Charleston Bars

It's named for the 1920s and it looks the part - vintage-inspired decor that leans into the speakeasy angle without being a museum of it. But everything they actually pour and plate is modern: the cocktails are built by a beverage director who's constantly changing the list, and the kitchen runs a sophisticated take on Southern classics rather than bar food. It's one of the more serious cocktail rooms on the strip, and the bartenders put on a show shaking them. They've been voted Best Downtown Bar and Best Cocktails by the City Paper, which is a lot of credit for a place that also runs a full …

It's a whiskey bar that actually takes whiskey seriously, and it runs two locations - one in the Park Circle area of North Charleston and one on James Island - so depending on which side of the bridge you're on, there's a Paddock within a short drive. The whole room is built around the pour: a long bourbon and whiskey list, single-barrel picks, a "whiskey of the week" that keeps the regulars coming back for a new reason every visit, and cocktails made from it all. The staff will actually walk you through the list based on what you tell them you like, which is the difference between a bar that …

It's the weird one on the Shem Creek strip: where most spots there are beach bars with a cooler and a grill, NICO is a French oyster bar, and it owns that identity completely. You'll drive past it on the way to the crowded tourist spots on Coleman Boulevard and wonder why you didn't just turn in. The raw bar is the whole reason - oysters pulled directly from farms along the East Coast, from a trio of South Carolina bivalves to East Capes from Prince Edward Island, and they serve them with the little adductor muscle still attached, which sounds like a footnote until you taste it. There's a full…

They call themselves "having a good time on the bad side of town," which is a joke locals get instantly - it's the old north side, the part of the city that used to be rough and is now just the part of the city that's still a neighborhood. Moe's has been there a long time and has been voted Best Neighborhood Bar by the City Paper for so many years in a row that the number is now a little embarrassing, which I think is the most honest review it can get. It's a vintage pub near Hampton Park: big screens showing just about every sport ever televised, pool tables, and a room that's cozy without go…

It's the sister spot to Coleman Public House, and you can tell they're part of the same family - a "rustic-chic gastropub" on James Island with 18 constantly-rotating taps, a casual full bar, and the kind of room that sits between a neighborhood bar and a sit-down restaurant. It does lunch, dinner, and brunch six days a week (closed Mondays), so the energy changes all day: families and beachgoers in the afternoon, locals killing a few hours with a flight before dark. The outdoor seating is the move on a warm night, and the food leans lowcountry, with seafood front and center but plenty of opti…

It looks unassuming from the street - a small strip of shops on the east side, deliberately placed just off King Street so you can escape the noise but still be close enough to walk back. Inside it's one of the more serious cocktail rooms in the city, built by Joey Goetz, and the drinks are the whole reason to be there. The front bar runs a fixed menu of strong, well-made cocktails - the Old Salt, a frothy paloma riff, is the one to order - and the back is the Annex, a speakeasy-style room that doesn't believe in menus at all. You sit down, you tell them what you like, and they build you somet…

It's a smash burger restaurant that happens to be, most nights, the loudest and most fun room on King Street, and it knows exactly what it is. Two pianos, two performers, every request honored, running Wednesday through Saturday from 8 p.m. to as late as 1 a.m., and the whole room leans in and sings. It's become the default stop for bachelor and bachelorette parties in the city, which you can feel the moment you walk in - it's loud, it's celebratory, and the drink prices are set for exactly that kind of night. There's a cover charge on show nights, which not everyone loves, but the show genuin…

It's called a saloon and it plays one: small, a little funky, sidewalk booths, a sunny back courtyard a few blocks from the ocean, and a bar side that's genuinely inventive. They've been at it since 2014 and the drinks are the half of the place I didn't expect to be this good - specialty cocktails, a real wine program they've built around craft, organic, family- and women-owned producers, plus a rotating list of draft, cans, and even sake. It's the kind of place that will pour you something you've never had and explain it like they actually care that you're holding it.

The food is the other…

It's been pouring drinks on Market Street since 1932, which makes it the oldest continuously running restaurant in the state, and you can feel the years in the room without it ever turning into a museum. The building has several levels - a music hall, a whiskey lounge, a rooftop - and it functions more like a small venue complex than a bar, with live music on the calendar pretty much every night, jazz being the house sound. The rooftop is the part people go for: two patios with overstuffed couches and actual rugs, which is exactly what a rooftop bar should not have and exactly what makes it fe…

It's the rooftop at the Grand Bohemian, and the name - French for "elevated" - is doing a lot of the describing. The room is elegant where it should be and a little playful where it shouldn't have to be: chandeliers and a lit-up marble bar inside, then a garden terrace out front with colorful chairs, day loungers, and what is essentially turf carpeting underfoot. It overlooks the cobblestone streets of downtown, which is the kind of view that justifies the whole trip up. The drinks are coastal and a little French at the same time - inventive, on the stylish side, and backed by a healthy wine l…

Their own tagline is "the little dive bar with the best craft beer selection in Charleston," and it's true in a way that should be annoying. It's a dive - no question about that, it's been voted Best West Ashley Bar for years and it runs like one - but the tap list is long enough to genuinely take time to pick from, and they push local and import bottles in a way a normal dive doesn't bother with. There's a full bar behind it, a small arcade for the kids, pool, darts, shuffleboard, and board games at the tables, so the whole family can sit at the same spot and not be a problem.

The food is …

It's a full sports bar in the way a lot of them pretend to be: tons of screens, a long menu, and a room that stays comfortable even when it's packed, which happens a lot. It's a sub-city location - over on Rittenberg in Goose Creek, not downtown - so the crowd is locals coming to watch a game or eat a late dinner, not tourists on a bar crawl. The food is the real draw here; chicken and waffles, a burger, chicken sandwiches, and loaded tots that people swear by. The beer selection is good, cocktails are solid, and the mimosa deal has a cult following. Their own site leans on the "home of sports…

You find Burns Alley the way you're supposed to find a dive: by accident. It's tucked down an alley just off King Street, one entrance actually leads through the back of another restaurant, and people say "it's a little hidden" in that way that means it's a full block past the place you were actually trying to reach. Inside it's exactly what the name on the door promises - a local dive, two floors, live music on most nights, and a college-aged energy that never gets mean about it. Golden Tee in the back, TV on, wings and a short but honest list if you're hungry, and you can order from basicall…

I came in on a Sunday for brunch and walked out already planning a return, and I'm not saying that about a lot of places. It sits in a building from 1803 in the French Quarter and it shows - dark wood, big front windows, the whole old Irish pub weight to it - but the thing you actually remember is the back patio, which has been voted the best outdoor patio in the city for a few years straight. The name does some work here too: the first "Blind Tigers" in South Carolina opened in Charleston in 1893 as an act of defiance against the city's dry laws, so the bar has been doing a little bit of quie…

Every bar on this list claims a little history, but Big John's has receipts: it's Charleston's oldest tavern, opened in 1955 by a man named Big John Cannady who spent the late 40s and early 50s playing for the New York Giants before coming home and putting up the sign. The room is all that old, honest dive energy - red leather bar stools, pool, pinball, darts, and a speakeasy off the main room that people keep telling you about in exactly the way you'd expect. Their website says it straight: "an unapologetically delicious... homestyle cooking" in a "rustic bar full of history." Local beer, cla…

The entrance is genuinely a little sketchy - you'll find yourself on the second floor of a King Street building wondering if you've made a mistake - but once you're in it's a full-on karaoke tiki machine running seven nights a week. They bill themselves as Charleston's only 7-a-week karaoke bar and they put real numbers behind it: eight frozen drink machines, happy hour 4 to 7 nightly, and a theme every single night of the week. Metal karaoke on Monday, country on Thursday, rap night Wednesday, and they do drag karaoke with, in their words, "Charleston's best drag queens." The drink side is th…

A wine-and-cheese bar in Avondale that's been around since 2006, run by women, tucked on Savannah Highway where the light is already getting golden by the time their 3 p.m. doors open. The whole menu is basically the best idea in the bar world: build your own charcuterie board, pour a glass of wine from a long list with bottles at almost every price, and if you're actually hungry the tapas step in quietly. We split a board, added warm pita, and finished on a local Prosecco that made me feel like I had discovered something. My wife and I had our first date here in many years, and its now a thi…

If you need a cheap beer before the bus to the airport, come here. It's an unapologetic little dive on King Street with a pool table, a sad little dance floor, and drinks that run a couple bucks a pop, which in this neighborhood should get you arrested. I've been drifting in since college and the stools are worn the same way I am. The grill food is better than the room, honestly - the cheesesteak slaps and the grinder is worth staying for. Nobody here is performing for you.

We stumbled in at midnight off King Street after a night of sightseeing and just... stayed until they closed at 2. It'…