59 Best Bars in South Carolina, USA

A local landmark, the city's oldest extant gay bar hosts lively karaoke parties, DJs and dancing on weekends, and boisterous drag shows.

Just two blocks from the Sullivan’s Island beach, this friendly pub is a local favorite, often featuring Irish, folk, and blues music throughout the week. It's also home to the annual Polar Bear Plunge on New Year's Day.

The cocktails here—frothy fizzes, slings, smashes, and juleps—are retro, some dating back to before Prohibition. The bartenders don bow ties and suspenders, but the atmosphere is utterly contemporary, with slick gray walls, butcher-block tabletops, and subtle lighting. The kitchen serves up small plates like oysters, arugula salad, and Coca-Cola--braised ham.

Dollar bills cover just about every square inch of the Griffon, helping the bar achieve nearly legendary status around the city. Its wood interior is dark, dusty, and well worn yet charming. A rotating selection of draft beers comes from local breweries like Westbrook, Coast, and Holy City. It's a popular lunchtime and happy-hour watering hole and hosts live music on weekend nights.

This pricey bar and restaurant, which caters to a crowd of professionals young and old, has a contemporary, minimalist interior design. A piano-and-sax duo serenades the first-floor dinner patrons and the bar crowd several nights a week. During Sunday brunch, the Plantation Singers gospel group belts out the spiritual blues.

The longest continuously operating restaurant and bar in South Carolina, Henry's has evolved since 1932. On the first floor is a large horseshoe bar and dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out to the Market. The second floor is a classic jazz bar with exposed brick and rafters and dim chandelier lighting. A few steps up is a rooftop deck and an enclosed dance lounge that attracts a younger crowd on weekends.

This happening waterfront joint is set up for a backyard party, featuring live music on the gazebo stage every Friday and Saturday night. There's also an excellent menu of steamed, fried, and broiled seafood.

This giant shed (quite literally—its exterior facade is rusty corrugated steel) showcases up-and-coming talent and national names in blues, rock, jazz, country, and R&B in its 2,000-capacity concert hall and on stages in its Southern-style restaurant with patio. The Sunday gospel brunch is a great deal, and there's free live music on the deck every evening during summer.

One of the driving forces behind Last Saint was the desire to create an all-star bar team: its members reliably put out some of the city's most sophisticated cocktails, even if they're often tinged with tropical silliness.

This venue features high-energy shows by impersonators of pop stars like Bruno Mars, Dolly Parton, Elvis, Garth Brooks, and the Blues Brothers.

A late-night waterfront hangout, Luther's is casual and fun, with a young crowd watching the big-screen TVs or listening to live music. There's also a lunch and dinner menu with favorites such as Brewsky's burger and teriyaki wings, but the food’s not the draw here. The decor features exposed brick, pine paneling, old-fashioned posters on the walls, a great bar area, and plenty of outdoor seating.

You can have a drink, watch boats come back from a day of fishing, hear live music, and enjoy the evening breeze with a stroll along the Murrells Inlet Marsh Walk, a picturesque boardwalk that connects eight waterfront bars and restaurants, from Drunken Jack's on the north end to Wicked Tuna at the Crazy Sister Marina on the south end. On the Fourth of July, the Marsh Walk serves as your front-row seat to the wildly popular Boat Parade. Also included along the way are colorful waterfront stops with fanciful names like Dead Dog Saloon, Creek Ratz, and Wahoo's.

Once a train depot, this towering space is filled to the max when popular bands like Galactic, Neko Case, and Big Gigantic play. Tickets typically range from $15 to $25. The bar is open only on nights when a concert is scheduled.

Done up in black and white, this lively sushi bar serves fun small plates like ceviche with mango, pear, and mint-yuzu vinaigrette that pair perfectly with a sake flight. You can lounge on the couches during happy hour—which runs from 5 to 7 Monday, Wednesday, and Friday—and enjoy half-priced sake and signature sushi rolls. On Saturday night, a high-energy DJ cranks out tunes while the place becomes a velvet rope club.

This place might be small and a little worse for wear, but it's big on the shag moves, cold drinks, and fish baskets. It has four pool tables and karaoke every Thursday and Sunday.

Atop the Market Pavilion Hotel, the swanky outdoor Pavilion Bar offers panoramic views of the city and harbor, set around the hotel's posh swimming pool. Enjoy appetizers like lobster ceviche and duck nachos with a specialty mojito or martini. The dress code dictates no flip-flops, baseball caps, visors, or tank tops.

Come here for the raw or steamed oysters—fat, juicy, and plucked from the Louisiana Gulf, Nova Scotia, and various points in between. Try the oyster shooters: one oyster in a shot glass, topped with Absolut Peppar vodka and a few squirts of spicy cocktail sauce. Consider it an opening sortie before your dinner reservation around the corner at Husk or Oak.

This Dolly Parton–owned production features a 15-foot-deep water lagoon staged with pirate ships Crimson and Sapphire. Ye families will enjoy a four-course feast while watching swashbuckling fights, pyrotechnics, acrobats, high dives, and mermaids in flight.

This bar atop the Historic District Hyatt House serves beer by the ounce from their 70 taps, allowing patrons to sample ad infinitum. Its biggest draw, however, is the view. From its ninth-floor vantage, it's the highest rooftop bar in the city.

These cozy quarters on King Street, complete with communal tables surrounded by bar stools, bustle at happy hour and on weekend evenings. The bartenders here are among the city's best, equally skilled in classic cocktails and creative takes on new spirits.

This place isn't really a dive bar—it just looks like one, thanks to dim lighting and an expansive deck that backs up to the train tracks. The bar serves an array of canned beers and a tasty trio of punches with rum, bourbon, or vodka poured over crushed ice. Hungry? Feast on blue-collar eats like fried bologna sandwiches, loaded baked potatoes, and house-made beef jerky. There's also live music throughout the week on an intimate indoor stage.

This bar offers fine service to sailors, college kids, and out-of-towners alike, with cheap domestic beer and old-fashioned cocktails. Situated beneath the Marina Variety Store restaurant—itself a Charleston landmark dating back to 1963—Salty Mike's provides a crusty, no-frills ambience and a dreamy seaside view of the Ashley River and Charleston City Marina.

A '50s-era neon sign welcomes revelers into this classic dance hall inside the Ocean Drive Resort, where DJs and a regular rotation of rock and beach music bands perform every weekend. The Shaggers Hall of Fame is also located here, in the OD Beach Club.

Dine and dance the night away aboard the wide-beamed motor yacht Spirit of Carolina. Dinner is three or more courses and includes a choice of five entrées, from shrimp and grits to New York strip. Live musicians perform blues and beach music during the cruise. This three-hour excursion appeals to an older crowd, but everyone enjoys seeing the twinkling lights of the harbor. The ship departs from Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant. Reservations are essential for evening cruises.

Enjoy Irish music by local group, the Bograts, on most weekends at this rollicking, traditional Irish pub. If you're hungry, dig into the Irish nachos—cubed potatoes, cheddar cheese, jalapeños, tomatoes, and ranch dressing—with a Guinness or Harp.

Funky sounds from the '70s and '80s mix with the latest club anthems at this perennially popular dance club. Listen to the cover bands at the downstairs bar, mingle on the outdoor patio, or head upstairs for the DJ-led dance party. It's open only Friday and Saturday night.