Clearwater Beach’s flagship beach bar since 1981, famous for the Super Grouper sandwich right on the sand.
A Redington Shores neighborhood bar for over 30 years, rum runners and karaoke across the road from the beach.
Kittery Point is the last town in Maine before New Hampshire, and Frisbee’s Wharf has been quietly getting the Piscataqua River waterfront right longer than most visitors have noticed.
A Destin landmark since 1982, live alligators and Fud-Punch rum cocktails included.
Dominical’s only real craft beer destination, Fuego brews on-site for surfers and expats who wanted something beyond the standard cold Imperial, and everyone from travel writers to locals agrees they nailed it.
Outdoor tables directly on the sand are the most coveted reservation on the island every July and August, golden hour on Nantucket’s northwestern shore justifies every bit of the effort it takes to get one.
The Irish pub formula translates surprisingly well to foggy Washington coast weather, cold Guinness and good craic feeling entirely at home under the same gray skies.
Panoramic La Jolla coastline views, rock crab spaghetti, and a cocktail program built to match, George’s Ocean Terrace is one of the genuine great views in California dining.
Point Judith’s own fishing fleet heads out every morning, and George’s has been serving the reward since 1948, the last Rhode Island meal before the Block Island Ferry and the first one after.
Nye Beach was doing the arts-and-Victorian-charm thing decades before tourism discovered Oregon, and Georgie’s sits right above it with Pacific views that match the neighborhood’s actual history.
Look for the big green chair – that’s the local shorthand for finding Gertrude’s on White Bay. Founder Gertrude, one of the beach’s earliest operators, passed in 2024, but the bar she built (rebuilt after Irma in bright green and orange) remains a family affair, now run by her grandson. Gertrude’s signature move is a ‘pour your own drink’ policy: order a dark rum and Coke and you get handed the bottle and the can. The vibe stays refreshingly low-key next to its more famous White Bay neighbors, drawing a loyal mix of regulars, yachties, day-trippers, and USVI visitors. Strong dark rum selection, a solid beer lineup, and a bar rail overlooking the beach that’s tough to beat.
A proper Scottish pub somehow ended up on a Maine beach, and GFB embraces the improbability with genuine good humor and fish and chips that actually deliver.
Named Mississippi’s best dive bar by The Daily Meal, with a deck and dock on historic Fort Bayou, a famous Bushwacker and crawfish on Wednesdays.
The first taste of the Keys heading south on US-1, where plenty of people never make it further.
Siesta Key’s castaway-themed tiki bar, cold rum drinks and easy-going island energy.
The Goombay Smash has kept OBX visitors returning to this Kill Devil Hills institution every season for decades, Caribbean-inflected seafood with genuinely tropical energy.
Somerset County does not get visitors by accident, but Goose Creek’s slow-smoked BBQ is reason enough to make the detour into one of Maryland’s most under-the-radar counties.
The sunset side of Great Guana Cay. Frozen Guana Grabbers, conch salad chopped on the dock, a pool, hammocks, and rooms upstairs if you overdo it.
Depoe Bay claims the world’s smallest natural harbor, and Gracie’s Sea Hag has watched fishing boats thread through that basalt slot since 1963. Portland Monthly calls it essential.
Grain on the Rocks put a serious bar inside the Lewes Ferry Terminal in 2015. Two bars, a beer garden, and a raw bar pointed at Delaware Bay.
Original artwork lines the walls at the Grand Bohemian, an elevated wine and cocktail experience that matches Charleston’s reputation as one of the South’s most culturally rich cities.
Nassau’s resort corridors cannot replicate what the Green Parrot has built organically, cold drinks and a genuinely loyal local crowd that has nothing to do with tourism.
Gregory’s has anchored Somers Point’s Great Egg Harbor Bay waterfront for decades, the kind of place regulars have been coming back to for so long they stopped counting the years.
The Melbourne sibling of the beloved Grills brand, manatees below and fresh seafood on the Indian River.
Port Canaveral’s go-to tiki bar, cruise ships and freighters as your dinner-view backdrop.
The volume is set for actual listening, not background noise, curated vinyl and craft cocktails at what might be Charleston’s single most interesting bar.
A bamboo-built, open-air Jupiter institution founded by surfers, mojitos and live music included.
Mission Beach’s boardwalk energy gets bottled at Guava Beach: cheerful, consistent, and close enough to the bay that half your afternoon happens with your feet basically in the water.
Carl Fisher built the Montauk Yacht Club here in 1928. Gurney’s took it over in 2017. The marina fits 220-foot superyachts. The bar overlooks all of it.
Gwen’s has survived beach erosion, a fire, and Hurricane Irma, relocating and rebuilding each time with a little more concrete and zero drop in spirit. Owner Gwen Webster’s resilience alone earns the place a spot on the island, and Shoal Bay East genuinely wouldn’t be the same without it. Expect a slow pace by design: pick your own spot among picnic tables, deck chairs, or hammocks, and don’t expect hovering service. Gwen’s rum punch has a real reputation, made with better rums than most beach bars bother with. Sunday afternoons bring the local Anguillan Scratch Band for a proper beach dance party. A genuine Anguilla institution.
St. Barth makes effortless elegance look completely natural, and Gyp Sea delivers exactly that, cold rose and grilled lobster that never once feels like it is trying.
Pull up, tie up, drink up reads the actual motto, a Scipio Creek Marina oyster bar with bingo on Mondays and live music the rest of the week.
Bonaire’s windsurfing bar on Sorobon Beach at Lac Bay, attached to Jibe City, with a Thursday cook-your-own table BBQ.
The Thompson’s oceanfront bar, with sand lounge seating and the most serious cocktail list on Playa La Ropa. Thursdays bring an oceanside grill out.
Deale keeps its dock bar traditions alive, and Happy Harbor on Rockhold Creek is exhibit A: crabs, live music, and a crowd of boaters who have made this their summer ritual for decades.
Rogers and Hammerstein named a South Pacific song after this exact view, filmed partly on these shores, and Happy Talk Lounge proves every lyric was earned.
Right on the Rock Hall waterfront, Harbor Shack does the full dock bar routine: steamed crabs, weekend live music, and working crab boats and the skipjack Elsworth as your neighbors.
Birthplace of the Orange Crush, Maryland’s favorite summer cocktail, Harborside sits right on the inlet with the original recipe, boat traffic, and old-school bayside character intact.
On Smith Island the bar, the general store, and the community center are all the same building, and Harborside somehow makes that work: Smith Island cake and cold beer at the edge of a Chesapeake the outside world has not gotten to yet.
Barbados’s reigning nightlife institution on Carlisle Bay — two dance floors, unlimited house drinks, soca and reggae until sunrise, and turtle tours during the day if you can manage it.
The name sets the tone: Hard Yacht Cafe is not a yacht club, its a Back River bar in Dundalk where people who work with their hands drink cold beer and eat steamed crabs by the water.
North Myrtle offers the Grand Strand experience without the peak-season crowds, and Harold’s is the reliable waterfront bar that proves the quieter end works just fine.
Straddling the actual Delaware-Maryland border on Assawoman Bay, Harpoon Hanna’s has served Maryland-style crabs from one of the most underappreciated sunset views on the whole East Coast for decades.
A PCB favorite where the back deck opens straight onto the sand and the Gulf breeze.
Four minutes from the Bay Bridge, Harris Crab House lets you feed the ducks, watch the watermen unload the catch, and still make it to your jumbo blue crabs before the Whiskey Crush kicks in.
The Miles River panorama alone would carry Harrison’s Harbour Lights, but the crab cakes have been just as reliable for decades, a St. Michaels institution that never had to try hard.
A two-story lighthouse bar at HarborWalk with the best sunset seat in the Panhandle.
A no-frills St. Pete Beach bar that’s stopped trying to be anything but exactly what it is.
Seattle was first settled right here in 1851, and Alki still keeps its own beach culture running far from the downtown tourist corridor. Harry’s is the honest local anchor for it.
Cape May’s only oceanfront rooftop bar at the Montreal Beach Resort — fresh Orange Crushes, live music nightly, and panoramic Atlantic views.
A former National Trust information centre turned seafood shack, with a cocktail deck on the beach The Times named best in the UK.
Laurance Rockefeller surveyed Hawaii by helicopter in 1965 and picked this exact beach as the most beautiful in the islands. The Hau Tree Bar has been proving him right under the same native tree ever since.
Kihei grew into one of Maui’s busiest stretches without losing its local character, and Haui’s is proof, fresh fish tacos and the kind of ease that makes South Maui feel genuinely livable.
A quiet, Cuban-inspired oceanfront find in Key Colony Beach, far calmer than the Islamorada crowds.
Barefoot beach dining at LionsDive on Curacao, with Tico Roberto playing Friday evenings and Los Compadres on Sundays, both at eight.
A cold daiquiri named for the man himself tastes appropriately right with the Caribbean turquoise laid out in front of you, Hemingway’s connection to fishing and drinking in these waters was never subtle.
Grace Bay has topped multiple annual best-beach-in-the-world rankings, and Hemingway’s pours cold daiquiris right on it, hard to improve on that combination.
Right next door to the Soggy Dollar with the exact same White Bay water, Hendo’s pours the Delirious Donkey for anyone who wants the legendary setting without the crowd at the famous neighbor.
Steinbeck immortalized this harbor in Cannery Row, and Hennessey’s gives it the reliable Irish pub formula it deserves: cold draft beer, live music, and a harbor view worth the drive.
Right on Hermosa Beach’s Pier Plaza, this Hennessey’s puts the beach action in full view while cold pints and live music handle the rest.
Canal-side Nature Coast deck with raw oysters, blackened fish tacos, and working boats going by.
A dive bar on the outside with unexpected art deco touches inside, Hi Dive earns its Embarcadero patio at Pier 28, flip-flop casual with a bay view good enough to upgrade a basic margarita.
The major tourist circuits mostly overlook this stretch of Marblehead shoreline, which is exactly the reward for anyone willing to explore past the Put-in-Bay ferry line.
Hidden Harbour Cafe earns its name honestly, tucked into a quiet Patuxent cove where finding the place at all feels like the appetizer before the seafood even arrives.
Dunedin Marina’s working-waterfront bar, Gulf sunsets and the boat crowd’s stamp of approval.
Tucked into the historic Bowery district on Florida’s Forgotten Coast, High Five Dive Bar is exactly what the name promises, no frills, no pretense, just cold beer, good wine, and a patio full of regulars who’ll wave you over like they’ve known you for years. Veteran owned and proudly unpolished, this is the bar Apalachicola locals actually go to, not the one built for the cruise crowd.
Cruz Bay’s harbor stays busy with ferries, charter boats, and water taxis, and High Tide gives that whole scene a proper waterfront bar to watch it all from.
Islamorada’s waterfront sports bar contradiction, fancy views with proper bar-night energy.
“Hog’s Breath is better than no breath at all”, the motto Jerry Dorminy borrowed from his grandmother back in 1976 still hangs over the bar, and nearly 50 years later it’s just as true. Live music three times a day, seven days a week, at the corner of Front and Duval means there’s rarely a quiet moment here. Kenny Chesney’s played this stage; so has half of Nashville.
A real working-waterfront dive next to Key West, famous for the Killer Hogfish Sandwich.
Boaters seek out the Hole in the Wall specifically because it is hard to find, which is precisely the point, dock access and fresh seafood on the Piankatank as a reward for actually navigating there.
The birthplace of the Rum Runner in 1969, still pouring the original at Mile Marker 84.
Port Orchard’s proximity to Bremerton and the Naval Station gives it a particular maritime energy, and Holy Water pours a genuinely thoughtful cocktail program to match it.
A tiki-themed, boat-up bar on Deep Creek Lake with a full dock, lakefront deck, and live music nearly every day in summer.
Former Miss Hawaii winners perform hula under a 135-year-old kiawe tree every single sunset here, named for a 1925 Charlie Chan novel. It might be the single most storied happy hour in the entire Pacific.
Hatteras Island runs more elemental and more genuine than the northern Outer Banks beaches, and Howard’s matches that energy with cold taps and zero unnecessary polish.
One of the best names on the entire Georgia coast, and Huc-A-Poo’s backs it up, cold cocktails and creative bites served with a wink instead of pretension.
Black lava rock, some of the clearest water in Hawaii, and live music, Huggo’s on the Rocks has been a Kona ritual since it first spilled out of the original restaurant next door.
No shoes required means exactly that, toes literally in the Kaanapali sand while the sun drops behind Lanai, Maui doing the thing it does best.
Port Royal Sound gets its liveliest waterfront bar right here, Hurricane cocktails and consistent live music that make Black Marlin one of Hilton Head’s most dependable nights out.
Grand Isle is Louisiana’s only inhabited barrier island, sitting at the literal end of the bayou road where the delta meets the Gulf, and Hurricane Hole pours drinks for a community that has earned its resilience the hard way.
A hidden Vilano Beach waterfront haunt on Oyster Creek, worth the drive out.
An uninterrupted sunset view 365 days a year is a bold claim, and Icehouse backs it up, funky indoor space meets beachy outdoor patio for a crowd that treats strangers like old friends.
Surf culture, a university crowd, and a genuinely progressive beach town all converge at the Ideal, cold beer, pool tables, and Santa Cruz’s particular brand of neighborhood-bar warmth a few blocks from the boardwalk.
Weekly bonfire nights and live reggae have made Iggie’s one of St. Thomas’ most reliable anchors, hammocks strung over Bolongo Bay where cruise tourism has not fully taken hold.
Fresh Georgia shrimp and genuine Southern hospitality meet at Iguanas, the kind of consistently good coastal Georgia meal that keeps the Golden Isles community coming back.
The McNeil family has run this out of a former turpentine company store since 1929, no hostess, no dress code, just a cooler you grab your own drink from and some of the best oysters on the Gulf.
Fort George and Buoy Beer get the national press, but Astoria regulars point serious cocktail drinkers toward the Inferno Lounge instead, a curated wine and spirits list that fills a different niche entirely.
Crescent Beach spreads out below in one of southern Maine’s most secluded oceanfront settings, and the Coastal Bar treats both the view and the cocktail program with equal seriousness.
A neon yellow taproom on the edge of US 1 in Islamorada, pouring Sandbar Sunday since 2014 and distilling rum, vodka and gin on site since 2017.
Home of the original Islamorada Fish Sandwich since 1948, now with tarpon patrolling the docks at sunset.
The longest tiki bar in the Keys, perched on a sand spit jutting into Florida Bay.
A sun-soaked Treasure Island tiki bar built for easy afternoons and cold rum punches.
Waterfront Old Florida gem on the Capri Marina south of Naples — fresh Gulf seafood, an oversized dockside bar, and a legendary carrot cake worth the detour.