Best Beach Bars: Jamaica

Best Beach Bars in Jamaica

Jamaica does not really do subtle. Negril alone runs two completely different bar scenes about ten minutes apart. Seven Mile Beach is flat sand, reggae and cold Red Stripe the whole way down. The West End is where the sand runs out, the limestone cliffs start, and people jump off them on purpose.

Then there is everything that is not Negril. A bar standing on stilts on a sandbar you can only reach by boat. Fishing villages on the south coast. Waterfront places in Montego Bay, Port Antonio and Kingston. Fifteen of them are on this list, and the Bum has personally stood in exactly one of them, which we will get to.

Inside Tony's Hut, bamboo bar and sand floor looking out to turquoise water and moored boats

Negril: Seven Mile Beach

Tony’s Hut is the one the Bum has actually stood in, which is why it carries the Beach Bum Certified badge. Bamboo bar, sand floor, Red Stripe crates, hand-painted signs stuck in the beach. Alfred’s Ocean Palace and Bourbon Beach have been running live music on this sand for years. Woodstock rounds out the strip.

A thatched hut on the limestone cliffs of Negril's West End, stone steps cut down to a swim platform above clear water

Negril: The West End Cliffs

Ten minutes south the beach ends and the limestone starts. Rick’s Cafe, open since 1974 and saying so in neon on its own roof, is the one everybody has heard of, and the cliff jumping is exactly as advertised. 3 Dives is the jerk end of the West End. LTU Pub sits on the same stretch of cliff with a fraction of the crowd.

Floyd's Pelican Bar standing on stilts on a sandbar off Parottee Point, Jamaica, at sunset

The South Coast

Floyd’s Pelican Bar stands on stilts on a sandbar off Parottee Point and can only be reached by boat, which is the single best argument for renting one. Jack Sprat at Treasure Beach is the south coast at its most unbothered. This side of the island runs slower than Negril and considerably slower than Montego Bay.

Planning Your Jamaica Beach Bar Crawl

Pick a coast and stay on it. Negril, Montego Bay and the south coast are all a serious drive from one another on roads that do not reward optimism, and trying to do all three in a week means seeing the inside of a car instead of the inside of a bar.

Red Stripe is the default and it is always cold. Jerk comes off an oil drum and comes with festival, which is a slightly sweet fried dough that exists specifically to put out the fire. Cash is useful outside the resort strips. And if you only make one special trip, make it the boat out to Floyd’s Pelican Bar. Our beach bar map will show you how far apart these coasts really are before you commit to a hire car.

The North Coast and Kingston

Negril gets the attention, but the rest of the island is not short of places to drink with your feet in the sand.

Montego Bay
Pier 1 on the Waterfront · Margaritaville Montego Bay

Runaway Bay & Ocho Rios
Calico Jack’s Beach Bar · Sugarpot Ruins Beach Bar

Port Antonio
Bushbar at Geejam

Kingston
Barbican Beach Bar

Know one we are missing? Tell us about it. Run one? Get it listed.