#historic bars

The Old Absinthe House in New Orleans is more than just a bar. It’s a portal to the past, a place where history and hauntings mingle, and where the spirit of New Orleans truly comes alive. Established in 1807, the Old Absinthe House has witnessed centuries of history, from pirate raids to Prohibition, and its walls whisper tales of famous patrons, ghostly encounters, and the legendary absinthe…

Heinold's First and Last Chance 

There is nothing better than a watering hole like this.

The pub in continuous operations since 1883 named for the first and last chance to drink alcohol heavily before or after a long voyage, built from remnants of an old whaling ship, the last commercial establishment in California with its original gas lighting, a slanted, uneven floor formed in 1906 during the great San Francisco earthquake and portion of the piles the pub is built on sank.

Swinging Doors — Los Angeles’s Oldest Bars

INTRODUCTION In 2018, I wrote about and made a map of Los Angeles’s oldest restaurants. It proved relatively easy because there was lots already written on the subject. When I started writing about Los Angeles’s oldest bars, it proved much more difficult. Not only could I find no serious effort to draw upon, most of the flimsy listicles out there were a jumble of misinformation copy-and-pasted…

Some of Chicago’s historic bars have been around since the prohibition era and retain an air of 1920s glamour, and even the newcomers doff their fedora to the speakeasy. All serve a mean cocktail