OK, CHILL , geezers. When I say "old-man bar" – and I do say "old-man bar," and I'm looking at you, Joe and Josie Drinking-Stiff – I really mean "good, solid, old dive bar." The kind Grandpa would frequent until Grandma sent a Drinking-Stiff young 'un over to fetch him home for supper.

So hold the snotty hipsters, troublemaking hoodies, braying yuppie trash, snarked-up irony-merchants, gentrifying "vintage people," designer handbags, and pomegranate-and-gin cool-ade transfusions. Hold them between your legs. And while you're at it, ditch the attitude. You want aromatherapeutic candles? Try the aroma of Uncle Stan's work shirts. Tapas or sushi? Here, have a pickled pig's ear, slogged from a jar behind the bar. Give me a club that keeps it simple, stupid, rather than clobbering me over the head with a choice of 2,002 microbrews. A joint that has the not-so-well-scrubbed veneer of drunks, drinks, and drubbings long past. A little nightspot with some warmth in its well-pickled heart for all us old farts – past, present, and future. And, that said, the winner of Bars and Clubs' first-ever King of Bars award is ...

The 3300 Club

I think I most love this place for its fat and substantial metal blinds, shielding long, tall pre-1906-quake windows, above the leather booths. They cast late-afternoon shadows that make me feel like decorative bimbette Stefania Sandrelli in The Conformist or some hussy named Brigid O'Shaughnessy, hustling for a hunk of the Maltese Falcon. You've also got to love the corner location (right across 29th Street is Good Frickin' Chicken, as well as mucho Mission nosherías – carry the chow out and have it along with your daily pint of vitamins at the "33"), the high Victorian ceilings, the framed B&W photos of family and friends and local landmarks, and owner Nancy Keane's paintings of "White Lipstick" ladies, inspired by the chapbook of the same title by poet Geri Digiorno, one of many who've read at the club's Tuesday poetry nights. Weirder still are the rough murals in the men's room (where a laughing, buxom nudie points down at, they say diplomatically, the urinal) and the ladies' lounge (an eye peeks through a fence at you as you're seated on your porcelain throne).

The 3300 Club began life in 1897 as the Graywood, a hotel, restaurant, and watering hole operated by distiller Henry Grauerholz until prohibition spoiled everyone's fun in the '20s and the bar was filled by a bank. Grauerholz returned to the distilling biz and resumed operation of the 33 in – as luck and poetry would have it – 1933. Purchasing the bar from Grauerholz's descendant in 1957, Keane's late husband, Jack, and his partner, Tom Lane, took pride in the 33's identity as a "strong union bar" and its place as a source of comfort, relief, and, of course, spirits for local Irish, Italian, German, and Latino working-class revelers. Find it at 3300 Mission, SF. (415) 826-6886, www.3300club.com.

Next up: bars with DJ nights. Email your nominations.

Other faves

Buffalo were once at home on the range – or rather, the grill – at nightspot, restaurant, and C&W dance hall DeMarco's 23 Club, a shining light for vintage boozehounds in the village of stars. They're gone now, but the country, bluegrass, and rockabilly sounds have stuck around. 23 Visitacion, Brisbane. (415) 467-7717.

It survived its move from the Women's Building with grumpy spirit intact. It survived the demise of kindred old-man bars like fluorescent-milkshake-stand-from-hell McCarthy's (now Cha Cha Cha). The Dovre Club will survive you. 1498 Valencia, SF. (415) 285-4169.

The full phone-book name is a bit self-conscious, but you can't deny that the old men still turn out in droves for beat institution Spec's 12 Adler Museum Café. 12 William Saroyan Pl., SF. (415) 421-4112.