The Best Places to Drink and Stay in the United States

The taproom is built to look like a church, which feels appropriate given how seriously Houstonians take their hometown brewery. Texas's oldest craft brewery pours its own Art Car IPA, Amber Ale, and H-Town Pils alongside a full kitchen running stone-fired pizzas and bar bites. The outdoor garden catches a downtown view when the heat relents. A good place to convert someone still loyal to Miller Lite.

A photo wall of Diana Taurasi greets you at the door, which tells you everything about what kind of sports bar this is. Planted in Phoenix's Melrose district, Title 9 is a beer bar and grill built around women's athletics, with imagery spanning players to sports journalists across every wall. The color palette reads as a quiet nod to the lesbian pride flag, a detail that fits the neighborhood perfectly.

Enormous screens cover the top half of a high-ceilinged room, with smaller ones tiling every corner so there is no bad angle on the game. Backyard is a sports bar and casual eats spot in north Phoenix, with a long beer list, wings, burgers, and pizza keeping things low-key. There is also a dog park on the premises, because apparently watching the game while your dog runs laps was a need that went unmet for too long.

Willow is a basement cocktail bar tucked beneath Savannah Blue, where a giant faux willow tree rises from the floor and sends its branches, strung with hundreds of fairy lights, across the ceiling. It's Detroit's first Black-owned speakeasy, with portraits of famous Black Detroiters on the walls and a Southern-leaning drink list. Reservations run through Tock, so plan ahead for the secret.

This Corktown brewery and beer garden pours a dozen drafts, plus hard cider from its sister brand and a housemade prebiotic soda for anyone in the group sworn off the good stuff. A pavilion with open-air seating handles the warm months, while the semi-industrial indoors does communal tables and solo bar stools. Instead of a mug club, you can join something called the United Federation of Eaters and Drinkers, which is a lot of governance for beer.

Concrete Rose is a cocktail bar in the old Purse Building, right across from the ballpark, built around agave spirits. The menu leans on tequila and mezcal, with drinks involving mole and tomatillo that sound like a dare. There are no dress codes or bottle service, but there are vinyl nights, and the bar bites run from beet tacos to fish crudo, so dinner is covered if you commit.

MotorCity Wine is a Corktown wine bar where the night can turn into a live band and a little dancing if you time it right. The patio does most of the heavy lifting in warm weather, and a taco truck parks in the lot throughout the week, so dinner is handled without anyone fussing over a menu. Charcuterie and guest-chef bites cover the rest, and the bottles are easy to share.

Two James is a working distillery in Corktown with a tasting room built around a round concrete bar, which is the right shape for a place where everyone ends up talking to the bartender anyway. Cocktails rotate with the seasons and lean on the house spirits, with alcohol-free versions for the designated driver. You can book a tour, and Supergeil, the döner spot across the street, handles the food.

A 17-story resort wrapped around an Art Deco original from the late 1930s, Loews Miami Beach spreads across Collins Avenue with nearly 800 rooms, multiple restaurants, and a pool that earns its keep in a city full of them. An Exhale Spa outpost handles the recovery side. It skews family and large groups, though the sheer scale means everyone turns up eventually, which is either a feature or a warning depending on your travel style.

1111 is a Montrose cocktail bar and restaurant that takes its cues from Mexico City, which explains the cave-like room and the oval bar at its center. It's pronounced "eleven eleven," a favor to anyone who'd otherwise say it four ways. The margarita comes crystal clear under a cloud of salty lime air, and it sits next door to a jazz club, so the evening practically plans itself. Expect cocktail-hour prices and a good outfit.

The beer names tell you everything: a cream ale called Dome Foam, a porter called Mission Control, a red ale called Cougar Paw. This Houston brewery wears its civic pride the way other places wear sports jerseys. The taproom pours a full lineup of house beers alongside THC seltzers for the sober-curious crowd and cocktails for anyone who wandered in expecting a bar and found one anyway.

A cocktail bar inside Bryant Street Market's food hall in Edgewood, Alegria spun out of a beloved 14th Street agave spot and kept the Latin spirits focus while widening the net. Hibiscus, cacao, and fresh fruit make their way into the drinks alongside a beer list that moves from Pacifico to a Hyattsville local. Canned cocktails go out the door for those who can't be contained to 26 seats.

Sichuan cooking and serious cocktails share equal billing at this Dupont Circle spot, which holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and lands on Eater's list of D.C.'s top cocktail bars. The menu runs funky and affordable, with cumin lamb that arrives tender and vivid with spice. No reservations needed if you're happy at the bar, which always has room and is probably where the better conversations are happening anyway.

Menu painted on the front windows, high tables, espresso foaming in the morning and a cocktail shaker going by afternoon: Babas is a small all-day European-style cafe and bar that operates on a pleasantly loose schedule. The kitchen moves from overnight oats and baked goods at breakfast through deviled eggs and a caviar sandwich later on, which is a pretty wide range for a room you could cross in six steps.

A brewery on Fulton Street that leans hard into the Space City thing, with a hazy IPA called Fake Landing for hop heads who enjoy a conspiracy theory alongside their pint. The beer program covers lagers, IPAs, and hard seltzers, and there's wine by the glass for anyone who wandered in for the foosball. The foosball table, it should be noted, is not a metaphor.

The bones of the building are original 1950s auto-service center, which gives this neighborhood brewpub a satisfying reason to look up at the ceiling. IPAs anchor the tap list, with other ales rotating by season, so regulars tend to have a new reason to stop in. A nice wrinkle: if someone in your group isn't feeling beer, the wine bar next door will send them over with a glass, no drama.

Bar Angie is a 16-seat cocktail bar upstairs from Angie's, with its own private entrance, so you can skip the downstairs wait without anyone knowing you're hovering. The room goes full Italian Deco, all violet marble and bronze-tinted mirrors, lit warmly enough to forgive a long day. The seasonal drinks come from a former Anvil bartender, with a mortadella sandwich nearby for ballast. Eater included it among Houston's best new cocktail bars.

Bar Brine is what the vegetarian cafe Sneaky Pickle becomes after dark, a neighborhood cocktail bar in the Bywater that swaps the daytime tofu crowd for people who care about shrubs. The drinks lean on housemade cordials, including a rum, passion fruit, and absinthe punch and a coconut-and-cognac answer to the espresso martini. The kitchen keeps going too, with meat and fish alongside the plant-based menu, so nobody has to eat a cocktail onion for dinner.

The martini here comes with pickled shiitake mushrooms, kombu, and bonito flakes, which tells you most of what you need to know about Bar Chinois. It's a French wine bar by aesthetic and an Asian dim sum spot by appetite, and the kitchen takes both halves seriously. The cocktails are genuinely theatrical, and the dumplings, shrimp toast, and braised pork meatball give you every reason to stay past the second round.

A bright green sign on 20th points you toward a cocktail bar where the drinks are named after the paintings hanging in the hotel around it, so you can order your art by the glass. The room is low-lit and plush, a nod to the Heights' old drinking clubs, and nobody will rush you out of your seat. Bar bites include salt and vinegar chips under smoked trout roe. Eater put it on a list of Houston's best new cocktail bars.

You reach this cocktail lounge by emerald carpet, a private elevator, and a pair of floor-to-ceiling green doors, which is a lot of ceremony for a drink. The menu follows the lunar cycle, from a mint-washed gin on the light side to black sesame rum and ube cold foam on the dark one. Golden Hour means $10 cocktails and oysters on weekdays, and weekends bring DJs. Dress like you were told about the elevator.

Barebottle is a warehouse-sized brewery in Bernal Heights where you navigate dog toys and stroller wheels just to reach the taps. Arcade games, foosball, and a wall of TVs keep the kids busy while the adults drink, and whatever food truck is parked out front handles dinner. Odds are good you'll run into your third grader's classmate, and their dog.

You pass through a cocktail bar to get to the dining room, which sets the tone. Bastion is a tasting-menu restaurant in Wedgewood-Houston built around contemporary Southern cooking that treats the region's pantry as a creative dare rather than a comfort blanket. The kitchen holds a Michelin star and a James Beard nomination, and earns both by keeping things loose enough that the whole thing still feels like a good night out.

A neighborhood sports bar in Clarkston where the TVs outnumber the pretensions and the crowd comes to actually watch the game. Wings are the reason most people show up, with Buffalo and sweet-and-spicy doing most of the heavy lifting, but the patty melt and Reuben hold their own. The BPH fries arrive loaded with blue cheese, roasted garlic, and tomatoes, which is either a salad or an occasion, depending on your mood.

Bubble Bath Back Bay is a penthouse cocktail bar atop the Citizen M hotel on Newbury Street, with skyline views most Boston bars can only dream of. It's built for ending a shopping day with visitors in tow, someone cradling a prickly pear mezcal drink while bags pile up at their feet. Order champagne, or let the caviar cart roll up and serve it with potato chips and cannoli. It's The Infatuation's pick for the best bars in Boston.

Bumbo's is a neighborhood bar in Hamtramck where the cocktails are cheap enough that nobody has to feel precious about ordering a second. The menu rotates, but a house sour with your choice of spirit is the sort of thing that keeps showing up. The nonalcoholic shelf is unusually deep, so the designated driver gets more than a sad soda. There's a pool table inside and a covered patio out back for hiding.

By The Wayside is an East End cocktail bar on Navigation Boulevard with a stage inside, a patio outside, and a calendar that includes movie nights, vinyl DJs, and the occasional market. Drinks lean on fresh fruit, so a mezcal-tequila number with strawberry sits comfortably beside a floral vodka one with violet. The kitchen sends out brisket nachos and Korean barbecue wings, which is how you stay for a third round. Eater put it on its fall 2026 list of new cocktail bars.

Cafe Sous Terre is a basement cafe and bar tucked under a brick mansion that now rents rooms to strangers, and it plays the French cafe of a century ago with green subway tile and long banquettes. By day it's laptops, coffee sodas, and quiche. After dark it's martinis, a croque monsieur, and weekly Vinyl Wednesdays. Eater lists it among Detroit's best bars and best coffee shops, so the same table does double duty.

Case Chocolates is a speakeasy hidden behind a bookcase in the back of a tiny East End chocolate shop, which is the kind of sentence that should be illegal in a Wes Anderson film but is merely a Tuesday here. The tasting runs three courses of chocolates filled with spirits like gin and carajillo, and the liquor stays polite about it. It's a date-night bet for people who've already done dinner and a movie.

Chopper is a tiki-ish cocktail bar that swapped the grass skirts for robots, with Star Wars characters turning up in the barware and the drinks billed as "lab tested," as if a bar had a lab. Mai tais and rum runners get their own spin alongside a rotating seasonal menu, and the coffee drinks tend to be the interesting ones. A taco truck usually parks out front, so dinner is basically handled.

A craft brewery on a quiet residential street on the north side of town, City Acre feels less like a taproom and more like you wandered into a very well-stocked backyard. The sour series gets regulars talking, and the PB&J porter answers a question nobody asked but everyone is glad got asked. The patio pull is real, which means arriving early if you want a seat that doesn't feel like a compromise.

Clarkwood is a Montrose cocktail bar that spends its evenings halfway to a nightclub, and the heavily garnished drinks leave the bar by the thousands. Dom bottle service shares the room with singles scouting the next prospect and couples whose public affection is testing the tables. Around 10pm on weekends the staff pulls the barstools to make room for more people, which tells you where the seating plan ranks.

Cøllect is a small beer bar on Detroit's east side, tucked into an arts hub from the Library Street Collective crowd. Nine beers share the tap wall with cider, wine, and a few pours of Four Roses, plus Gatorade on draft, which is either a hydration plan or a very good joke. There's a basketball hoop in the middle of the room, so you can earn the second round or at least pretend you did.

This is a working distillery in Eastern Market, which means the tasting room serves what's made down the road, mostly whiskey, gin, and vodka, plus the occasional paczki vodka for Fat Tuesday, because Detroit. The lighting is moody, the cocktails shift with the seasons, and in summer the bar spills onto Riopelle Street, where Midnight Temple next door supplies the Indian street food. Eater counts it among Detroit's best bars.

The sign above the door reads "Getting Vegas Drunk Since 1962," and the bar delivers on that promise without much fuss. Dino's is a neon-free dive near the Arts District where drinks are cheap and the crowd skews toward people who own at least one ska-related t-shirt. Thursday through Saturday after ten, karaoke takes over the tiny stage and things get appropriately messy. Celebrities have been known to slip in for a song, which is very on-brand for a city like this.

Double D's is a wood-paneled cocktail bar that looks like a 1970s basement, and it behaves like two different bars depending on the hour. Around six it's draft Palomas and whiskey highballs, handy for a drink before dinner next door. By ten there's a line outside, a DJ working through hip-hop and R&B, and someone ordering a Razzle Dazzle shot to get the dancing started.

Graffiti and stickers cover every surface, dollar bills hang from the ceiling, and the smell of day-old bacon grease meets you at the door. Double Down is a dive bar in the Fruit Loop that's been hosting punk shows and burlesque nights since forever, drawing tattooed regulars and older locals who never look up from the video poker machines. Order a PBR, order an Ass Juice shot, and lower your expectations to CBGB levels accordingly.

Dragonfly is the casual bar next door to Freya's tasting menu, built for people who want a drink but would like to be a functioning adult tomorrow. The cocktails run low-alcohol or zero, flavored with herbal teas, cucumber, and natural sweeteners, so the drinks read more like a garden than a bar. The room is done in cool blues, and shareable plates keep the evening from becoming purely liquid.

Ernie's Boondock is a dive bar tucked below Up-Down in East Nashville, and it commits to the role with pool tables, dollar bills stuck to the walls, and a chain of Underberg hanging by the register. There's no cocktail menu, so order a gin and tonic or a tequila shot and accept the taxidermy's silent verdict from the red leather booths. Someone will mangle "Benny And The Jets" nearby, and you may join in.

A Houston brewery that takes its beer names as seriously as its beer, with year-round taps like Buckle Bunny (a cream ale) and a rotating Limited Awesome Beer Series that lives up to the acronym. The indoor space is cavernous enough to actually beat the heat, which in this city is less a perk than a survival strategy. When the weather cooperates, the outdoor area fills fast with the kind of crowd that stays for three rounds and means it.

The Kilt Lifter Scottish Ale has been filling pints here long enough that it's practically a local institution, and the Mission Revival warehouse it lives in only adds to the effect. Four Peaks is a full-scale brewpub with a cavernous brick interior, a sprawling patio, and a menu that covers wings and nachos but also green chile mac and cheese for anyone who needs more than bar food. Spring training crowds and ASU students pack the place, which tells you most of what you need to know about the vibe.

Ballpoint pen drawings cover every wall of this tiny lounge at The Venetian, which is doing its best Shinjuku Golden Gai impression, and pulling it off better than it has any right to. DJs push house music loud enough to rattle the sake glasses while the drinks lean Japanese, gin and matcha cocktails alongside serious whiskey pours. Small and clubby, with neon doing most of the decorating.

Gray's Hall is a South Boston wine bar that has the energy of a friend's living room, if your friend kept a natural-leaning wine list and a small-plate menu that includes a burger. It comes from the team behind American Provisions, the neighborhood's sandwich-and-bottle stop, so the instinct is to feed you while you stay put. Staff stay unbothered even when the place fills up, and a loyal local crowd keeps it that way.

The burger of the month rotates, the beer names do not disappoint, and the bar snacks lean harder than most breweries bother to. This Chapman Street brewery pours its own ales alongside house cocktails, wine, and THC options, so there's something for whoever you dragged along. The Flip Flop Cowboy amber and the pineapple-tangerine blonde tell you exactly what the vibe is before you've taken a sip.

The wraparound windows put both ends of the Strip in frame at once, the Eiffel Tower on one side and MGM's emerald glow on the other. This moody cocktail lounge inside the Waldorf Astoria runs Japanese-leaning bar snacks alongside drinks like a cherry cola old fashioned, and the vibe is firmly date-night. Go for the view, stay for the cocktails, and accept that you probably won't need dinner after.

The bar stools here are swings, which tells you everything about the mood. Heyday is a neighborhood restaurant and bar tucked into the courtyard of a midcentury hotel in Waikiki, leaning hard into the retro-tropical bit with mai tai variations and boozy slushies alongside cheesy toast and a fried mahi sandwich that reads as a Filet-o-Fish with ambitions. After dark, the Green Lady Cocktail Room in room eight opens as a dark lounge spilling into a palm-fringed courtyard.