After Dark >>

• Best Wine Bar
  Harrison's Wine Gallery
  There are bars that serve wine -- the watery house cabernet or chardonnay that you try to drink after you've had a couple of nights of the hard stuff and you're trying to tail off a little -- and there are wine bars. Harrison's Wine Gallery is one of the few places in Broward-Palm Beach with a... More >>
• Greg Aliferis
  Greg Aliferis is the owner of the Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale' s premier venue for national rock acts
  Q: Do you watch reality-television shows? A: I personally don't watch a lot, but I've had some firsthand experience with it. Q: You were a Survivor contestant? A: No, VH1 filmed a 14-part series called Band on the Run in 2000, and the finals ended up here [at the Culture Room]. They... More >>
• Best Alternative to a Strip Bar (2 Comments)
  Greenbrier Restaurant
  Promised the ol' Battle Ax that you wouldn't go to the strip bar tonight? Well, if you're a man of your word and you have a hankerin' to be around scantily clad women, that could be a problem. Happily, Greenbrier has got you covered. On many nights, admittedly, standards have to be set a little... More >>
• Best Place to Get Flogged
  Club 84
  Bitch-slapping's for sissies. Strap yourself into the dungeon-like slave pen, bend over, and let the flogging begin. Playing with the crosses and cage-like contraptions brings a whole new meaning to "going medieval." At the Fetish Box and the London Ballroom's monthly fetish romp, latex,... More >>
• Best Hip-Hop Night
  Mother's Pub
  An open area at the Mother's Pub becomes a launch pad each week for creative hip-hop music-making. A middle-age guy wails on a harmonica and guitar, to the rapping of an MC, who's rhyming to scratching and cuts of a turntablist. Jams like these can be found at "For Those Who Listen," a... More >>
• Best Club Night
  In the Biz Night at the Blue Martini
  The house, electro, and break beats pulsating from the second floor of CityPlace on Monday nights from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. are as much in the forefront of urban style as the venue that they're bouncing off. DJ H-Bomb formerly broadcast a live electronica radio show from the defunct Bliss. Now, the... More >>
• Best Bartender
  Sharon Kennedy
  How does she do it? For those who have never experienced a sold-out show at the Culture Room, let us warn you -- air is rare, and you had better be OK with other people's sweat on your nightlife apparel. It gets so packed that negotiating the brief trip from the bathrooms to the bar requires a... More >>
• Best Dance Club in Palm Beach
  Delux
  Made-up gals with lip gloss in full display populate the dance floor, which resembles an upscale living room, with draperies, mirrors, and sleek seating. Sexy house music pulsates in the minimalist modern venue. Miniature shade lamps dimly light the black bar in the main room, teeming with... More >>
• Best Bar in East Broward
  Shooters
  Following its sudden takeover of Bootleggers earlier this year, Shooters became the largest bar in that no man's land between Fort Lauderdale Beach and Lauderdale-by-the-Sea. In fact, even when compared to bars in those areas, Shooters is still unmatched in scope. So if bigger truly is better,... More >>
• Best Martini
  Sundy House
  When a place of business offers you the "Dirty Thursday" promotion, the choice of 30 martinis every Thursday night for four bucks each, it's pretty hard not to respond positively. But when the staff composes beverages like the "startini," made with Absolut and fresh carambola juice, and serves... More >>
• Best Country and Western Bar
  Plush Pony Lounge
  Plush Pony ain't the kind of place to start line dancing. Those cowboys at the L-shaped bar, and yes, they're probably real cowboys, won't appreciate the two-step you learned in dance class. They're more likely to accept a drunken jig on the makeshift dance floor of linoleum tile sandwiched... More >>
• Best Happy Hour
  Bierbrunnen
  Fort Lauderdale Beach can be a nightmare at times, and let's not even mention -- woo! -- spring break. Bierbrunnen offers a welcome respite from the beachfront bumpin' and grindin' of many other Fort Liquordale establishments. When the clock strikes 4:30 p.m., the German beers (including the... More >>
• Best Bar in Palm Beach
  The Falcon House
  A cozy 1925 home is the setting for a place that makes you wish every neighborhood bar were this loungey-chic. The American tapas bar is named after an attorney for whom the house was built. The in-crowd feel combined with its tasty appetizer menu makes this a well-kept jewel of this two-time... More >>
• Best Margarita
  Canyon Southwest Cafe
  For almost 20 years now, the margarita has been the afterwork drink of choice. Snowy cold, almost flavorless, giant-sized, and packed with enough clear tequila to power an outboard motor, it's a cocktail to blow away that acrid 9-to-5 pall. When the eagle flies on Friday, it's solace in a glass.... More >>
• Best Piano Bar
  Hugh Jorgan's
  Delray Beach's Atlantic Avenue has the charm, the class, the refinement, and the panache that ties in nicely with its "All-American City" award. But tucked away behind the galleries and quaint eateries is a little place with a dirty name. Hugh Jorgan's Piano Bar invites you to bend over for an... More >>
• Best Sports Bar
  Bru's Room

  Readers Choice: Bru's Room Sports Grill

  Named for owner Bob Brudzinski (who some may remember as Miami Dolphin No. 59 from 1981 to 1990), Bru's Room is what you expect out of a sports bar. Everything about this place is touched with the spirit of competition, from the games on all the TVs to the trash-talking at the bar between teams... More >>
• Best Rock Club
  The Culture Room
  Any South Florida live-music club not saturated with sticky, sucky cover bands automatically gets bumped ahead in line. And at the very front of that line, muscling past the chrome-domed bouncer manning the velvet rope gauntlet, is the Culture Room. Yeah, the Culture Room's competition became a... More >>
• Best Venue for National Acts
  Pompano Beach Amphitheatre
  The folks who live in close proximity to the centrally located, easy-to-reach Pompano Beach Amphitheatre may not appreciate our naming it the best place to see a concert. They may even wish it would go away. But we love this place more and more each time we visit, mainly because an outdoor venue... More >>
• Best Gay Bar
  Hamburger Mary's
  >Neither strictly gay nor strictly a bar, newcomer Hamburger Mary's nevertheless qualifies as a breath of fresh air -- literally -- on the gay-bar scene: Its doors-wide-open breeziness is one reason it's such a refreshing place to sink a drink. A welcome jewel in the city's rejuvenation plan for... More >>
• Best Turnaround in Clubland
  Indie rock at the Factory
  Born under a bad sign, Fort Lauderdale's mullet haven the (ex-Metal) Factory doesn't want to die that way. It sure doesn't want to go out like the poor, doomed Station in Rhode Island, as a convalescent care center for hair-metal bands sputtering on their final fumes. At least, that's the... More >>
• Best Beer Selection
  Billabong Pub
  In carb-counting South Florida, beer hasn't historically been a big draw. For the most part, it's consumed without ice cubes, drastically diminishing its refreshment capabilities in the summer -- which for us is about nine months out of the year. To many of us, a microbrew is just a regular... More >>
• Best Strip Club
  Rachel's Steak House
  Here's the scenario: Your old man comes to town for the weekend and you're hoping for some grown-up male bonding to show Dad how mature you are. Baseball's boring, and the Marlins stink. So why not a strip club? Well, if you can stand the vision of Dad getting a lap dance, Rachel's Steak House... More >>
• Best Dive
  Grins
  On your right is a Vietnam Vet named Bob talking about witnessing Cambodians shot in a river as they try to flee the Khmer Rouge. On your left is a former SDS radical named Bill who has enough September 11 conspiracy theories to fill three Oliver Stone feature films. And across the bar is a... More >>
• Best Place for Karaoke
  Manor Lanes
  As Sir Elton said, Saturday night's all right for fighting. But Friday night's all right for off-key renditions of classic and not-so-classic songs. Manor Lanes' Sports Den hosts one of the more interesting karaoke nights in Broward County every Friday. Witness as punk-rock kids, frat boys, and... More >>
• Best Booty-Shake Club
  Monkey Club
  What better way to score a phone number than to dance cheek to cheek? Between the hot-body contests, Cream Thursdays, and free champagne giveaways, this Floribbean-themed venue feels like spring break year-round. Hip-hop and dance beats that radiate from DJ Radamas' turntables fuel the rhythm of... More >>
• Best Biker Bar
  Smith Bros. Lounge
  Smith's has got to be the best place to take your hog these days, if only to pay respects to the memory of the late great Geno Mahler, the bar's effusive, animated night manager, who died earlier this year. Smith Bros. soldiers on without him, with the exception of the caricature now painted on... More >>
• Best Dance Club in Broward
  Zubar
  The sought-after super-VIP seats in front of the DJ booth are filled with Miami Dolphin players every other week. A seat in the high-profile section comes with use of the Sony Playstation, DVD player -- and bragging rights. A petite woman in leopard hotpants, bikini-type top, and high boots... More >>
• Best Place to Drink in Peace
  The Fox and Hound
  The reputation of a British pub may conjure visions of drunken bar fights, drunken sing-alongs, and drunken, well, anything. And if you've ever visited a British pub that's caught World Cup fever, you have a right to fear for your life. But the Fox and Hound understands the pensive drinker's... More >>
• Best DJ
  Wendel Marcisse
  Wendel is one of a handful of local DJs who continue to breathe life into the body of the South Florida electronica scene. He's a barometer in the storm of new releases that flood the techno-music industry every week. With diverse DJ sets of often never-before-heard tracks on largely virgin... More >>
• Best Bar in West Broward
  Ye Olde Falcon Pub
  Davie's South University Drive is a textbook case of suburban cheesiness. Drive around here at night and (if not for the palm trees) you could just as well be cruising the strip-mall labyrinth of Pawtucket, Prescott, or Peoria. Even inside the nondescript Olde Falcon Pub, there's nothing that... More >>
• Best Bloody Mary
  Le Tub
  It's Sunday morning, and you've been hangin' hard for two nights now. Gadzooks! No question about it. You need a Bloody Mary. Don't try confusing us with a leafy stalk of celery (which only gets in the way) and a froufrou highball glass. Give us the real deal, like they do at Le Tub. Give us a... More >>
• Best Lesbian Bar
  J's Bar
  Androgyny rules at J's Bar, a fun-filled nightspot in an off-the-beaten-path southwest Fort Lauderdale neighborhood. Luscious young chicas clad in baggy, saggy jeans down bottles of Bud with big butch bull-dykes, and the crowd is as genuinely multiculti as any you've ever walked into, even by... More >>
• Best Place to Relive College Days
  The Cove Restaurant and Marina
  This sprawling complex takes on a quiet tone on weekday nights. Just a few people around the bar, with a whole sea of chairs around them. Outside on the deck, a couple more people may be sitting at tables, enjoying the night air over a rum runner or three -- the whole place has a rather tiki... More >>
• Best Bar on the Water
  Houston's Pompano Beach
  Yachts glide past on the Intracoastal as you sip a perfect shaken gimlet, marveling at the crust of ice on its surface. You're perched high on a barstool at an exquisitely rustic, granite-topped cocktail table, delighting in the atmosphere and the view and just watching the world sail past. A... More >>
• Best Place to Dance on a Bar
  Capones
  With more bar-like seating than dance floor space for the crowds spilling onto the sidewalk, where's a girl to go to get her groove on? The marble bar top, of course! A ripped T-shirt held together in knots bares a chiseled midriff on one of the Gen-Y girls, who showcases her moves with another... More >>
• Best Place to Follow the Liter
  Lefty's Wings and Raw Bar
  >If you've been fortunate enough to visit Munich during Oktoberfest, you've seen how brew fanatics take their beer: in one-liter steins that require as much upper-arm strength as they do intestinal fortitude. Of course, Oktoberfest also means impassable crowds and no small number of drunken... More >>
• Best Lounge
  Karma Lounge
  Karma Lounge is the glam spot that marks the crossover of Fort Lauderdale's nightlife on the Riverfront from its tween years -- as a place for college coeds to blow off steam with a beer or two -- into a chic young adulthood. Quality progressive house, spun by lounge resident Brit Paul Head,... More >>
• Best Place for a Drink After 5 a.m.
  Banana Joe's
  The sun's coming up, the birds are chirping, and you've stumbled (or been kicked) out of the last open bar in town. So why go home when you can head over to Banana Joe's for a traditional breakfast and a Bloody Mary. The joint closes at 2 a.m., then reopens at 7 a.m. with a full breakfast menu... More >>