The Best Bars in Ann Arbor
Not just cocktail bars. The full spectrum: dives, beer bars, sports bars, wine bars, and the places where the drink is the point.
We published our best cocktail bars guide earlier this year, and it covers the places where the drink-making is serious and the bartenders have opinions about ice. That guide does what it should. But Ann Arbor's bar scene is wider than craft cocktails, and a guide that only covers the places where a drink takes four minutes to build misses half the picture.
This is the other half. And some of the first half, too. The full map of where to drink in Ann Arbor: cocktail bars, beer bars, wine bars, the tiki bar in the basement, and the bar where you go because the stool feels right and nobody is trying to impress you. Different bars serve different purposes on different nights, and the city has enough range to match most of them.
The Cocktail Bars
The Last Word (301 W Huron St)
If you are going to drink one cocktail in Ann Arbor, drink it here. The Last Word is named after the gin-and-Chartreuse classic reportedly created at the Detroit Athletic Club during Prohibition, and the bar executes it as well as anywhere I have had it.1The Last Word cocktail's history, including its reported origin at the Detroit Athletic Club, has been documented by cocktail historians and widely reported in cocktail publications. The menu is organized around eras of American cocktail making, the bartenders can walk you through every section, and the room, small and dim with dark wood and no televisions, is built for the act of drinking and talking.
Cocktails run $13 to $17. The bartender's choice is the move when you cannot decide. Tell them a spirit and a direction. They will handle the rest. On a Tuesday at 5 p.m., the room breathes. On a Friday at 10, it fills.
312 Underground (312 S Main St)
You descend a staircase from street level into a basement bar with maybe twenty seats and bartenders making drinks directly in front of you. The ceiling is low. The room is close. 312 Underground is a cocktail bar where the intimacy of the space shapes the drinking. Seasonal menus rotate, and house originals lean creative: mezcal with burnt honey and mole bitters on one visit, a clarified milk punch on another. Cocktails run $13 to $16.2312 Underground pricing observed across visits in 2025, consistent with our cocktail bars guide.
No reservations. Arrive early or accept the wait. A cocktail at 312 tastes better in this room than it would anywhere else, and the room is the reason.
Pretzel Bell (226 S Main St)
The name dates to 1934, when the original Pretzel Bell reportedly opened on this same block.3Multiple Ann Arbor historical accounts reference the original Pretzel Bell as opening in the 1930s, with 1934 as the commonly cited year. The current incarnation is a cocktail-forward bar with the atmosphere of a comfortable pub. High ceilings, warm light, a long bar with substance. The old-fashioned is the benchmark: good bourbon, proper sugar, bitters that add complexity without announcing themselves. I have ordered it three visits running. Cocktails run $12 to $15.
The Varsity Burger with fried egg, bacon, and smoked Gouda is the food worth ordering. Come at 4:30 on a Wednesday and the place is yours. See our cocktail bars guide and happy hour guide for more on Pretzel Bell's programs.
The Beer Bars
Bar Lupulus (311 S Main St)
The best beer bar in Ann Arbor operates under its own name at street level inside Jolly Pumpkin's taproom. The tap list is the deepest Jolly Pumpkin lineup in the state: La Roja, Bam Biere, Calabaza Blanca, and limited releases that appear without announcement. Nine of twelve taps on a recent visit were pouring Jolly Pumpkin sour ales.
The sour beer cocktails are the differentiator. A sour ale mixed with citrus, simple syrup, and an amaro float should not work. It does. The michelada, built with a house sour instead of a standard lager, is bracing and complex, the best version of that drink I have had in the state. Draft pours are $7 to $10; beer cocktails run $10 to $14.4Bar Lupulus pricing from our profile, observed in late 2025.
Jolly Pumpkin (311 S Main St)
Same building as Bar Lupulus, different proposition. Jolly Pumpkin's dining room side serves wood-fired pizza alongside Ron Jeffries' sour ales. Bam Biere is the session beer: light enough for two pints before dinner, interesting enough that you will not wish you had ordered something else. The rooftop opens seasonally, and a La Roja three stories above South Main on a Thursday at 5 p.m. is one of the city's better small pleasures. Most food items fall between $12 and $22.5Jolly Pumpkin menu pricing from our profile, observed in early 2026.
Upstairs, Bori Korean Kitchen & Bar adds a third floor to what has become Ann Arbor's most interesting single address.
The Tiki Bar (Opening March 2026)
Huna Tiki Bar (200 S Main St, basement)
Opening March 4, a rum-forward tiki bar in the basement of Echelon, Ann Arbor's James Beard semifinalist. The entrance will be through a discreet door on Washington Street, descending into a room committed to bamboo, thatched ceiling panels, and lighting dim enough that your phone camera will struggle. Seventy-eight seats. The menu promises the Strong Island (gin, rum, vodka, lemon, cinnamon, curacao, grapefruit soda, bitters) and the Iguana, a riff on a green Negroni with Midori and Chartreuse.6Huna Tiki Bar drink details from the bar's pre-opening menu and our profile.
Large-format shareable drinks in ceramic vessels will be the group option. The right play will be dinner upstairs at Echelon, then drinks below.
The Wine Bar
Spencer (113 E Liberty St)
Spencer is a wine shop by day and a tasting-menu restaurant by night, but the bar program bridges both identities. Before the evening's tasting begins, and on nights when the restaurant is dark, the natural wine list is the draw. The selection leans toward small producers, biodynamic bottles, and the kind of wines that reward a conversation with the person behind the counter. Glass pours change regularly.
USA Today named Spencer to its 2026 Restaurants of the Year list, and the wine program is a significant part of what earned that recognition.7USA Today's 2026 Restaurants of the Year list, published February 2026. If you want to drink wine in Ann Arbor with someone who knows the list and can guide you without lecturing, this is where you go.
The Bar That Also Serves Dinner
Black Pearl (302 S Main St)
Black Pearl is a seafood restaurant and sushi bar on South Main, but the cocktail list and sake selection are strong enough to justify a bar-only visit. The sake list rewards exploration, and the staff knows it well enough to guide a curious drinker through several pours without condescension. Pair a sake flight with a few pieces of nigiri and you have a happy hour that costs less than you expect and delivers more.
Happy hour runs Monday through Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m. and Friday through Saturday from 4 to 5 p.m. The heated greenhouse extends the season for outdoor drinking. Seventeen years on South Main, and the bar is still earning its own crowd separate from the dining room.
Aventura (216 E Washington St)
A tapas restaurant first, but the sherry list is among the best in town, and the late afternoon is when the bar shows best. Manzanilla sherry, cold and briny, alongside double-fried bravas with salsa brava is one of the better pairings in the city for under $20. The building dates to 1872, and the pace is Mediterranean in the best sense.8Aventura building date per our profile and local historical records.
Aventura does not do "happy hour" in the formal sense. What it does is make late-afternoon drinking feel like something you planned.
The South Main Argument
Eight of the eleven places on this list are on or within a block of South Main Street. Echelon at 200, with a basement tiki bar scheduled to open below it in March 2026. Pretzel Bell at 226. Black Pearl at 302. Jolly Pumpkin, Bar Lupulus, and Bori at 311. 312 Underground at 312. The Chop House at 322. The density is unusual for a city this size, and it means drinking in Ann Arbor increasingly means drinking on South Main.
The exceptions prove the rule. The Last Word on Huron, Spencer on Liberty, and Aventura on Washington all operate in quieter registers, off the main corridor, offering something the strip does not: space to think.
If you want a plan for a Friday night, start at The Last Word on Huron, walk south to Pretzel Bell for a second drink and the burger, then end at 312 Underground depending on your mood. Once the basement tiki bar opens, it becomes a fourth option on the same stretch. Three bars, three blocks, three different experiences, with a fourth on deck. The whole evening costs less than a concert ticket and lasts longer.
Hours, specials, and pricing vary by establishment and season. Call ahead or check websites for current offerings. Prices listed are as of early 2026. For cocktail-specific recommendations, see our cocktail bars guide. For happy hour picks, see our happy hour guide.