was on its way to becoming a real thing.

That was summer 2017, the concept kept evolving till the soft opening in October 2020. The concept went through a few good ideas and many bad ideas. Ultimately landing on 5BAR being a comfy bar with a menu to touch all 5 senses, rotating cocktail menu that has 1 theme and 5 drinks.

The bar is supposed to feel familiar and cozy, like a place you’ve already been to. We also call the vibes ‘divebar-chic,’ which implies a more fancy and feminine ambiance.