The Best Bars in Bridgetown, Barbados

Just a 20-minute walk from National Heroes Square, Bar Cutters is a bona fide Bajan rum shop. Grab a bottle of Banks or Guinness – or a full bottle of rum if you’re with friends or just feeling thirsty – from the fridge. Then sit down to enjoy a classic Barbadian meal. Don’t miss the rum sauce: it’s home-made and served in slicks on dishes like sorrel-glazed ham and slow-cooked ribs.

Beach waiters serve drinks like fresh coconuts filled with rum and rum punches direct to the sun loungers at this beach club on Brownes Beach. Head here on a Monday or Wednesday evening and you can sip your drinks as stilt walkers, fire eaters and steel bands perform. More of a night owl? Visit on a Wednesday or Friday when the whole place turns into an open-air beachfront nightclub.

The seating at Copacabana spills out onto the feather-soft sands of Brownes Beach. Sip your drinks at parasol-shaded picnic tables, sand-top wicker sofas or from the plump mattresses of four-poster day beds. Keep an eye on the bar’s social media pages for updates on special events like Taco and Tequila Sundays and DJ sets that go on until the early hours.

There are three happy hours a day at the Boatyard Beach Club on Brownes Beach. You pay a set fee to enter, which gives you access to the bar, restaurant, beach chairs and an all-ages aqua playground with features like in-water trampolines and ocean slides. Visit on a Wednesday for the weekly carnival, which starts with live music and bar games at lunchtime and ends with sunset cocktails and a beach bonfire.

The terrace at Dippers looks out over the swan-white sands of Brownes Beach. This is the place to sip bottles of cold Banks beer, boozy rum punches or classic cocktails like piña coladas and mojitos. Stick around until the early evening and you can watch the sunset over Carlisle Bay. Peckish? The bar serves light bites like sandwiches and salads from noon until 9pm, and you can add cheese to anything for an extra charge.

The drinks menu at La Cabane is kooky. Crafted by the bar’s in-house sommelier, it features mojitos served popsicle-style, rum served in coconut shells and non-alcoholic options like the Tea Tox made with peach, rosemary and jasmine. The bar sidles up to an ivory-white beach and the seating options include sand-top loungers and swinging egg chairs. As it’s located on the northern edge of Greater Bridgetown, it’s best to hop in a taxi to get here.

This friendly sports bar is right on the northern edge of the Greater Bridgetown area, but it’s worth the journey for the atmosphere during big sporting events. The bar has 15 big screens that show everything from Formula 1 to rugby. The seating is spread between an indoor bar where sports mugs hang from the beams and a beer garden full of white picnic benches and potted plants. Be sure to try the rum punch here – it’s smoky.

The exterior of this cocktail bar, a 10-minute drive from National Heroes Square, is a pretty lavender purple. Inside, though, things are much more industrial in style. Bare filament bulbs hang above the bar area, where mixologists craft cocktails like Old Fashioneds and Rum Sours. If you get hungry, order from the bar bites menu, which features snacks like air-fried onion rings and steak sliders.