Best Places for a Drink in Richmond
Richmond, Virginia — updated August 21, 2026
A rebuilt list of Richmond bars and bar rooms, ordered by how settled their ratings are, with verified hours, happy hour windows and what the menus actually list.
Listings verified
Richmond's drinking rooms are spread wide: Rocketts Landing on the eastern edge, Broad Street downtown, Church Hill, and Short Pump out west. That means happy hour here is a logistics question as much as a taste one, so this list leads with the hours and windows each business publishes. One note on the premise: we could not verify rooftop seating at any of these addresses from the sources available, so the list is built on bar programs and hours we could confirm instead.
1. Island Shrimp Co. Rocketts Landing
The highest-rated place on this list and the best-evidenced: 4.8 from 4,360 reviews, which is a proven number rather than a promising one. It is filed as a bar, and the Rocketts Landing page pitches the happy hour at the bar as the reason to come, running Monday to Friday from 4pm to 6pm. Hours are 11am to 9pm Monday through Thursday and Sunday, with a 10pm close Friday and Saturday. The online ordering menu lists crab dip, shrimp, salmon, ribs and Kahlua pork, so it is a full seafood kitchen behind the bar, not snacks.
2. The Boathouse at Short Pump Town Center
More reviews than anything else here, 6,051 of them at 4.7, so the rating is about as settled as Richmond gets. Two happy hour details circulate and they disagree: the Short Pump location page lists happy hour Monday to Friday from 2pm to 6pm, while the company's main page describes a weekday 4pm to 6pm bar happy hour with $1 off draft beers, $2 off wines by the glass, $3 off select cocktails, $7 starters and snacks, and $12 appetizers. Call before planning around the earlier window. Last seating is 9pm most nights, 10pm Friday and Saturday. Sunday brunch runs 10am to 3pm. Closed Christmas Day.
3. Fall Line Kitchen & Bar
A downtown bar room at 500 E Broad with 2,465 reviews behind a 4.7, and the longest daily service window of any restaurant on this list. Breakfast starts at 6:30am on weekdays, lunch runs 11am to 3pm, and dinner goes from 5pm to 10pm Sunday through Thursday and to 11pm Friday and Saturday. Weekend brunch is 7am to 1pm. The online reservation system releases tables as late as 11:30pm on the busiest nights, which makes it a workable option after an event nearby rather than a plan-ahead-only room.
4. Lemaire
The lounge here keeps longer hours than the dining room: all-day lounge service is listed Monday to Thursday 11am to 11pm, Friday and Saturday 11am to midnight, and Sunday noon to 11pm. Dinner proper is daily 5pm to 10pm, with breakfast from 7am and lunch from 11am. One caution: the restaurant's Facebook page lists a 9pm daily close, which conflicts with the lounge hours on its own site, so confirm before a late arrival. The rating is 4.7 from 1,035 reviews, enough volume to trust.
5. Quirk Hotel Richmond
The other listing here categorized as a bar rather than a restaurant, and the one most people mean when they ask about drinking above Broad Street. Its 4.3 is the lowest score on this list, but it comes from 1,239 reviews, so it is a settled figure rather than a fluke. The Lobby Bar serves daily from 3pm to 11pm, with happy hour every day from 4pm to 6pm. Dinner runs 5pm to 9pm Sunday through Thursday and to 10pm Friday and Saturday; weekend brunch is 10:30am to 2pm; the café opens at 7am daily. Ask the hotel directly about any rooftop service.
6. Alewife
Chef Lee Gregory's modern fish house in Church Hill, and the thinnest evidence base on this list: 4.7 from 698 reviews, promising but less settled than the entries above. It is a sit-down room where the bar order writes itself, with Virginia oysters listed at 19 raw and chilled, smoked fish dip among the starters, and a mixed greens salad at 15. The kitchen posts seasonal plates such as grilled monkfish with stewed okra, Sungold tomato and Carolina Gold rice. Dinner is Monday through Saturday, 5pm to 9:30pm, with Sunday brunch 10:30am to 1:30pm. No Sunday dinner.
7. Buckhead's
A West End steakhouse on Patterson Avenue with a separate libations list, wine list and dessert menu, rated 4.7 across 774 reviews. It lands last here because it is the least flexible: dinner only, Tuesday through Saturday, 5pm to 10pm, which rules out Sunday and Monday entirely. The kitchen builds around Braveheart Beef, and reservations are the norm for holiday services. If the plan is a long drink at a bar you can walk into on a whim, look higher up this list; if it is a booked table with a wine list, this is the one.
What we left off
The brief lists no chains and no closed businesses. We did drop ZZQ Texas Craft Barbeque, which is a first-come, first-served barbecue counter open 11am to 6pm Wednesday through Sunday and closing early when it sells out. It is well regarded, at 4.7 from 2,858 reviews, but it does not answer a question about places to sit and drink in the evening.