Best Bars in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia — updated August 21, 2026
Five Richmond spots where the bar counter is worth a seat, from a Rocketts Landing happy hour to a Church Hill fish house. A note up front: none of these is a true dive, so we have named the guide for what it actually covers.
Listings verified
This list started as a dive bar roundup, and the research did not support one: every place that came back is a restaurant with a bar rather than a shot-and-a-beer room, so the title now says so. What Richmond does have in quantity is the bar counter attached to a good kitchen, from Rocketts Landing out to Patterson Avenue. The five below are ordered by how much of the experience actually happens at the bar, with review counts noted so you can tell a settled reputation from a promising one.
1. Island Shrimp Co. Rocketts Landing
The only place here that Google files under Bar rather than Restaurant, and the one with the clearest drinking hours: happy hour runs Monday through Friday from 4pm to 6pm at the bar. It holds a 4.8 across more than 4,300 reviews, which at that volume is a settled rating rather than an early one. The kitchen runs seafood and island-leaning plates, with crab dip, shrimp, ribs and Kahlua pork on the menu. Doors are open 11am to 9pm Monday through Thursday and Sunday, until 10pm Friday and Saturday. The address is 11 Orleans St in Rocketts Landing, east of downtown.
2. Fall Line Kitchen & Bar
A downtown bar at 500 E Broad St that keeps longer hours than most restaurant counters in Richmond, opening at 6:30am on weekdays for breakfast and running through dinner. Dinner service is 5pm to 10pm Sunday through Thursday and 5pm to 11pm Friday and Saturday, so it is the late option on this list for anyone staying in the center of town. Weekend brunch runs 7am to 1pm. The 4.7 rating sits on more than 2,400 reviews, enough volume to take at face value. Reservations are available through the restaurant's site.
3. Lemaire
Lemaire at 101 W Franklin St keeps a separate lounge and all-day dining service, which is the reason it lands on a bar list rather than a straight fine dining one. Published lounge hours run 11am to 11pm Monday through Thursday, 11am to midnight Friday and Saturday, and noon to 11pm Sunday, though the restaurant's own listings differ on closing time, so call ahead if you are aiming for the last hour. Dinner is served daily from 5pm to 10pm. The 4.7 rating rests on more than 1,000 reviews, a solidly established figure for a fine dining room.
4. Buckhead's
A West End steakhouse at 8510 Patterson Ave with its own libations and wine list, which makes the bar a reasonable destination in its own right. It is dinner only, Tuesday through Saturday from 5pm to 10pm, so plan around a Sunday or Monday closure. Braveheart Beef is the house cut. The rating is 4.7 across 774 reviews, a number large enough to trust and small enough to reflect a room that seats fewer people than the downtown places above. Reservations show up on the restaurant's site around holidays.
5. Alewife
A modern fish house in Church Hill at 3120 E Marshall St from chef Lee Gregory, with a chilled and raw section that suits sitting at the bar: Virginia oysters, smoked fish dip, mixed greens. Dinner runs Monday through Saturday from 5pm to 9:30pm, with Sunday brunch from 10:30am to 1:30pm and no Sunday dinner. The 4.7 rating comes from 698 reviews, the smallest count on this list, so treat it as strong but less settled than the four above. The menu changes seasonally, with dishes such as grilled monkfish appearing for a stretch and then rotating out.
What we left off
Afterglow Coffee Cooperative, Richmond's first worker-owned coffee roaster and cafe, is a good room but not a bar, and it is closed Monday and Tuesday besides. The Boathouse at Short Pump Town Center has the highest review count of anything considered here, over 6,000, but it operates as a multi-location Virginia group, which puts it outside the locally independent scope of this guide.