The Best Places to Drink and Do in the United States

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.

The gripmen still turn these cars by hand at the turntable, which is the whole point. The Powell-Hyde line is the last manually operated cable car system anywhere, and riding it feels less like transit and more like clinging to a slowly tilting porch. Standing on the running board while the car crests a hill makes a strong case for handrails. Most riders are tourists, which you also are, so just lean into it.

A former Army post turned National Park, the Presidio is the kind of place where eucalyptus groves give way to cliffside overlooks, historic bunkers, and a walk along Crissy Field that ends directly beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Andy Goldsworthy's natural installations are scattered throughout, the Tunnel Tops park has lawns and food trucks for easy afternoons, and the Tennessee Hollow Trail winds through a restored wetlands thick with birds.

Professor Pizza is a casual West Town pizzeria run by a competitive pizza maker, which means the pies come with a résumé. The tavern-style thin crust cuts to cracker-snap, and the deluxe pepperoni gets hot honey and whipped ricotta, as if the sausage needed a little more going on. The Grand Avenue spot adds two more pie styles, and the pizzas turn up backstage at comedy clubs around town. Eater includes it among Chicago's best tavern-style thin-crust spots.

Moroccan tile, velvet banquettes, and flickering lanterns set the scene in a former speakeasy beneath the Marrakech hotel. Mentalist and magician Jay Alexander runs weekend-only shows in the 35-seat theater, blending mind-reading, human lie detector bits, and sleight-of-hand with enough comedy to keep the skeptics from squirming. The evening opens with close-up magic over drinks before moving into the main show, which is as interactive as it sounds.

The Snøhetta-designed expansion gave SFMOMA a half-block-long living wall of native plants and a rippling fiberglass facade meant to echo the Bay, so the building makes an argument before you're even inside. The modern and contemporary collection runs deep, and the museum store is genuinely its own destination, stocked with San Francisco landmark chess pieces and Lichtenstein-inspired ceramics. Clear a full day.

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.

Shelby is a basement cocktail bar in the Financial District, where finding the door is the first round of the evening. Downstairs, the drinks run from a proper espresso martini to a pineapple Averna negroni riff, backed by shared plates like beef tartare and a mushroom dish that politely impersonates escargot. It was a James Beard semifinalist for outstanding bar program. Book on Resy so you only get lost once.

Side Hustle Lounge is a cocktail bar tucked into the Belt Alley, next door to its partner restaurant Mootz Pizza, and it skips the 1920s speakeasy costume for midcentury modern with a retro Vegas streak. The drinks run bright, sometimes electric, with a Detroit lean, like the Detroit Sour's red wine float. Pizza from Mootz arrives alongside, so it's grandpa's basement, if grandpa had a much better bar.

A 150-foot Ferris wheel on the Fisherman's Wharf waterfront, lit by a million LED lights and very aware of the London Eye comparison. Each of the 36 climate-controlled gondolas holds up to six people, and a single ride runs about four rotations, giving you unobstructed sightlines to the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and the hills stacked behind the city. Clear nights are the obvious move.

The lighting in this tiki cocktail bar inside Tuffy's Bottle Shop lands somewhere between "jungle shrine" and the Colonel Kurtz scene in Apocalypse Now, which tells you everything about the mood before you've ordered anything. The tiki program goes well past Mai Tais, and the vessels the drinks arrive in are half the show. Two-hour sittings keep things moving; pace yourself on the namesake Suffering Bastards, or your morning will know about it.

Terrazzo floors and a name that promises sunshine it has no intention of delivering, since this cocktail bar on Mills Avenue doesn't open until evening. The vibe skews beachy and unhurried, with tropical, creatively built drinks that have made it a quiet favorite among people who take their rum seriously. It's a sister bar to the Guesthouse, and the two share a sensibility: thoughtful without being fussy.

A former highway reclaimed from cars and handed back to the wind, Sunset Dunes is a two-mile coastal promenade running along San Francisco's western edge with the Pacific sitting right there the whole time. Public murals mark the route, Outer Sunset cafes are steps away, and the mood is somewhere between a long exhale and a Sunday with nowhere to be. Bring a stroller, a bike, or just good shoes.

Rabbits patrol the back patio garden while you eat pizza and drink draft craft beer, which is about as good a setup as Cannon Beach offers. Surfcrest is a convenience store first, with a few aisles of snacks and souvenirs, but walk past the refrigerators and there's a small counter turning out hand-tossed 16-inch pies. Get a table outside if you can, and let the rabbits judge your slice choices.

The collapsed concrete walls of an old saltwater bathhouse sit right at the Pacific's edge, flooded and open to the sky, looking less like San Francisco and more like something Rome left behind. Hikers and photographers make the pilgrimage, especially around sunset, when the still water turns the ruins into a mirror. The caves along the shore offer the best angle if you're here for the photo, which, be honest, you probably are.

Fifty wines on self-service taps is the organizing idea here, a wine bar inside Chattahoochee Food Works where you load a card and pour your own 1.5-ounce samples until something clicks. A sommelier runs the place, so the selection is serious without being precious. Bottles on tap are available to take home, and a small food menu of charcuterie boards and paninis gives you enough to keep going without turning it into dinner.

The apothecary shelves and absinthe selection set the mood before you order anything. This cocktail bar in Winter Park has been doing serious, seasonally sourced drinks long enough to have inspired a generation of imitators, and the bartenders here still treat the work like a graduate seminar. Patience is part of the deal; a well-built drink takes as long as it takes. Literate regulars seem to mind the wait least of all.

Mules come topped with torched marshmallows and rosemary here, which tells you immediately that this is not your average neighborhood bar, even if it very much looks like one. Mismatched vintage sofas, a fireplace, and bartenders who seem genuinely happy to see you give The Nook the feel of a cozy cabin that someone accidentally stocked with serious cocktails. West Seattle locals treat it like a living room, which is more or less what it is.

The lounge at the Wayfarer has been around forever, tucked inside a low-slung, wood-accented building steps from the beach, with Haystack Rock framed through the window. It leans into whiskey, and the bar program swings seasonal: hot toddies and Irish coffee when the Oregon coast does its worst, blueberry lavender lemonade spiked with vodka when it relents. The kind of cozy corner where date night actually feels like one.

The restaurant's name painted across the side of the building sets the tone before you're even inside. Tori Tori is a Mills District izakaya, meaning you'll spend a happy evening moving between yakitori skewers, creative sake cocktails, and fried rice packed with crab. No reservations, so the drill is arriving early or accepting your fate in the line out front, which most regulars seem to take as a point of pride.

The entrance is a gated alley door with a buzzer, which already tells you something about the evening ahead. Trona is a speakeasy cocktail bar in Central East Austin that draws equally from Mexico and Japan, so mezcal and tequila share the back bar with Japanese whisky. The space runs narrow with a small patio, and reservations are the move. Bringing a date here feels a little smug, which is kind of the point.

Villa Nova is a no-frills, family-run pizzeria in suburban Stickney, the kind of place where the pie arrives square-cut, the way thin-crust tavern pizza is supposed to. The sausage is fennel-forward and left in chunky, meatball-ish clumps, which is a bold choice for a topping and a good one. It's been around forever, so expect regulars who haven't looked at the menu in years. Eater included it among Chicago's best tavern-style thin-crust spots.

A wine shop and tasting room tucked into Edgewood, steps from the Candler Park-Edgewood MARTA station, which makes the flight of three half-pours feel almost responsible. The daily wine flights rotate, and you can also order by the glass or pick up a bottle to take home. A patio out front catches good weather, and the sandwich shop next door means nobody has to drink on an empty stomach.

Tetsuya Wakuda made Las Vegas his US debut, reportedly because the Strip's energy reminded him of Shinjuku, which is either a compliment or a warning depending on your tolerance for spectacle. This fine dining room inside The Venetian pulls Japanese seafood, Canadian lobster, and Tasmanian oysters into a menu that moves between traditional and contemporary Japanese cooking. A hidden omakase room exists for those who know to ask, with rare whisky alongside the meal.

WG Pizzas is a Lakeview tavern-style pizzeria, a spin-off of an old suburban Highwood joint that has been feeding Lake County for ages. The crust is cut thin but keeps a few proud bubbles at the edges, so it lands chewier than the cracker-crisp stuff, closer to what South Side spots turn out. Order online, grab a BLT pie, and mind the monthly chef takeovers, which are a good excuse to pretend you planned ahead.

Zarella is a River North tavern-style pizzeria run by the Boka group, which means the thin, cornmeal-dusted pies come with a cocktail menu and a downstairs speakeasy lounge. Two well-known Chicago chefs developed the crusts, and the toppings include mortadella and all-beef pepperoni, so expect River North prices for what is, technically, bar pizza. Eater has named it among the city's best tavern-style pizza spots.

The copper bar catches the afternoon light in a way that makes you want to order a Bloody Mary before you've even sat down. Zuni is a bi-level California bistro that's been a fixture on Market Street forever, shaped like a triangle and decorated like someone with actual taste. The wood-fired chicken for two, served with a warm bread salad, is the dish regulars have been quietly hoarding for decades.

The menu is divided into Acte I, Acte II, and Acte III, which tells you everything about the neighborhood this French brasserie has anchored for decades. Hayes Valley locals and pre-curtain opera crowds fill the room most nights, and the kitchen leans into French classics with a fondness for deconstruction. The beverage program keeps pace, with seasonal cocktails and a French 75 built on a French single malt that somehow feels obvious in retrospect.

Tiger-striped wood, tile-topped bars, and hanging light tubes give this Capitol Hill cocktail bar a look that's somehow both designed-within-an-inch-of-its-life and still easy to be in. It shares a back door with the pasta restaurant Spinasse but runs on its own logic, with small plates and a drinks list to match. Date-night couples fill the tables while bartenders occasionally step out to take orders, keeping the whole thing warmer than the room suggests.

The bar at Au Cheval is the part of the diner you can sit at without a two-hour wait, assuming the wait stays tolerable, and the whole place runs on dim lighting, a cocktail list, and the knowledge that a griddled burger with a fried egg is coming either way. It's a moody, no-frills diner-bar, and the cocktails do real work while you stare at the people who got the table. Difford's Guide gives it four stars.

The bartender here is a fourth-generation New Orleanian who will mix your Ramos Gin Fizz while narrating its entire biography. Bar Uncommon is a cocktail bar tucked into the Renaissance Pere Marquette, with the spare, hotel-adjacent look you'd expect, but Chris McMillian, one of the founders of the Museum of the American Cocktail, is the reason regulars overlook the lobby entrance. Classics, made the old way, with a history lecture included at no extra charge.

A red light above an unmarked door in a Chelsea coffee shop is the only signal that there's a cocktail bar behind it. Once through, the room opens into flocked wallpaper, fringed lampshades, and an antique copper bathtub sitting squarely in the middle of things, which everyone photographs and then pretends they weren't going to. The seven-seat copper bar is the calmer alternative. Dressed-up but not stiff, and a long way from the espresso machine out front.

A wood-stone oven dominates the back of this cocktail bar on Valencia, turning out pizza while the bartenders run a tight menu of drinks built on a few well-chosen flavors rather than a paragraph of modifiers. The room hits that sweet spot between lively and unpretentious, with filament bulbs over the bar and a crowd that looks like they found the place before it was a thing, even though everyone has found it by now.

A black and white marble floor runs from the front door all the way back through the bar, past the restaurant, and out into a quiet courtyard, putting a lot of physical distance between you and Bourbon Street without much effort. The cocktail bar leans into New Orleans classics like the Vieux Carré and Ramos gin fizz alongside bottled punches and house recipes built on acid phosphate and champagne vinegar, which is not a sentence you read every day.

Rum drinks without a single plastic volcano or flaming garnish in sight. Cane & Table is a cocktail bar that calls itself "Proto Tiki," rooting its menu in the centuries of trade between rum-producing islands before the tiki craze gave everything a grass skirt. The room on Decatur Street feels genuinely New Orleans, which helps. Pisco Punch and signature coladas share the menu, and the whole thing moves like a history lesson you'd actually stay for.

Bare cement walls, a rope-strung ceiling, and Edison bulbs doing almost nothing to warm the place up: Churchill is a neighborhood cocktail bar that leans into its chill rather than fighting it. Early-90s hip hop keeps things honest, the cocktails are carefully made, and the bourbon-spiced nuts are the kind of detail that earns loyalty. Car headlights sweep through the windows as drivers take the Market Street turn, which adds a bit of unplanned theater.

The name comes from Aristophanes: "Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine so I may wet my mind and say something clever." An intimate neighborhood wine bar connected by a knocked-through wall to the Cork & Bottle shop next door, Clever leans into its origins without being precious about them. The list is serious, the cocktails are well made, and the beers are worth a look too, which is either scope creep or just good sense.

Frenchmen Street runs on live music, but D.B.A. is there for the beer, the spirits, and the wine, with bands as a bonus rather than the point. Two redwood-lined rooms share a central bar, one leaning lounge, one leaning jazz club, both dim and ceiling-fan slow. The New York sister bar genes show a little, which gives this New Orleans dive a slightly unlikely polish that the regulars seem happy to ignore.

The building is roughly the size and shape of a railway car, wedged next to a gas station on Saint Charles with fairy lights strung through the overhanging trees. Delachaise is a wine and beer bar where the front terrace somehow becomes exactly where you want to be, watching the street roll by. Over 40 wines by the glass keep the options interesting without the prices getting precious about it.

A basement cocktail bar in the Financial District with dark red walls, a chandelier, and macramé screens that somehow land between 1980s lounge and faint tiki, all packed into semicircular banquettes that seat over a hundred. The inventive menu carries the fingerprints of the Death & Co. team. On quieter weeknights they may seat you at the bar only, which is worth knowing before you bring a crowd.

The bar curves like the stern of a Spanish galleon, which should tell you what kind of night to expect. This candlelit cocktail lounge off the TriBeCa steakhouse of the same name leans into the drama: heavy drapes, tapestry walls, shaded pendant lights, and booths deep enough to disappear into. The back bar is loaded with premium spirits, and the Key Lime Pie cocktail was invented here, for better or worse.

Red Hook sits off every subway line, which keeps Fort Defiance comfortably local. This all-day neighborhood bar fits eight tables and a bar counter that seats twelve if everyone breathes in. The name nods to a nearby Revolutionary War fort that once blocked the British from the East River, which gives the place more historical gravitas than most spots this relaxed have any business claiming.