Best Bars and Taprooms in Raleigh
Raleigh, North Carolina — updated August 24, 2026
Raleigh's drinking rooms run from a Hillsborough Street tavern in a Victorian house to North Raleigh taprooms with trivia nights and free wine tastings. Here is where the reviews back up the reputation.
Listings verified
Raleigh's bar scene splits geographically: downtown holds the older tavern rooms, while the northern edge of the city along Falls of Neuse and Dunn Road has filled with taprooms and wine bars that open at noon and run trivia on weeknights. The list below is ordered by how convincingly each place answers the question of where to drink, weighing rating against how many reviews stand behind it. Where the evidence is still thin, it says so.
1. Second Empire Restaurant and Tavern
The most thoroughly proven room on this list: 4.8 from 1,813 reviews, a rating that has had a long time to settle. It sits at 330 Hillsborough Street, and the tavern is the informal half of a fine dining operation. The dinner menu changes seasonally and comes from Chef Daniel Schurr; the kitchen notes that the same menu is offered in all dining areas, so the tavern is not a lesser option. Recent additions include an herb roasted Bell & Evans chicken breast with potato gnocchi and a pork rib chop. OpenTable lists dinner Tuesday through Saturday, 5pm to 10pm, which means Sunday and Monday are out.
2. Local 919 Beer and Wine
A beer bar, wine bar and bottle shop in one at 1540 Dunn Road, Suite 170, which makes it the most flexible stop here if the group cannot agree. The rating is 4.9 across 65 reviews, promising rather than settled, but the calendar does the arguing: trivia with Sopo on a regular weeknight rotation, free wine tastings, and live music from local players including One Block Over and Heather Rogers. Doors open at noon every day; closing is 9pm Monday, 10pm Tuesday through Thursday, and 11pm Friday and Saturday. The tap list is posted online and updated, so you can check what is pouring before leaving the house.
3. Salty Turtle Beer Co: Raleigh
The Raleigh taproom of a coastal brewery, at 13100 Falls of Neuse Road, Suite 130, rated 4.9 from 73 reviews. That is a strong number on a small sample, so treat it as encouraging rather than established. The weekly rhythm is the draw: team trivia on Monday with a dollar off all 16oz drafts, Wine Wednesday, and a run club that welcomes all levels. Published hours vary between the brewery's own listings, with the Raleigh room shown opening in the early afternoon on weekdays and as early as noon elsewhere, so call or check the site the day you go.
4. Saint Pierre Wine Shop + Bar
A wine shop and bar inside Raleigh Iron Works at 1101 East Whitaker Mill Road, Suite 118. It carries a 4.9 rating, but from only 23 reviews, the thinnest evidence base on this list; the score is worth noting and not worth treating as final. Hours are generous by Raleigh standards for a wine bar: 2pm to 10pm Monday through Thursday, and noon to 10pm Friday through Sunday, so it works as an early afternoon stop on a weekend as well as a nightcap. The Iron Works setting means you can walk to other tenants in the complex afterward.
5. Lime & Lemon Indian Grill & Bar - Raleigh
Here for anyone who wants the bar attached to a full kitchen. At 105 Friendly Drive, Suite 101, it holds 4.8 from 2,229 reviews, the largest sample in this guide, which makes the rating about as reliable as ratings get. Reviewers single out the range of the menu and how well it accommodates different diets; the Bombay lamb chops are among the dishes the restaurant promotes itself. Service breaks between lunch and dinner most days, with lunch from 11am and dinner from 5pm, and Saturday listed as a midday service only. Check the day before planning a late Saturday visit.
What we left off
This guide previously ran as a rooftop bar list. None of the places in our research is documented as having a rooftop, so we retitled it rather than make a claim we cannot support. Crazy Axe on Garner Station Boulevard is out twice over: it is an axe throwing venue rather than a bar, and Yelp users report the location has closed. NoRa Cafe is a coffee shop whose posted hours run 7am to 5pm daily, which rules out a drink after work. Bazil Indian Cuisine is a strong restaurant at 4.8 from more than 1,100 reviews, but nothing in our research establishes a bar program there, so it stays off a bar list.