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So, just to clarify - this is a much more specific question than "best nightlife". It's which cities have the highest number of bars (not clubs or lounges) open late. Now, since many cities have a 2AM closing time, I'm defining late as open at 1:15 AM on a Wednesday (places that only stay open late on the weekends don't count).
Yelp is obviously an imperfect source, but I think it makes for the best available proxy. What I did for each city was type "bars" and then of course the city name. Then, under "more features", I checked the "Open at" box and set it to 1:15 AM on Wednesday. I did this for about 25 cities and below are the results I got. I didn't adjust for population and of course this doesn't factor in walkability, concentration, etc. It just shows the sheer volume of bars in the city and their immediate adjacent areas. Feel free to add more cities to the list if you want.
We all could have guessed NYC, Chicago, and LA would be the top 3 but Philly, SF, and Vegas have strong showings while Phoenix (being the 5th largest city in the country), Boston, Minneapolis, San Jose, and Inidianapolis are somewhat disappointing. It's interesting that New Orleans and Miami are fairly low - I think in Miami's case it's because the search was for bars instead of clubs and in New Orleans case it's just a much smaller city. And of course many of those New Orleans and Miami bars likely stay open into the wee hours of the morning, which isn't accounted for here.
New York: 2,222
Los Angeles: 965
Chicago: 963
Philadelphia: 622
Las Vegas: 518
Houston: 485
San Francisco: 453
Dallas: 416
Seattle: 392
Denver: 367
San Diego: 341
Washington DC: 335
Portland: 332
Phoenix: 308
Atlanta: 305
Milwaukee: 305
Cleveland: 282
Pittsburgh: 272
Austin: 277
Miami: 266
New Orleans: 219
Baltimore: 197
Minneapolis: 190
Boston: 176
Nashville: 155
San Jose: 146
Indianapolis: 109
Salt Lake City: 40
Last edited by Vincent_Adultman; 04-18-2018 at 02:13 PM..
Yeah, Miami is definitely not a bar city. It's a late night clubbing city. New Orleans has a number of fun, high quality bars that stay open all night and are well-clustered, but in terms of sheer volume it's not that high. Both Boston and Minneapolis have a fairly low quantity of late night bars from my experience so that looks right too. Denver, Seattle, Portland and San Diego all have very similar nightlife from my experience and they are clustered together in the middle of the pack.
How about really late - cities with later (or no) last call. 3:30am on a Wednesday:
Nice - that adds some useful depth to this analysis. NYC is insane - nearly 1,000 places to drink at 3:30 in the morning. Also, I thought LA has last call at 2 AM? I guess it has a lot of places that stay open but don't (legally) serve alcohol? Very impressed with Buffalo - nearly 50 bars open at 3:30 for a relatively small city is pretty phenomenal.
Are these numbers for cities, their counties, or their metros?
I explained the methodology - I just typed in "bars" and the city name into Yelp. The map to the right on the Yelp website shows you the area that is captured. Usually it's the city itself plus nearby adjacent areas, although I guess a multi-nodal metro area that's long and narrow (e.g. Miami) might be short-changed compared to a more centralized, equal radius metro (e.g. Denver) because less of it is captured in the map/search area.
It's an imperfect methodology for a number of reasons but I think it works as a rough proxy.
I’ve never been to Buffalo but I’ve heard good things about their nightlife scene. It makes sense when you remember Buffalo is in New York State which is one of the most lenient States when it comes to last call time.
What Buffalo should do is try to make itself more of a nightlife destination that can bring in tourists from Niagara Falls and maybe even become a regional destination for the growing Toronto area which is stuck with a 2am last call! I doubt this will happen, but it would be cool. I feel there is a lot of untapped potential there.
Nice - that adds some useful depth to this analysis. NYC is insane - nearly 1,000 places to drink at 3:30 in the morning. Also, I thought LA has last call at 2 AM? I guess it has a lot of places that stay open but don't (legally) serve alcohol? Very impressed with Buffalo - nearly 50 bars open at 3:30 for a relatively small city is pretty phenomenal.
NYC is in last call mode at 3:30 AM, the bars have to stop serving alcohol by 4 every night
I think that only in Vegas and New Orleans could you start your night at 3:30, and even then your options would be limited on a Wednesday
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