Q. What is it supposed to be on the show? A. A bar. Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show? A. Somewhere in Miami. Q. When did we see it on the show? A. In Episode 2, of Season 5, "Hello Bandit". Angel is depressed because he found out that his new wife, Maria LaGuerta, has been hiding the fact that she has a fat bank account. We see Angel nursing a drink at a bar, talking with Vince Masuka next to him. An old acquaintance from the police department shows up and tells Angel that he heard that he had married Maria LaGuerta. Angel confirms it. The jackass then proceeds to make several disrespectful, off-color comments about Maria, so Angel beats the crap out of him. Q. What is it actually in real life? A. Two different bars. One for the exterior shot, and another for the interiors, (Neither of them is in Miami.) Q. Where can I find it in real life? A. The vast majority of this scene was shot inside Clancy's Irish Pub & Restaurant, which is at 803 E. Broadway, in Long Beach, CA. That's at the northwest corner of Alamitos & Broadway in downtown L.B, just a block south of the moving van rental place.

It's also about a mile east of the botanica and the park where they found the decapitated head, and not far from the church where they filmed Rita's funeral parlor, and from Shoreline Village.

( Clancy's has its own website at clancyslbpub.com.
)

The set dressers appear to have put up that flowery wallpaper seen behind Angel & Vince, but otherwise the place looks the same as usual.

All of the interior bar/fight scenes, with Angel & Vince, were shot inside Clancy's.




I shot this photo in October of 2010:




Here is an aerial photo of Clancy's. And here is a map link.


However, for the brief establishing shot of the bar's exterior, they resorted to stock footage of a bar in Dallas, of all places!

This exterior shot is of the M-Street Bar, at 3520 Greenville Ave, in Dallas, Texas:



( Here's a Google StreetView of that Dallas bar's exterior. )




That's the second odd use of stock footage that I've spotted early in this season.  The first was that strange shot of the ambulance racing down the street (in episode 3), which resorted to ancient, pre-1985 footage. And now this, a Dallas bar appearing in Miami?  ( C'mon guys, did they cut your budget? Or are you just messin' with me? ;)

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  In previous seasons, I've usually had to hunt down the locations after viewing the episodes, using clues from the various scenes.  By the 5th season, though, I'd developed a small group of fans, spies & tipsters who kept an eye out for Dexter filming in their neighborhoods, and would let me know in advance when something was about to film there.

Between those reports, and my own personal reconnaissance around town, by the time the first episode aired, I already knew most (but not all) of the filming locations, and only needed to watch the episodes and match up the scenes with the correct locations.

This group of helpful fans includes Kerry, Rick, Joel, Geoff, Ellen, Julie, Susan, Jeff, and others. My thanks to all of them.

This particular tip came from Joel. I had let him know about the downtown filming (around Drake Park and Shoreline Drive), and he went there to observe.  When he saw one of the production crew's vans exit the Shoreline lot, he followed them a short distance from Shoreline up to Clancy's, where he saw that filming was going on.  He also reported spotting David Zayas (Angel) out front wearing the usual Batista style.

Joel also sent me a few photos from the scene, including this one of Clancy's on the night they shot there:


(Thanks, Joel!)



So, how about that opening exterior shot of the "M-Street Bar"?

Since I knew that the scene had been shot at Clancy's, I was surprised to see a different bar used as the exterior establishing shot. But the bar, and its sign, looked real, so I went searching for it.

I didn't find it in Long Beach, or even in Los Angeles. Googling the name eventually turned up a bar by that name in Washington D.C., but Google StreetView told me that it looked nothing like that exterior shot.

Finally, Google turned up an M-Street Bar in Dallas, Texas. It seemed like a longshot (since the show almost always uses either L.A. or Miami locations), but I took a look, and sure enough, the Google StreetView was a perfect match.

Later, after the 2nd episode aired, I got emails from two new fans, one from Bridget and one from David Muir, who were kind enough to let me know that the M-Street Bar was in Dallas. (Thanks, you two!)