Editorial
The oldest bars in the US are not tourist traps dressed up in distressed wood and sepia photographs. The best ones are still serving serious drinks to serious drinkers, in rooms that have absorbed more than two centuries of American history. We tracked down the ones worth your time — and your fare.
A handful of American bars predate the nation itself. These are working establishments that have outlasted revolutions, wars, Prohibition, and every trend that came after. The wood is dark, the menus are honest, and the ghosts are plentiful.
The bars that survived Prohibition did so by becoming something else — a candy store, a dry goods shop, a barbershop with a very good back room. When repeal came, the best of them reopened and never looked back. The ones that made this list have kept the spirit of that era alive without turning it into a costume.
Not every historic bar dates to the colonial era. Some of the most important American drinking institutions opened in the 1940s and 1950s and have simply outlasted everything around them. These are places that became part of the urban fabric so thoroughly that closing them would require city council approval.
The oldest bars in the US are worth seeking out not for the novelty of the age but for what the age tells you about them. A bar that has been open for a hundred and fifty years has survived because it got something right — the atmosphere, the pours, the welcome, or some combination of all three that keeps people coming back.
We recommend White Horse Tavern for those who want the full colonial experience and Old Absinthe House for those who want New Orleans at its most concentrated. For serious cocktails in a historic room, Zig Zag Café in Seattle is the one we return to most often.
James has spent fifteen years tracking down historic American bars, from colonial taverns in New England to post-war dives in Chicago. He has a strong opinion about which New York bar has the best Old Fashioned, and he will tell you without being asked.