Hotel bars on the 50 Best radar
The latest North America’s 50 Best Bars ranking, released by 50 Best on April 23, 2024 and compiled from the votes of more than 270 bar-industry experts across the region, has quietly redrawn the luxury hotel map for cocktail-focused travelers. When a hotel bar appears on this kind of curated list, it signals that the property treats the venue as a destination in its own right rather than a simple amenity for tired guests. For anyone choosing a 50 Best–caliber North American hotel stay, the ranking now matters almost as much as the room category.
New York City leads the charge, with Double Chicken Please crowned No. 1 in North America and turning a simple night out into a reason to book a suite nearby. The official 50 Best data confirms the shift in scale and ambition; “Total bars ranked: 50” and “New entries in 2024: 15” show how fast the North American cocktail scene is evolving. For travelers, that means more options to enjoy world-class drinks in hotels from New York City to Chicago without sacrificing service standards or sleep quality.
Across the region, the 50 Best Bars North America hotel narrative is anchored by three headline names from the official list. Double Chicken Please in New York City, Handshake Speakeasy in Mexico City and The Keefer Bar in Vancouver each demonstrate how a best-bar-caliber program can sit inside or alongside a hotel and still feel independent. They share a focus on precise cocktails, disciplined team training and a guest journey where every drink, from a simple tequila highball to a complex stirred cocktail, is treated as part of the stay rather than a pre-dinner distraction. As one Vancouver concierge at a luxury property near Chinatown notes, “Guests now ask about The Keefer Bar before they ask about check-out time.”
From lobby lounge to best bar contender
What separates a pleasant hotel lounge from a serious 50 Best Bars North America contender is not décor, but intent. At this level, the bar team operates with the same rigor as a fine-dining kitchen, tracking drinks data, repeat orders and feedback with almost CRM-like discipline. The structure of the experience matters as much as the liquid in the glass, turning design language into a practical operating principle that shapes everything from lighting to glassware.
In New York, Double Chicken Please shows how a Lower East Side bar can anchor an entire property, with a bar snack menu calibrated to keep guests at the counter rather than sending them back upstairs. In Mexico City, Handshake Speakeasy proves that the city’s reputation is not just about agave; its tequila and mezcal program is structured like a wine cellar, with verticals, vintages and guided flights. Over in Vancouver, The Keefer Bar and the wider Chinatown cocktail scene demonstrate how a hotel can partner with a destination bar instead of trying to replicate it in-house, letting guests step from elevator to alley in under five minutes.
For travelers planning a route through North America, the hotel choices shaped by the 50 Best Bars list now influence entire itineraries from Los Angeles to San Francisco and up to Vancouver. A stay near The Keefer Bar or another top-ranked venue means you can savor carefully crafted cocktails, walk back safely and wake up ready for meetings or museums. At one boutique property in downtown Los Angeles, for example, concierges report that roughly one in four booking inquiries now mentions proximity to a specific cocktail bar, a shift that favors hotels where the bartender, not the DJ, sets the tone.
How rankings reshape booking decisions
The 50 Best Bars North America effect is most visible in how solo travelers now filter search results. Instead of starting with spa or pool, many begin with the question of which acclaimed cocktail bars are within a short walk or lift ride. For a certain kind of guest, the idea of the “best in America” now means a property where the drinks program, not the breakfast buffet, is the nightly ritual.
In Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco, concierges report guests arriving with the official list printed or saved, asking first about speakeasy-style venues and only then about museums. Some will choose a hotel purely because a jewel-box neighborhood bar or a fried chicken and cocktail pairing has gone viral among bartenders. Others look for a 50 Best Bars–adjacent hotel that offers priority seating, room charge options and late-night drinks service, using guides on how to find hotels with late-night bars for a premium stay to refine their search.
Mexico City illustrates the pattern clearly, with Handshake Speakeasy and other leading bars pulling in guests who might once have stayed in a quieter district. Travelers now weigh whether a property understands that thoughtful design applies to everything from the first welcome cocktail to the last nightcap. When a hotel aligns its bar, its rooms and its service culture around that idea, it stops being a place to sleep near the action and becomes part of the North American bar story itself.