Story by Spencer Griffith | Photos by Caitlin Penna

To visitors walking along Wilmington Street in Raleigh’s continually revitalizing downtown core, Slim’s Downtown stands out from the sleek interiors and flashy facades of its newer neighbors because of what it doesn’t have.

As co-owner Van Alston describes it, a good bar has “an absence of things that suck” and, other than a handful of shelves stuffed with snapshots, sketches, and a slew of pop culture paraphernalia, Slim’s is the definition of a dive. Billing itself as “Raleigh’s premier music hallway,” the shotgun layout requires carefully squeezing past patrons at the bar—even when well short of its 100-person capacity—to reach the small stage, the simple back patio, or the relatively spacious second floor with its pool table and booths.

What makes Slim’s special is that it’s home to a community as colorful as Alston, who explains that the bar is made for people a little out of the ordinary, like him and his friends. “It’s for people that aren’t average—they’re fun to talk to, interesting to be around, and almost a little dangerous.”

That scene is largely made up of the often-intersecting circles of service industry personnel and local musicians, groups he’s hung with for decades. Alston has worked in bars and restaurants since college, eventually realizing that he’d earn more money doing that than he would teaching history, which he studied at North Carolina State University.

Alston opened his first Raleigh bar in the 90s. The now-defunct Comet Lounge sat next to The Brewery, a dingy music venue he co-owned for a stretch on Hillsborough Street. He added Lakeside Lounge, with the assistance of the owners of the original bar in the East Village, to his Raleigh portfolio in 1999, though he quickly realized that the model needed tweaks to work in Raleigh and soon became the sole proprietor and rebranded the bar as Slim’s.

Slim’s has not only outlasted its East Village cousin, which closed in 2012, it’s also carved out a vital role in Raleigh’s music scene as an important incubator for fledgling local bands and burgeoning tour acts.