LGBTQ-friendly, slightly refined ‘five-star dive bar’ opens in Mansion Flats

Mike Gouddou and Mark Landregan moved to Sacramento a year ago for reasons shared by many Bay Area expats: lower cost of living, and staying within a day trip from old friends.

Yet at 59 and 55 years old, Gouddou and Landregan are slightly more senior than the Silicon Valley crowd moving east along I-80, and Sacramento’s slower pace was another incentive. After working at and owning bars in San Francisco for the last 19 years, they wanted to run a casual sit-down restaurant and tavern where people could relax.

Bear Dive opened Wednesday at 1330 H St. in Mansion Flats, where Chaise Lounge stood until earlier this year. It’s been slathered with a fresh coat of paint, including an enormous bear mural over the kitchen door, and tables, chairs and gray carpeting now discretely cover a parking-lot-turned-patio.

A head-chef-by-committee kitchen churns out bar food with a bit of added care. Housemade queso uses Colby Jack cheese, heavy cream and butter instead of Velveeta, meat is never frozen and fries get deep-fried twice to come out extra crispy without losing their fluffy center.

“Fresh food tastes better. Good ingredients taste better. Yet it’s still food that we’re all familiar with,” Landregan said. “Nothing fancy, no strange ingredients, just good stuff ... we’re looking to be a five-star dive bar.”

A cocktail list including palomas, Moscow mules and Ciroc vanilla martinis runs slightly more exciting than a typical dive bar, and draft beers range from domestic basics to local IPAs. All drinks and most food are $10 or less.

It’s been 14 years since Gouddou and Landregan opened DaDa Bar, a hybrid cocktail lounge/art gallery in San Francisco’s Union Square closed indefinitely due to social distancing restrictions. They also owned The Gallery Lounge and Buck Tavern, both in SoMa, in the 2000s.

Buck Tavern was popular with LGBTQ softball and flag football teams, Gouddou said, and rainbow beer can cutouts line the pallets fencing in Bear Dive’s back patio. The bar’s name, if it wasn’t clear, is a play on words as well.

Bear Dive will be calmer and perhaps more suited to an older crowd than the Lavender Heights bars a mile away. Yet while Landregan called the sports bar “an LGBTQ place,” he and Gouddou hope to attract customers of all sexual orientations as a neighborhood watering hole, they said.

“Mike and I love to go out, and we love those bars (in Lavender Heights). This is just a little bit different,” Landregan said. “We won’t be a nightclub over here. We’re definitely a restaurant destination, a casual place to watch a game and hang out.”

Watch parties will have to wait until next year, with all of Bear Dive’s TVs inside and outdoor dining on the brink of elimination anyway due to rising coronavirus cases. An outdoor projector is in the works for spring along with more fake turf and lawn chairs, but everything until New Year’s is considered a soft opening, Gouddou said.

Breakfast and late-night food service are both being floated for post-pandemic service, and lunch seems like a relatively solid bet once the nearby SAFE Credit Union Convention Center is completed and downtown foot traffic increases. For now, hours are 4-9:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 2-9:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 2:39 PM.