The 25 Best Outdoor Bars in America

There's almost nothing better than day time drinking while soaking in some Vitamin D-laced cancer. If you live in an unreasonably cold place (read: it has seasons), you're lucky to be able to booze outside for three months, max, so we advise that you live it up while you have the chance.

We've rounded up 25 of the Best Outdoor Bars in America, and if these don't inspire you to slather on some sunscreen and sext your summer fling, you should stay home and leave the extra elbow room so the real freaks can come out and play.

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City: Malibu, Calif.
Address: 20356 E Pacific Coast Highway
Website: moonshadowsmalibu.com
Coolest feature: The romance

Real rich people like to hang out in their Haviannas at beach bars like Moonshadows, close to their sprawling mansions, instead of taking the long commute to Hollywood. A cozy perch by the sea, Moonshadows is the perfect mixture of everything Southern California is known for; a relaxed atmosphere that combines sophistication with surfer vibes, strong drinks, and a killer view of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean. An adjacent bar-lounge is cantilevered over a cliff so it looks like you are dangling over the ocean while dolphins and sea lions tease you from the waters below. As luxurious as this sounds, Moonshadows is not remotely pretentious. It is totally romantic and has a 40-year history as textured and varied as the ombre sea shells carved into lamps that adorn the place.

City: Chicago
Address: 201 N State St.
Website: thewithotel.com/experience/roof
Coolest feature: The live music

Get higher, baby. ROOF at TheWit is an urban party oasis in the middle of Chicago's buzzy Loop neighborhood. When the muggy weather manhandles you down below, ROOF offers a breezy release from the steamy streets. During the day, ROOF attracts bespoke suited businessmen looking for respite via wood-fire oven pizzas and hand-crafted cocktails that are as sharp as their pleats. At night, ROOF becomes a club with an elite crowd, live music, DJs, and a sparkling, stomach-turning view of the world below.

City: San Diego
Address: 1540 Camino Del Mar
Website: laubergedelmar.com
Coolest feature: The sea

If quiet, refined luxury and poolside lounging with a pinot noir is your idea of a party, the Bleu Bar at L'Auberge del Mar Hotel in San Diego is a great way to cocktail and catnap by the coast. While the terrace is classy shabby chic, it's surrounded by lit-up waterfall fountains, several rich wood-planked levels, and an amazing staggered view of the sunset horizon. Guests can just drink (they have a Sunday happy hour!) or they can snack on things like flatbread and beet salad. If you don't have the money to dine al fresco, you can just sneak in some prosecco, order an orange juice to pour it in, and hit on all the Louboutin-wearing divorcee cougars.

City: Park City, Utah
Address: 201 Heber Ave.
Website: theskylodge.com
Coolest feature: The snow

There's a reason why people in cold countries have alcohol problems. Drinking keeps you from freezing to death. If you're chillin', literally, in ritzy Park City, you probably don't have to worry about losing an ear and several toes, but Sky Blue at the Sky Lodge lets you appreciate the cold while huddled around fire pits smoking hand-rolled cigars, drinking dry martinis and looking at the tree studded Wasatch Mountains around you.

City: Chicago
Address: 739 N Clark St.
Website: zed451.com
Coolest feature: The fire pit

After a summer cocktail or three at Zed451, you'll remember why Frank Sinatra sang so passionately about Chicago. A menu that includes rich dishes like Wagyu beef and New Zealand venison is lightened up by the breezy rooftop views over the North River and a raw wood exterior that makes you feel like you are incased in a smokehouse. You can come at night and make eyes at someone by the fire pit, but the best time to drink at Zed451 is on a sunny Sunday during their insanely cheap brunch. At $34 a pop, there's unlimited sampling of all their brunch foods, while drinking a pitcher of Red Apple Sangria from their "liquid market."

City: Dallas
Address: 2303 Pittman St.
Website: cs-tf.com/wordpress/about
Coolest feature: The food

For all those that bash Dallas, the city that inspired a television show and a legion of rich oil hunters to call it home is starting to make a name for itself on the food scene. Tim Byres of the adjacent Chicken Scratch lends his magic culinary touch to the industrial space called The Foundry, a place so unaffected in looks and urbanely awesome that big hair is probably a way to sneak beer cans in, not a way of life.The patio boasts picnic tables, wooden pallets, semi-truck trailers, and rugged Texas flair that's highlighted by local lagers, cozy coaches, cigar smoking, and comfort food that will make your fat-clogged arteries smile.

City: New York
Address: Pier 66 Maritime, W. 26th St.
Website: fryingpan.com
Coolest feature: Being on a boat

If you need liquid courage to take yourself out of the frying pan and into the fire, check out The Frying Pan, which floats on the liquid right outside of Manhattan. One of the last remaining light ships (floating light houses), The Frying Pan is a bar with a rich maritime history. Unlike many who chant the lyrics to Drake's song, The Frying Pan literally "started from the bottom" and now it's here. After sinking in the Chesapeake Bay, this ship from the 1929 was resurrected from its watery grave and made into a New York City watering hole docked on a railroad car at Pier 66. The Frying Pan is a great place to wander out of the fray and catch a casual, cheap drink on the waterfront. Rumors say it's haunted and if you really want to freak yourself out after too many Budweisers, the Frying Pan website has a GIF of the ship sinking.

City: Williamsburg, N.Y.
Address: 162 N 12th St.
Website: kingandgrove.com
Coolest feature: The salt-water pool

Rooftop pool parties in Williamsburg? Yes, please. Boutique hotel King & Grove offers wrap around views of the city and skyline, swimming, and access to a chill bar with delicious cocktails for an entrance fee that ranges between $35 and $45. Paying to play can be expensive, but when it's hot and humid in the city, shelling out for a dip in their salt-water pool while drinking mojitos or eating shrimp tempura is a lot better than suffering in your sweltering apartment. Have a "business" meeting there and write it off while still in your bikini.

City: Savannah, Ga.
Address: 102 W Bay St.
Website: bohemianhotelsavannah.com
Coolest feature: The decor

Don't be jealous of the rocks that they got. Rocks on the Roof in Savannah, Georgia feels like being in a jewelry box full of oriental-inspired tassel necklaces and rare diamonds. Red and gold pillows flank dark coaches in a way that mixes old-school Hollywood regency glamour with the decadence of Southern living. That quintessential Southern hospitality translates into "down home" tapas like chicken and waffles with strawberries and arugula, sweet teas, and cocktails that glow under oyster shell lamps. All this with brilliant views of the Savannah River.

City: Charleston, S.C.
Address: 36-38 Broad St.
Website: www.blindtigercharleston.com
Coolest feature: The name

Named after the illegal speakeasies that existed when Charleston was a timid, teetotaling bastion of prim and proper ladies and horse hooves on cobblestone streets, the Blind Tiger's early 1800s infrastructure teases your functioning alcoholic friends with bricked arches and wandering vines that come up from the cracks of Broad Street. Once the drinks were given for free, but now the divey pub charges reasonable prices for cocktail, burgers, fried green tomatoes, and international fare like chorizo and banh mi. There's also live music including mood appropriate sonic time-traveling from bands that play 1920s jazz.

City: Philadelphia
Address: 24 S 13th St.
Website: sampanphilly.com/graffiti-bar
Coolest feature: The clear ceiling

One of the coolest places in Market East, Philly's Graffiti Bar attracts a rag-tag bunch of locals that come for the pleasantly tagged on atmosphere and the industrial beer garden vibes. Asian-inspired treats that range from vegetarian and gluten-free to full-on carnivore come in from the adjacent Sampan restaurant. But the real allure is the relaxed urban vibe, televisions to watch sports on, the daily happy hour, and the graffiti art from local artists Lot, Rune, and Distort. When the weather is unseasonal, someone just has to flip a switch and a clear ceiling covers the 30-seat open-air patio.

City: Seattle
Address: 5225 Ballard Ave. NW
Website: kingsballard.com
Coolest feature: The skee-ball

Tucked away in the cozy little Seattle hipster neighborhood called Ballard, King's Hardware is the perfect place for 20 and 30-somethings to gather, unironically, and scarf down on burgers before playing a rousing game of skee-ball for only a quarter. Adorned with dark wood and animal heads, King's Hardware has a masculine cabin vibe, super cheap beers on tap, and a daily happy hour, which makes it a perfect meeting place for the bros. Outside on the patio, skylights let in essential light while blocking rain and if you like to drink with your dog when you need a little hair of the dog, your pooch is allowed.

City: San Diego
Address: 1999 Citracado Parkway
Website: stonebrew.com
Coolest feature: The brewery

Get thee to a brewery. Take a day trip to the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens and teach yourself a thing or two about how beer is made while enjoying it in the humongous, architecturally-perfect gardens surrounding the bistro. The Stone Brewing World Bistro calls themselves the "ambassadors of the craft beer movement" with "40 unique craft beers on tap and a bottle list of more than 100 craft beers," but the biggest allure comes with their outside play space. San Diego has some of the most lovely, all-season weather in the country, so the Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens not only offers ample areas to get that booze down your gullet, but also has cool events like movie nights for all age groups and cask sampling.

City: San Francisco
Address: 620 Jones St.
Website: 620-jones.com
Coolest feature: The scene

A change is gonna come. At Jones in San Francisco, that change is in the form of their seasonal menu, which changes daily. In the middle of the hustle and bustle of Union Square, Jones in San Francisco has an old-school flair that capitalizes on the historical buildings that surround it and the vibrant energy of all the tourists and tech heads that head through the iron-gated alleyway entrance to decompress. Standing on the rooftop patio, windows from higher buildings look down, so it feels as if you are mingling with those tenants while also watching Geary Street beneath you. The French-American fare lets you have Nutella French toast and an artisanal cocktail, and if you know someone that doesn't like Nutella and booze at once, you need to fire them from your life.

City: Queens, N.Y.
Address: 29-19 24th Ave.
Website: bohemianhall.com
Coolest feature: The history

If you want to drink where your Czechian great-great-grandfather might have had his first taste of the life-changing hoppy suds, Bohemian Beer Hall is a historical masterpiece of local drunken revelry that has existed since 1910. Tons of long tables offer forth old-style European communal seating, while sample platters of sausage and $16 pitchers of decent beers wash down your working man woes. Just like your father's father's father probably did.

City: Las Vegas
Address: 4321 W Flamingo Road
Website: palms.com/nightlife/ghostbar
Coolest feature: The clear floors

For the ultimate albeit impossible upskirt action, check out Ghostbar at the Palms. Although the bar is currently undergoing renovations, it purportedly re-opens in mid-August, giving you the chance of a lifetime to creep up the elevator of the Ivory Tower to the 55th floor and stand on a slick acrylic floor that lets you look down from your bird's eye view to the people 50 stories below you in the pool. If you are afraid of heights, try to not be scared, but with the Las Vegas skyline looming all around you in brazen sophistication, that's an impossible feat. Down a few of Ghostbar's pricey cocktails and play shuffleboard, checkers, or pool to distract yourself—and try not to look down.

City: Atlanta
Address: 437 Memorial Dr.
Website: sixfeetunderatlanta.com
Coolest feature: The view

They don't call it Hot-lanta because it's boring. People in Atlanta know how to party and where better to get your drunk on than perched on a rooftop bar, peering out at the Atlanta skyline. Atlanta locals are simultaneously feisty and friendly and that's reflected in Six Feet Under's cheeky name and signature drinks like the filthy martini (which is about as dirty as one can palate) and their crab cake po boys and blackened catfish which reminds your mouth of what kind of trouble it can get into later while getting tipsy under the tessellating universe.

City: Miami
Address: 5580 NE 4th Court
Website: the55thstreetstation.com
Coolest feature: The outdoor recreation

For all you budding journalists/functioning alcoholics out there, welcome to a place dedicated to your pleasure, your pain, your profession, and the vice that fuels it all: booze. The News Lounge in Miami is unlike most bars in Miami that are created for the South Beach-dieting, bikini-clad elite because it's a themed bar that derives its inspiration for something targeted to the waning world of intellectualism. But with an 100 seat outdoor garden, two outdoor pool tables, and an outdoor island bar, beds, wings, tapas, art installation, and DJs, The News Lounge has way more going for it than the dying newspaper industry.

City: New York
Address: 310 W Broadway
Website: sohogrand.com/dining-nightlife/gilligans-at-sohogrand
Coolest feature: The theme

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale about a quirky little pop-up bar in New York City at the SoHo Grand. Decked out in vibrant beachy colors and the sort of nautical paraphernalia (like ocean-themed cocktails) that kept Gilligan and his rag-tag crew alive on their deserted island, Gilligan's is only open until the middle of September, but, for now, if you live in or are visiting New York, you can get a sandy slice of heaven in the middle of the city. There's a pebble beach, grass-thatched cabana, mermaids, life savers, and swanky ice cold beers in a can like Hell or High Watermelon or brews from Cisco Brewers in Nantucket. While soaking in the smog and sun, you can also enjoy a giant sea bass and a frothy watermelon beverage with your own Ginger and Mary Anne for a three-hour tour.

City: Boston
Address: 60 Northern Ave.
Website: samsatlouis.com
Coolest feature: The subtle refinement

The shores of Boston have seen many a salty sailor and a drunken bar brawl, but Sam's at Seaport inspires none of those things. You can sit on the ultra-modern deck and watch the boats drift in and out while getting the few glints of sunshine Boston summers afford and you can enjoy fancy New American snacks like spicy hummus with pita chips or old style shuckers like Fresh oysters. The wood clapped building that prides itself on localized flair while staying simple and chic also has live music every Friday night to ramp up the old bar and pub feel that is hard to find outside of historical centers like Boston or without an Atlantic breeze adding its own unique flavor to the night.

City: Ocean City, Md.
Address: 17 49th St.
Website: seacrets.com
Coolest feature: The submerged barstools

Screw a swim up bar. How would you like alcohol delivered to you while you're lounging in a floatie or an bar stool submerged in the ocean? That's exactly what you'll find at Seacrets a/k/a Jamaica USA. While Maryland isn't exactly known for its tropical beach scene, Seacrets tries to reenact a trip to the Caribbean with frosty drinks served from thatched huts, environmentally-inappropriate palm trees and white sands, and a club scene that looks like a mini-Ibiza. It's no wonder the place gets totally packed with families and meatheads alike when there's any inkling of sun; it's like being on a vacation—only without the inevitable stomach virus on the plane ride home.

City: Cape May, N.J.
Address: 205 County Highway 604
Website: beachshack.com/rusty-nail.php
Coolest feature: The surfer lore

The name should be evidence enough. The Rusty Nail is an amazing dive-y local beach bar in Cape May that has housed Northeastern surfers for generations since the '70s. Underneath the twinkling lights that stripe across the Jersey sky are orange-and-blue umbrella'd tables, a fire pit, live music, and epic beach views. This is not a place where people go to show off their tans or their carefully-sculpted bodies a la Jersey Shore. No, this is where grubby sand creatures can wash off the day's worth of beach lounging and eat fish tacos, and a plethora of other seafood dishes, at a casual kid-friendly place that caters to adults a.k.a the coldest beer in Cape May.

City: Miami
Address: 1 Ocean Drive
Website: nikkibeachmiami.com
Coolest feature: The celeb sightings

Nikki Beach isn't just a bar on a beach. It's a "club" in true decadent, boobs-out, six-inch-stilettos-strapped-on fashion. Only at this club, it's not only the go-go girls who are slathered with glitter and wearing itty-bitty bikinis. Decked out in natural hues and serene white, Nikki Beach mixes classy with a dash of the customary beachside crass. Celebrities hang out there, but so do club-goers from all over the world to scope out hotties while getting oceanfront bottle service. Just imagine your favorite dance club open almost all day long and complete with hammocks and beds to take the bumping and grinding from the vertical position on the dance floor to a nice, naughty horizontal position in something dangerously swinging. If those sexed-up escapades aren't your deal, but you love the all-white glamour and want to be seen by the top trendsters in Miami, go on Sunday and get a pitcher of something fruity. At least that's what Vinny from Jersey Shore recommended on Foursquare.

City: Los Angeles
Address: 5905 Wilshire Blvd.
Website: raysandstarkbar.com
Coolest Feature: The awesome design

Are you a design freak that likes to get her buzz on before checking out the Baroque era? The graphically gorgeous Stark Bar at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art offers forth cocktails and salty nibbles from the adjoining Ray's. Named after Ray Stark, a Hollywood producer who worked on movies like Steel Magnolias, Stark Bar is an Andy Warholian, mid-century modern art work itself. The low tables are flanked by red grated chairs and the hand-crafted cocktails are seasonal, artisanal, and at an average of $12 each, won't drain your wallet if you drink with moderation and/or bring a flask to pregame before you trip out on that Salvador Dali exhibit.

City: Hollywood, Calif.
Address: 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
Website: thompsonhotels.com
Coolest feature: The David Hockney pool

Pool parties in Hollywood are generally the faux-Hollywood elite a.k.a tanning bed blondes with public relations gigs and the douchey real estate bros who love them, but at the Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt in Hollywood, the ghosts of classic movie stars mingle with a mellow crowd who like to drink spendy, well-crafted cocktails and have their own cabana rooms. The Tropicana Bar isn't on a rooftop with some billion-dollar view, but rather an architectural oasis surrounding a classic David Hockney pool. The low-key vibes mixed with an understated glamour make it the perfect place for industry parties for an intimate array of people who "matter." The cabana rooms that open up to the bar, but have their own private patio area, make for the perfect place to hide your good alcohol and crash with your friends after a wild day and night of Hollywood's favorite past-time-drinking and swimming.