Every bar type has a constituency. Every constituency has valid reasons for their preference. This does not mean all bars are created equal, and it does not mean we have to pretend otherwise.

Here is the ranking. These are the hills we die on.

S TIER

The Great Dive Bar

The bar that is dark when it's light outside. The bar where the bartender knows what you drink before you say it. The bar where the beer is cold and the price is honest and the jukebox is doing exactly what it should be doing. The bar where nobody is performing being at a bar — they're just there.

Great dive bars are not common. The designation requires tenure, consistency, and a specific refusal to be anything other than what they are. The dive bar that gets featured in a food magazine stops being a dive bar. The great dive bar endures.

The Good Sports Bar

Not all sports bars. The good ones — the ones with eleven TVs and sightlines from every seat and a staff that knows the remote controls and doesn't play music over the game audio. The ones where the stools are bolted down at the right height and the beer comes fast enough that you don't miss anything.

The difference between a good sports bar and a mediocre one is usually three things: line of sight to the screen from wherever you're sitting, a bartender who turns up the game audio when it matters, and a kitchen that actually functions on Sunday.

A TIER

The Neighborhood Bar Nobody Outside Four Blocks Knows About

Described at length elsewhere on this site. The principle: a bar that belongs to the people who found it rather than to a concept or an operator. The exclusivity is social, not price-based. Gets a slightly lower ranking than the dive bar because the neighborhood bar can become something else; the dive bar has usually survived long enough to prove it won't.

The Bar With a Great Back Patio

The bar that is aggressively average until you go through the back door. The patio that exists separately from the front experience — string lights, different crowd, fire pit if you're lucky, the ability to have a conversation without leaning in and shouting. The bar earns the ranking because of the patio, not despite it.

The Classic American Hotel Bar

The kind with dark wood and leather and a bartender who takes the job seriously. Not the lobby bar in a modern hotel with neon signs and a QR code menu. The kind in an older city hotel where you could have a drink in 1985 and you can have the same drink now and the experience is identical. These are underrated places.

B TIER

The Irish Pub (That Actually Tries)

The category has been diluted by franchise replication. The genuine article — usually with some actual Irish ownership or history, definitely with Guinness poured correctly, probably with someone who knows a song and will sing it if the night goes long enough — still holds up. The problem is that every airport has an Irish pub and most of them are neither Irish nor pubs.

The Whiskey Bar

High floor, low ceiling. A good whiskey bar has forty bottles behind the bar and a staff that knows what's in each one and won't make you feel stupid for asking. A bad whiskey bar uses the bottle count as décor and doesn't actually know which Scotch you should try based on what you like. The category earns B on the strength of its best examples.

The Beer Garden

Seasonal, logistical, and dependent on weather in a way that limits its ranking. At its best — a legitimate outdoor space, good draft selection, communal tables, September afternoon — it's as good as anything in A tier. The ceiling is high, the average is lower.

C TIER

The Cocktail Bar Where the Menu Is a Book

These bars are the most technically skilled. The drinks are excellent. The sourcing is genuine. The bartenders are interesting people who know their craft. And yet — you wait 18 minutes for a drink, the menu takes 6 minutes to parse, the experience requires more work than it should, and the whole thing makes you feel slightly managed rather than welcomed. Fine. Respectable. Not a place you go when you just want a drink.

The Tiki Bar

The concept is fun. Rum is a legitimate spirit. The atmosphere is genuinely committed to its bit. But: every tiki bar in America has the same drinks, the same decor, and the same limitations on how seriously you can take the evening. It's a B-tier experience that has been allocated to C because of the opportunity cost of having gone there instead of somewhere else.

D TIER

The Rooftop Bar

The view is real. The experience is largely transactional. You go once for the view and never again because the drinks cost what they cost, the wait for a bartender is what it is, and there are places with better experiences at lower cost that don't require you to take an elevator to a bar.

Exception: rooftops with genuinely extraordinary views in cities where the skyline is worth $20 for a drink. New York, Chicago, a few others. Elsewhere: D tier, final answer.

F TIER

The Bar That Used to Be Good

The bar that your friend tells you about from 2017. The bar that "used to be their spot." The bar that closed and reopened under different management with the same name and none of the soul. You go hoping it's what it was. It is not. It is F tier because the expectation makes the reality worse than any other bar category.

This is the ranking. It is correct. If you disagree, you're probably a fan of the cocktail menu bar, and that's allowed, and we can discuss it at a good dive bar.