The Best Cocktail Bars in the United States

A blood bank refrigerator and a roulette wheel anchor the bar at this speakeasy-themed cocktail bar in Capitol Hill, where vested bartenders work in front of shelves stacked with bitters and books. The high ceilings and striped wallpaper lean hard into the 1920s bit, and the room delivers on atmosphere even when the service runs a little transactional. Good for a serious drink in a room that at least committed to the costume.

Leopard-print stage, tartan wallpaper, red leather booths, and a baby grand with a jazz band squeezed in, all on a five-lane highway in Shorecrest. The Anderson is a craft cocktail bar that could not care less about beach-bar minimalism. One room goes full black on black; the other commits to New York kitsch so hard it loops back around to charming. The drinks, not the decor, tend to be the reason people come back.

The ground floor runs dark wood and dim light, with a long bar and clandestine booths; upstairs it's velvet couches and armchairs, like someone's very well-stocked living room. This Lincoln Avenue cocktail bar leans into an old-time saloon feel without making it a costume, pulling sixty-plus classics-leaning drinks organized by spirit and style. The Harry Johnson-style etchings on the menu are either charming or insufferable, depending on your mood.

The scallop-shaped pool behind this Art Deco cocktail bar is what most guests are actually aiming for, which makes the bar itself a pleasantly unhurried place to land. Andre Balazs owns the Raleigh Hotel around it, which explains the crowd that looks like it wandered off a casting call. Order something with gin, find a seat, and let the Collins Avenue faithful do their thing.

A plate-glass window in the exposed-brick wall looks straight into a working still, which tells you everything about what kind of cocktail bar this is. The Shanty is the front room of New York Distilling Company, so the gin in your glass traveled about twenty feet to get there. It sits on a quiet warehouse block in Greenpoint, easy to miss, which seems to suit the regulars just fine.

An unmarked door at the back of Cole's opens into a dimly lit cocktail bar where jazz plays low and Victorian oil lamps glow against wood-panelled walls. The late Sasha Petraske was a part owner, and the room feels exactly like something he'd have built: serious about its classic cocktails, quiet enough to hear the ice hit the glass, and a little too good at making you lose track of the hour.

The name comes from a bourbon cocktail on an old Range menu, which is the kind of origin story that tells you exactly what kind of bar this is. Gun-metal grey walls, bare wood floors, and 70s utilitarian furniture give Dogpatch's Third Rail a chill it takes a drink or two to shake. A neighborhood cocktail bar that doesn't perform warmth, and regulars seem to prefer it that way.

The vintage jukebox leans Glenn Miller and Rat Pack standards, which tells you everything about what kind of night Tosca Café is selling. This old-school North Beach cocktail bar has been around forever, all dark wood and faded glamour that a sympathetic restoration polished back to a shine. Come late, order something simple, and let the room do its thing. If the playlist sounds like your grandparents' wedding, you'll fit right in.

The elongated leaf-shaped island bar, ringed in mustard yellow and sage green stools, sets the tone here: grown-up, art deco, easy jazz in the background. This is a proper cocktail bar where sitting at the counter is the point, not a fallback while you wait for a table. The bartenders are worth watching, and the cocktail menu gives you plenty of reasons to stay put.

The cocktail list pulls from the shelves around you, which tells you exactly what kind of place this is: part upscale liquor store, part proper bar, and committed to being both at once. Depending on which Phoenix-area location you land in, the extras might include a golf simulator, pinball, a pizzeria, or a cigar lounge. The drinks run from spritzes to stirred classics, and the bottles for sale are genuinely worth browsing.

The bookshelf at the back of this Bishop Arts cocktail bar is not for reading. Pull it open and you'll find a hidden back room that rotates global themes, which tracks for a place called Atlas. Out front, Aperol spritzes share the bar with Lone Stars, and the crowd runs from locals to tourists to first dates doing their nervous best. The pho, from a co-owner's family recipe, is a legitimately strange and welcome thing to order at midnight.

Pinball machines and candlelight set the tone at this casual gay cocktail bar on 16th Street, where the vibe leans more neighborhood hangout than high-drama nightclub. Lounge seating, a patio, and daily drink specials keep regulars coming back through the week. The menu covers craft cocktails, bar snacks, and specialty shots, which is all you really need when the room is this relaxed.

There's no sign in the dim Preston Tower corridor that leads here, which is either a design choice or a filter for the impatient. Bernie's is a cocktail bar with art deco bones, a playlist running Quincy Jones and Stevie Nicks, and drinks poured by bartenders who treat a proper old fashioned as a matter of professional pride. The phone doesn't eat first at the well-dressed bar, which suits the regulars just fine.

The whole room is dressed as a vintage luxury train car, TVs where the windows would be, all looping passing landscapes in sync. It's a cocktail bar, a narrow one, with a chandelier whose crystals would really benefit from something rumbling the floorboards. The drinks lean into the theme, shifting and a little secretive, the kind you order twice without quite knowing why. The bathrooms apparently have their own story, though you'll have to go find out.

The fried chicken gets a 24-hour brine before it hits the fryer, which tells you something about the kitchen's priorities at this Deep Ellum cocktail bar. Six house cocktails are priced like they want you to order a second round, and the vibe is the kind of loose, unhurried thing that feels increasingly rare on Commerce Street. The Dallas Observer handed it Best Fried Chicken in 2024, so the secret is somewhat out, but the room still has its own quiet momentum.

Sangria in towers and a drink menu that lists "mimosas" as the soup of the day sets the tone fast at this sports bar on Greenville Ave. Every seat inside, on the patio, or up on the rooftop faces a TV, which makes the place essentially one large, well-lubricated viewing party. Best for a sunny afternoon when the patio fills up and someone's local team is on.

Gold palm fronds hang over the bar like a permanent vacation has been declared, and the drinks menu at this Cuban cocktail bar treats rum the way a serious wine list treats Burgundy. The daiquiri and mojito get thoughtful treatment alongside wilder tropical builds. The same team runs Pigtails and Rough Rider, so the pedigree tracks. Pink tiles, cozy booths, and food to keep things grounded.

Vintage arcade cabinets run on Cobra-stamped tokens, which tells you everything about the vibe before you've touched a joystick. This cocktail bar and arcade in downtown Phoenix covers its walls in local murals, pours signature drinks with names like Garbage Pail Kids and Punch Out, and hosts Valley DJs on weekends. When the crowd hits comic-con density, an anime-themed overflow lounge a few doors down offers Japanese import games and cocktails served in fugu-shaped mugs.

A 99-tap draft list is the kind of thing that sounds made up until you're standing in front of it. This Deep Ellum bar and restaurant sprawls across a 10,000-square-foot dog-friendly patio, with heaters for the nights when Dallas pretends it has winters. Cocktails lean creative alongside the craft beer deep dive, and the kitchen runs brunch and bar food that takes itself seriously enough to matter.

A golden goose on an exterior black door is the only sign you're in the right place. Goose Bar is a speakeasy tucked behind Goodwins on Lower Greenville, warm-lit and quietly pleased with itself, the overhead mural instructing you to "hang in there" with no further explanation. The cocktails lean creative without being exhausting, and the crowd has mostly figured out how to drink without making it a whole thing.

Five feet of fried mozzarella sticks is the opening argument here. Happiest Hour is a sprawling bar and grill near the American Airlines Center, with a rooftop full of lounge seating, a big downstairs bar, and a lawn spilling out between them. It is loud and unapologetically crowd-pleasing, the kind of place that doesn't wait for you to have fun. Ample TVs cover every game, and the pregame energy rarely fully leaves.

Red-lit and tucked into a corner of Bishop Arts that requires a little intention to find, LadyLove is a lounge and dance bar that somehow calibrated the music at exactly the volume where you can still finish a sentence. The crowd skews queer and curious, the patio turns strangers into regulars, and the house cocktails lean tart and a little spicy. DJ nights run on Saturdays.

On Monday nights, the owner sits down at the piano and plays, which tells you everything about what kind of bar this is. Louie Louie's is a dueling piano bar in Deep Ellum run by musicians, so the stage gets actual attention. The signature move is ordering a cocktail by the bowl, a communal pour meant for a small group, which pairs well with the kind of night that ends later than planned.

The name nods to an 1800s Dallas "pleasure resort" that served beer seven days a week and kept live animals on the premises. The bar on Henderson Avenue skips the animals but leans into the rest, with cocktails, a solid run of Texas beers on tap, and an indoor-outdoor layout that stays lively without feeling like a scene. Food bites keep things going, and the bar staff moves fast on that first drink, which is the only speed that matters.

A chalkboard of rotating cocktail specials and a basement bathed so completely in red light that no other color survives the trip down. This speakeasy-style cocktail bar is tucked beneath the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel, behind a mural and open only two nights a week, which is exactly the energy. Vintage velvet chairs and low tables give it the feel of a sitting room someone forgot to leave, and the drinks arrive in coupes and crystal-cut rocks glasses.

The décor lands somewhere in the early 1900s, all dark wood and barroom nostalgia, which makes the drink program feel like a deliberate prank. This Uptown cocktail bar carries over a hundred craft cocktails, the Ramos Gin Fizz among them, built around what the team calls a "progressive" approach to mixing. The State Thomas neighborhood keeps it grounded; the menu keeps it weird in the best possible direction.

Eighteen floors above Mill Avenue, this open-air rooftop bar and pool lounge sits atop The Westin Tempe, claiming the highest perch of any outdoor bar in the Valley. The bar itself is the only covered spot up there, so order first, then wander the full 360 degrees: A Mountain one way, the Mill Avenue Bridge glowing at night the other. Seasonal cocktails and local Arizona beers do the heavy lifting, with flatbreads and tacos for ballast.

Three outdoor patios, one of them rooftop, is a lot of square footage dedicated to a Dallas evening. Sundown at Granada is a live music bar on Greenville Avenue, sitting next door to the Granada Theater and pulling some of the same touring acts onto its own stage. Inside, the lighting is kept low in the way bars should be. The bar staff moves fast, and the kitchen punches above the usual bar-food ceiling, which makes it an easy place to stay all night.

A red light over an unmarked alley door is the only sign you've found the right place. The Branca Room is a speakeasy-style Argentine cocktail bar tucked behind Chimichurri Bistro in Bishop Arts, lit by crystal chandeliers and hung with Argentine art. The drinks lean into amaro and vermouth, and the cocktail menu has a sense of theater, one arrives in an IV bag.

A red light on a side street marks the entrance, and from there you're following the speakeasy script to the letter: website password, narrow hallway, bookcase door. What's behind it is a dark cocktail bar with leather seating, Victorian details, and locked cabinets of private-label spirits. The drinks lean technical, with bacon fat-washed bourbon and toasted tortilla bitters among the building blocks. The kind of place that makes suburbanites feel delightfully conspiratorial.

A dark, cozy cocktail bar in Oak Cliff with a faint old Hollywood atmosphere inside and a sprawling dog-friendly patio out back that leans more Sunday afternoon than Saturday night. Happy hour runs seven days a week, which is either generous or a cry for help, and the classic cocktails are priced accordingly. A tight food menu punches beyond bar snacks, with scratch-made pastas showing up alongside the usual suspects.

A small Bob Ross shrine materialized organically behind the bar here, one piece at a time, and nobody stopped it. That sets the tone for this cocktail bar just west of Bishop Arts, where the drinks are serious but the attitude is neighborly. The classics menu leans on genuine pillars of the canon, and happy hour runs deep into the week. Weeknights feel like catching up; weekends feel like something else entirely.

The balcony patio goes by its own name, Carnelian Bay, which tells you most of what you need to know about this Fremont cocktail bar and diner. Margaritas come in disco balls, Jell-O shots taste like homemade jam, and pimento cheese arrives on fried saltines. The steamed burger at happy hour has a cult following among people who take their diner food seriously while pretending not to.

A tiny sake bar tucked next to Kamonegi in Fremont, Hannyatou is the kind of place where the servers will talk you through a flight without making you feel like a student. The snacks, from the same team next door, are good enough that you may accidentally eat dinner here when you came only to drink. The habanero umeshu, when available, tends to inspire the kind of enthusiasm people usually reserve for sports.

Rattan furniture, grass skirts, and cocktails arriving in vessels that would embarrass a prop department set the tone at this tiki cocktail bar on East Central. The drinks are genuinely stiff under all the kitsch, and the signature comes in a schooner glass, fuschia-hued and finished with a flaming sugar cube on a lemon slice. South Pacific camp done with a straight face, which somehow makes it funnier.

Getting into this off-Strip speakeasy means ringing a football, which feels like a sentence from a fever dream, and then supplying a password you only get by booking ahead. A host in a vest and flat cap works the room while jazz singers handle the stage, and you can request an unlikely cover from the lounge. It's an Italian steakhouse in costume, so the red leather booths fill up with tourists.

A daisy painted on the facade of what looks like a converted lobby is all the sign you get, so consider this your heads-up. Daisy Lounge is a speakeasy tucked into a Circle C Ranch strip mall, far from the usual Downtown clusters, with built-in bookshelves, armchairs, and a multi-floor floral interior that reads more cozy library than hidden bar. The cocktail menu runs classics alongside house originals. Book ahead.

A 15-seat marble-counter cocktail bar in Edmonds where the only food on the menu is a brie and baguette platter, which turns out to be exactly what you wanted with your French 75. Textbook coupe drinks are the point: aviations, corpse revivers, the occasional off-menu jungle bird. On a Friday it's a sardine-tin singalong; on a slow Monday the counter still fills fast. The kind of neighborhood bar people immediately claim as their own.

Dark Arts is a cocktail lounge hidden behind the fireplace at Grey Witch, which means you enter by walking past some LED flames like a very polite arsonist. Inside is a hunting lodge gone gothic, with animal bones, tarot art, and dried wildflowers. The drinks lean on warming spices and herbs, and there's a deep tobacco list. It's only open a few nights a week, so check Instagram before you go knocking on hearths.

The password comes from their social media, which is either charmingly old-fashioned or exactly what a speakeasy is now. Either way, the third-floor of one of Orlando's oldest buildings is a genuinely dim, close-quarters cocktail bar where the drinks are stiff and the couples are very comfortable with each other. A small outdoor ledge offers escape when the room gets cozy. Dress the part and look like you belong.

Getting in means walking through a brightly lit sundry shop that sells newspapers and cherry blossom Kit Kats, then pushing a bookcase that leans inward to reveal a dim cocktail bar. Red lanterns glow overhead, neon tigers face off above leather booths, and the Japanese whiskey list rewards lingering. It sits in the Resorts World food hall, so expect conventioneers feeling very clever.

A neon sign reading "Good Vibes Only" hangs on the living green wall, which tells you something about the room and something about yourself for liking it anyway. This swanky sushi bar on East Colonial does Japanese with Pan-Asian riffs, and the marble bar stays busy most nights. The omakase is where the kitchen gets interesting. A James Beard nominee two years running, and a Michelin Selected pick.

Cocktail names like "Stay the Fuck Outta Malibu" tell you more about the room than any décor description could. This cocktail bar shares a wall with Will's Pub and the self-described metal tiki bar next door, and the crowd arrives ready to argue about politics between rounds of rotating seasonal drinks. The rooms are oddly shaped and a little dingy, with French Provincial details that got lost along the way, which somehow makes the whole thing work.

The bar at London Chop House sits underground in the Financial District, dimly lit enough that you'll swear it's still 1985 and someone's about to close a deal on a handshake. It's a proper cocktail bar with martinis, gimlets, and Negronis that nudge the classics sideways, plus a cigar and billiards room attached. Dress like you have an expense account, even if the ghosts of the three-martini lunch are the only ones who do.

The unmarked door is the whole point. Tucked behind the sushi counter at the Venetian, this speakeasy bar keeps a low profile by design, with a full bar, ube espresso martinis, and snacks that skew sharper than the hand rolls out front. Convention-goers grabbing a boxed set to-go have no idea it's back there, which is more or less how the regulars prefer it.

A speakeasy above a pho shop is a concept that earns its own zip code, and Phocific Standard Time delivers on the premise. The Vietnamese coffee martini has become a reason people climb the stairs specifically, but the bar snacks, caramelized crab dip with sesame saltines among them, make lingering easy. Named one of The Infatuation's most fun Seattle bars, it's a cocktail bar that happens to pair very well with whatever you just had downstairs.

They take your phone at the door, lock it away, and mean it. Hidden behind a casual sandwich cafe downtown, Powder Room is an art deco speakeasy where table service and reservations are both required, which sets the tone. Cocktails run from light and herbal to firmly stirred, and the menu is organized by mood rather than spirit. A good place to be present, as they say, whether you planned that or not.

Secret Pizza is a counter slice shop on the third floor of the Cosmopolitan, reached by a hallway of Rat Pack-era record sleeves that makes the whole thing feel like a bit. The secret got out years ago. Now it's a New York-style slice reheated until it could laminate your fingers, handed over by a quick-moving crew to bleary-eyed clubgoers who eat standing up in a tiny square room or carry it off into the night.