Best Rooftop Bars in Asheville
Asheville, North Carolina — updated August 22, 2026
Where to drink above street level in Asheville, from a downtown bar that pours coffee before it pours cocktails to a South Slope taproom with thousands of reviews behind its rating.
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Asheville's drinking scene is packed into a few walkable blocks: downtown around Patton Avenue and Battery Park, then the South Slope brewery district just south of it. That density is why rooftop hopping works here, and why one local operator has built a whole business around it. Everything below is independently run, with the review counts noted so you can tell a settled reputation from a promising one.
1. Asheville Rooftop Bar Tours
This is the only entry built entirely around the premise: it exists to move groups between Asheville rooftops rather than to serve you at one. It runs out of 45 S French Broad Ave, Suite 170, on the western edge of downtown, which puts the starting point within walking distance of the central bar cluster. The rating is 4.9 from 246 reviews, high but based on a smaller sample than the bars further down this list, so treat it as promising rather than proven. Useful if you want several stops in an evening without planning the route yourself.
2. The Times Bar & Coffee Shop
A dual-purpose downtown spot at 56 Patton Ave that works as a coffee shop and as a bar, so it fits an early start or a late one. It holds a 4.8 across 579 reviews, a strong figure with enough volume behind it to be believable rather than a fluke of a good opening month. The Patton Avenue address puts it in the middle of the downtown grid, an easy walk from Pack Square and the Battery Park block. Check thetimesbarasheville.com before you go, since the day and night operations keep different rhythms.
3. Luminosa
Luminosa sits at 20 Battery Park Ave, on one of the densest bar blocks in Asheville, which makes it a practical anchor for a night that involves more than one stop. It rates 4.8 from 520 reviews, essentially level with The Times on score and close on volume, so the two are hard to separate on the numbers alone. Battery Park fills up on weekend evenings once downtown dinner service ends, so an earlier arrival is the safer plan. Its site is luminosaavl.com.
4. Burial Beer Co. South Slope Taproom
The most proven rating here by a wide margin: 4.7 from more than 2,100 reviews, a number that takes years of steady service to accumulate. The taproom is at 40 Collier Ave in the South Slope, a short but uphill walk from the downtown bars, which makes it a better first or last stop than a mid-crawl detour. Beer is the focus rather than cocktails, so plan accordingly. Large groups and warm-weather weekends are when it gets tight; weeknights are calmer.
What we left off
The Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa is part of a national hotel group, so it falls outside our independents-only rule despite its 4.6 rating across more than 12,000 reviews. We also cut several well-reviewed Asheville businesses that do not match the category: Cúrate Bar de Tapas, La Rumba Restaurant Latino and Old Europe Pastries are all worth a visit on their own terms, but a tapas bar, a Latin restaurant and a downtown patisserie are not rooftop bars, and padding the list with them would misrepresent what you are walking into.