New Bedford's nightlife (Boston, Fall River, Acushnet: neighborhood, closing, restaurants)

[SrBelvedere]

I apologize if this thread has already been created, but, whats happening in New Bedford these days? I know the city has a plethora of great restaurants and bars but how are the clubs? Are the prices comparable to Providence and Fall River?

[lrfox]

New Bedford's nightlife is pretty good for a small city. The downtown area is where most of the bars are located and in the past few years, more and more have opened. The city's strength in terms of nightlife is mostly the craft beer bar type places. Pour Farm and Rose Alley have the biggest selections, but Pier 39, Catwalk, Hibernia, No Problemo and even Pizans (a pizza place with a good selection of Tap and bottled beer) have great selections as well. There are some more upscale places to drink and relax too (particularly Cork and Candleworks with nice atmospheres in historic buildings). There are also a handful of dives in/around downtown (The Garden is great for cheap beer and pool/darts). One of New Bedford's biggest strengths at night is late night eating. Pizans is open serving great brick oven pizza by the slice until the early morning hours. Cobblestone's serves breakfast until around 3am, No Problemo fills the Mexican void, and there are now a few food carts on Friday and Saturday. Again, all of this is just downtown (there are plenty of diners in the outskirts and outside the city serving late night food).

Clubs aren't really a strength for NB. There are a few downtown, but they're mostly well below high end. Bar 908 is the most popular dance club, but it's sort of trashy. Stardust is over on Union Street and I wouldn't set foot in there. It's tough. Most people head to Providence or Boston for decent clubs just because what does exist in New Bedford is not very nice. Catwalk and a few of the other bars have dancing, but not really a "club" atmosphere.

New Bedford has some great ethnic bars and clubs along Acushnet Ave in the North End. These places are always busy on the weekends. It's probably a little scary at first for anyone who primarily speaks English as almost everyone speaks Portuguese or Spanish. It's also not the most attractive looking area. However, it's a lot of fun and I try to do a night out in this area every so often. Elizabeth's is an awesome, cheap and super authentic Guatemalan restaurant across the street from a Portuguese Social club, near Cafe Europa, Cafe Portugal, Incognito, Club Sport Madiera, Dublin's, etc. High end Portuguese at Cotali Mar, or at the Landmark Antonio's restaurant. There are also a bunch of small hot dog places along Acushnet Ave. and a handful of Bakeries that, while they're not yet open if you knock on the back door at around 2-4am, you can get the freshest chourico rolls, malasadas, etc. from.

Prices overall are cheaper than Providence and on par with Fall River. Some of the downtown bars in New Bedford rival what some of the neighborhood bars in Providence charge for drinks, but don't compare to Federal Hill or downtown bars/clubs in terms of price.

The best thing, in my opinion, about nightlife in New Bedford is that most of the bars, (particularly downtown or along the Ave) are within walking distance of each other. There's good variety too and more places are opening than closing.

[SrBelvedere]

thanks man. sorry it took me so long to get back to you. Your post is going to come in handy this weekend.