Editorial
Rooftop bars are everywhere now, but where did they come from? We trace the full history of rooftop drinking culture from 1930s New York to global phenomenon.
The rooftop bar didn't emerge organically from urban life. It was invented by hotel owners who saw empty rooftops as wasted opportunity. During the 1920s and 1930s, Manhattan's hotels began adding bars to their rooftops, capitalizing on the novelty of open-air drinking with city views. The Top of the Strand opened during this era and became legendary, a place where Manhattan's wealthy and notable gathered to drink cocktails while overlooking the city skyline. These weren't designed for the masses. They were luxury amenities, exclusive spaces where hotel guests and members could experience something genuinely novel.
The appeal was multifaceted. First, the views themselves were intoxicating. A rooftop bar offered a vantage point most New Yorkers never experienced. Standing 30, 40, 50 stories above the street, watching the city lights below, felt transformative. Second, the rooftop offered escape. It was a place apart from the street-level city, quieter, cooler in summer, with a genuine sense of removed luxury. Third, the novelty of the format created prestige. A hotel rooftop bar announced that its owner had wealth enough to build something that served no productive purpose other than pleasure.
These 1930s rooftop bars established a template that persists today. Exceptional views. Cocktails and quality service. A sense of being elevated above the ordinary. Exclusivity created through location and membership. Every rooftop bar that followed inherited some combination of these original elements, whether intentionally or not.
The golden age of rooftop bars couldn't last indefinitely. Several factors conspired against them in the mid-20th century. First, the rise of air conditioning fundamentally changed urban life. A cool, comfortable interior became preferable to a hot, humid rooftop. The innovation that made cities livable in summer also made rooftop drinking less appealing. Why endure heat and the elements when you could enjoy climate control and comfort indoors?
Second, the economics shifted. Rooftops began to be seen differently by developers. Why waste space on a bar when a rooftop could be monetized with additional residential or commercial space? New buildings were built without rooftop amenities. Existing rooftop bars closed as older hotels were either demolished or converted to other uses. By the 1960s and 1970s, rooftop bars had become distinctly unfashionable. They survived, but primarily as a hangover from an earlier era, not as spaces anyone deliberately sought out.
The hotel rooftop bar became nostalgic, something your parents had experienced but that felt outdated. The view remained compelling, but the experience felt compromised by declining maintenance, aging equipment, and the simple fact that no one was investing in these spaces. A rooftop bar in 1975 was often tired, underfunded, and dedicated primarily to hotel guests rather than a destination in its own right. The category had lost its cultural currency.
The rooftop bar was rediscovered accidentally. In the 1990s, as Manhattan real estate prices soared and building codes tightened, new construction became constrained. A few entrepreneurial bar operators realized that empty rooftops, previously ignored, could be activated legally and profitably. These weren't hotel rooftops but rather the tops of older buildings that hadn't been developed. A bar operator could lease rooftop space, build basic infrastructure, and create an open-air drinking experience that felt novel precisely because it had disappeared from the city for two decades.
230 Fifth opened in 2009 in the Flatiron District and became paradigmatic of the new model. Rooftop access was open to the public, not gated to hotel guests. The bar served beer and simple cocktails, not the premium cocktails of 1930s hotel rooftops. The draw was the view of the Empire State Building and the Lower Manhattan skyline, combined with a casual, accessible atmosphere. This was democratized rooftop drinking. It wasn't exclusive, but it was expensive enough to create a certain cachet.
The success of 230 Fifth and similar venues triggered a boom. Every old building in Manhattan seemed to acquire a rooftop bar. The bars ranged from carefully designed destinations to ad-hoc spaces that added a few umbrellas and called themselves rooftop bars. What mattered was that rooftop bars had regained cultural relevance. They weren't nostalgic anymore. They were contemporary.
The rooftop bar might have remained a New York phenomenon if it hadn't aligned perfectly with a particular global urban trend. As vertical construction became the default in rapidly growing cities worldwide, rooftops began multiplying exponentially. Dubai took the concept and elevated it literally. At.mosphere, the rooftop bar of the Burj Khalifa, opened at 122 floors and became the world's highest rooftop bar. It wasn't just a bar. It was a statement. It said: our city builds upward at scales previously unimaginable, and therefore our rooftop bars exist at impossible heights.
Singapore embraced rooftop bars with similar enthusiasm. 1-Altitude, which opened in 2011, positioned itself as a destination rooftop venue at 63 floors. Marina Bay Sands, the iconic hotel, featured rooftop pools and bars that became internationally recognizable. Singapore understood something that Western cities were still discovering: the rooftop bar, combined with modern design and efficient logistics, could be transformed into a signature urban experience. Every major city that wanted to project sophistication suddenly needed rooftop bars.
Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Seoul followed similar trajectories. Rooftop bars became a global template for nightlife in vertical cities. The format proved infinitely exportable and adaptable. A rooftop bar in Dubai looked different from one in Tokyo, but they shared essential DNA: elevation, views, openness, novelty, a sense of occupying space that previously existed only as untapped potential. The rooftop bar became the 21st century's equivalent of the 1930s hotel luxury amenity, but democratized across the world.
By the 2010s, rooftop bar culture had fragmented into multiple formats. The permanent rooftop bar remained, but increasingly temporary and seasonal rooftop venues emerged. A building owner might partner with a restaurant or bar group to activate the rooftop for a single season, then change operators. The risk was lower, the flexibility was higher, and the novelty factor increased. A new rooftop venue felt special precisely because you knew it wouldn't be there forever.
This seasonal model coincided with Instagram's rise. Rooftop bars had always been photogenic, but social media transformed that into currency. A beautifully designed rooftop bar at sunset generated images that were intrinsically shareable. The rooftop bar became a destination because it was a photo opportunity. The drinks and atmosphere mattered, certainly, but the view, the elevation, the sense of being somewhere exclusive and elevated mattered equally. Rooftop bars became branded experiences, carefully designed for visual impact.
The pop-up format also made rooftop bars aspirational and exclusive again, but in a different way. A permanent rooftop bar was a destination you could visit anytime. A seasonal pop-up rooftop bar created scarcity and urgency. You had to go now, during this one summer or season. This ephemeral quality made rooftop bars feel like events rather than establishments, which paradoxically made them more culturally important.
The rise of Instagram transformed rooftop bar aesthetics fundamentally. In the early 2010s, rooftop bars prioritized views and alcohol. Designer choices mattered but secondarily. By 2020, design had become primary. A rooftop bar needed not just to function but to be photogenic. This meant considering sightlines, lighting, color palettes, and spatial composition through the lens of how the venue would appear on Instagram.
This evolution created a positive feedback loop. Well-designed rooftop bars generated photos that went viral. Viral photos drove customer acquisition. Successful rooftop bars set design precedents that influenced new rooftop bars. Within a few years, rooftop bar design became a distinct category, with recognizable aesthetics: open space, minimal clutter, accent lighting, curated seating, views framed through architectural elements or plantings that looked intentional rather than functional.
The problem, acknowledged by design-conscious operators, is that Instagram optimization can override actual drinking experience. A rooftop bar designed primarily for photos might be uncomfortable to stand in, difficult to get a drink at, or disappointing when the light isn't perfect. Some of the most photographed rooftop bars worldwide are actually mediocre places to spend an evening. The image has become partly divorced from the experience.
A few rooftop bars deserve special mention for their outsized influence on how the category evolved. The Top of the Strand established the prototype. 230 Fifth in New York proved the model could be democratized. Marina Bay Sands in Singapore demonstrated that rooftop bars could be architectural landmarks. Skybar at the Mondrian Los Angeles showed that West Coast rooftop culture would develop differently from New York's. These venues each influenced how subsequent rooftop bars were designed and positioned.
1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge became influential by wedding rooftop bars to design ambition and elevated restaurants. At.mosphere at Burj Khalifa proved there was no height too extreme. Nestl in Tokyo and similar venues demonstrated that rooftop bars could be intimate and design-focused rather than massive crowd destinations. Each of these venues offered a template that other cities and operators adapted to their local context.
The most important influence these venues share is proof that rooftop bars can be genuinely aspirational. They're not just bars with a view. They're experiences that command premium pricing because customers want the elevation, the separation from street life, the photogenic environment, the sense of occupying space that feels exclusive through location and design. If you're interested in discovering the best rooftop bars in your city, check out our guides to rooftop bars by city or read our feature on the best rooftop bars in New York. Know a rooftop bar we should feature? Please submit your recommendations or get in touch with our editors.
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