The Bronx
Happy Hour

The Verdict: the best happy hour in the Bronx, and the only one where the cocktail is the point. From 4 to 7, Tuesday to Friday, a margarita or paloma built on Arette blanco or Yola mezcal is $10 — it is $15 after seven — and the picante versions and a proper classics list (old fashioned, negroni, boulevardier, daiquiri) are $11. Tacos are $4 each, shrimp $4.50, drafts $7. Sisters Karen and Britney Cariño opened it in 2023 as the borough’s first specialty Mexican cocktail bar. The honest caveat: one happy-hour drink at a time, a 20% gratuity goes on every check, and it is closed Mondays. They have also announced a move to the West Village, targeted for early 2028 — so go while it is still on Bruckner.

The Verdict: the longest priced window on the strip and the cheapest beer on this page. Two to seven, Monday to Friday: a Narragansett for $5, any draft, well drink or glass of wine for $7, the margarita for $8. The rest of the week has a shape — Monday is $10 on the classic cocktails that are $14 otherwise, Tuesday is $8 margaritas with Trivia with Jill, Wednesday is wings and a beer for $15, and the last Thursday of the month is a pool competition. One of the drafts is always a Bronx Brewery rotation. The honest caveat: those prices come from their own menu, a PDF dated May 2025. The 2–7pm window is still on their site today, but confirm the numbers at the bar.

The Verdict: the earliest start in the South Bronx — noon to seven on weekdays — but the only number Charlies prints for its happy hour is an $8 margarita, so the weekly specials are the deal to plan around. Taco Tuesday is $3 tacos, $5 steak tacos and $7 margaritas all day. Wing Wednesday is six wings for $6 with $6 beers. Monday is a burger and fries for $20. Otherwise drafts, Bronx Pale Ale included, are $8 and pitchers $20. The local move: Tuesday, early, before the room fills. The honest caveat: beyond that margarita, the happy-hour list is not published anywhere, so ask what is on it before you order the round.

The Verdict: the cheapest margarita in the borough, as long as it is Tuesday. Taco Tuesday here means $2 margaritas and appetizers from $2, from 2pm until 2am, with a DJ. Monday is Cinco de Lunes — $5 specials until midnight, oxtail and the rum and Hennessy punches among them. Wednesday is two-for-one cocktails until 2am, Thursday is happy hour all night, Friday stretches it to 10pm, and Sunday is an hour of $1 mimosas with any appetizer or entrée. It is a two-floor Jamaican room on Third Avenue: restaurant downstairs, lounge upstairs. The honest caveat: they publish the deal, not the fine print — the size of a $2 margarita is a question for the bar — and they take cards and cash but not Apple Pay or Google Pay.

The Verdict: go for the room, and treat the happy hour as a rumour until the bar confirms it. Beatstro calls itself the hip-hop restaurant — Latin soul food, DJ parties, open mic nights, B-boy battles — and it is around the corner from Talavera and Bar 47, so it works as the second stop. Its own drinks page still advertises a weekday happy hour, 4 to 8, with money off beer, wine, sangria and margaritas. The honest caveat: that page lists wine vintages from 2016 and 2017 and has plainly not been touched in years, and the site shows two different sets of opening hours. The restaurant is trading — the city inspected it on 19 October — so ring (718) 489-9397 and ask before you plan around the window.

The Verdict: not a happy-hour bar, and the one Stadium bar we could verify. Stan’s has been directly across the street from the Stadium since 1979, it opens for Yankee Stadium events — before, during and after — and that is the entire business model. Derek Jeter shot a Gatorade commercial in here, which tells you how long it has been the default. The local move: have the first two here and walk across the street, instead of starting the night at Stadium prices. The honest caveat: there is no happy hour and no price list, and the bar is built around the home schedule, so outside baseball season it is a check-before-you-go. The city last inspected it in April 2026, at the start of this season.

The Verdict: the longest happy hour in the Bronx — eight hours, 11am to 7pm, Monday to Friday — and the one most worth the ride up the 1. Every well drink, draft and glass of wine is $2 off, and the $10 plates are an actual dinner: a BX quarter-pounder with fries, fish strips and fries, or wings and mac. The bar runs to 2am Sunday to Thursday and 4am on Friday and Saturday. The local move: weekend brunch, 11 to 3, comes with a free brunch cocktail or draft for every brunch item you order — the better deal of the two. The honest caveat: it is a discount, not a price. They do not publish what a pint costs before the $2 comes off, and parties of six or more get a 20% gratuity added.

The Verdict: the only bar on Katonah Avenue that publishes a happy hour at all — weekdays, 5 to 7 — and even Mulligan’s will not tell you what it costs. Go for the burger instead; their own site calls it voted best in the Bronx, and the room is the kind of family pub where that claim gets argued about at the bar rather than online. Karaoke runs every other Saturday from 10pm to 2am, and there is a private room that holds up to 75. The honest caveat: their site lists Tuesday to Sunday, 2pm to 2am, so “weekdays” means Tuesday to Friday here, and the footer still reads 2020. Ring (347) 346-8001 before you build a night on it.

The Verdict: no happy hour, and the best night out in the north Bronx anyway. An Béal Bocht has been doing food, drink, music and art on W 238th Street since 1991, and the calendar is the reason to come: what it bills as the Bronx’s longest-running Irish trad session, every Sunday afternoon, the Riverdale Jazz Series on the last Wednesday of the month, trivia, a writers’ night, open mic, and a band on most other nights. The Poor Mouth Theatre Company stages its own productions here and the walls change with a monthly art show. Guinness is on tap. The local move: the Sunday session, 3:30 to 6:30. The honest caveat: some guides list a 3–7pm happy hour here. The café’s own site does not, so we have not printed one.

The Verdict: no happy hour, and the cocktail Bronx readers vote for is worth paying full price for. Cocina Chente calls itself a mezcalería, and its Chenterita — mezcal and blanco tequila with grapefruit, lime and pink-peppercorn syrup on a spicy salt rim — is $16. Bronx Times readers voted it the borough’s best signature cocktail in 2023 and again in 2025. Guacamole is $18 and shrimp tacos $14. The honest caveat: this is a sit-down Mexican restaurant on Riverdale Avenue, not a bar, and there is no discount window — if you want a cheap margarita, Talavera’s $10 one is at the other end of the borough. Doors at 3pm on weekdays, 2pm on Friday and Saturday, noon on Sunday.

The Verdict: the Woodlawn room to bring someone to, with no happy hour to plan around. Live music three nights a week, trivia on Thursday, a wraparound bar, dining rooms, big screens for the games, private party rooms, and the Secret Garden out back — open Thursday and Friday from 5pm and weekends from noon. Doors are at 11am every day, and the bar runs to 2am Sunday to Thursday and 4am on Friday and Saturday. The honest caveat: some listings still carry a weekday 4–7pm happy hour for Rambling House. Its own site does not mention one, so we have not printed it — ask at the bar, and tell us if it is back.

The Verdict: a proper beer hall a few blocks from Arthur Avenue, and it lists “happy hour” as a reason to come without ever saying when it is or what it costs. So budget at full price: every cocktail is $15, the Double Smashed burger — a Food Network Burger Bash winner, by Clinton Hall’s own account — is $19, wings are $16. The deal that is real is the weekend bottomless brunch, 11:30 to 4 on Saturday and Sunday: 90 minutes for $19.99 on mimosas and bellinis or $29.99 on the full list, with an entrée. The honest caveat: weekday doors are not until 4pm, and nothing in writing tells you the happy hour — ask before you order the round.

The Verdict: no happy hour, and the most useful bar on Arthur Avenue anyway. It sits inside the Arthur Avenue Retail Market, so the pint comes with the whole market around it, and it has been pouring New York State craft beer there since 2013. The food comes from Arthur Avenue neighbours — stuffed flatbreads, sandwiches, 12-inch pizzas — and changes often. Groups book the back for parties and karaoke. The local move: make it the first stop of an Arthur Avenue afternoon, not the last — on Saturday it opens at 11am. The honest caveat: it keeps market hours, not bar hours. Closed Monday, done by 10pm on Wednesday and 6pm on Sunday, and no beer prices are published anywhere, so you find out what a pint costs when you order one.

The Verdict: the best-run neighbourhood bar in the East Bronx, judging by the calendar — and Bronx Times readers agree, voting it the borough’s best bar in 2024 and 2025. Happy hour is Monday to Friday, 4 to 6: two hours, no prices published. What it does better than anyone on this page is keep the month full — DJs on most Friday and Saturday nights from 9, the NFL on Sundays and Mondays, bingo nights at 7:30, a tattoo night, a paint-and-sip, and a Halloween party on 31 October. It is open from noon until 4am. The honest caveat: a short, unpriced window, so ask what the discount is before the second round. Closed on Thanksgiving.

The Verdict: the earliest happy hour in Throggs Neck — 2 to 6, every weekday — at the bar Bronx Times readers keep voting for: best bar for day drinking in 2024 and 2025, and best beer selection in 2025. Tuesday is trivia from 7:30 with $175 in prizes. Their online beer list was updated on 26 October, so the taps are being looked after even if the rest of the website is not. The honest caveat: there are no happy-hour prices anywhere, the banner beside the happy-hour line still advertises an old Labor Day gig, and the site publishes no real opening hours. Ask what the deal is when you sit down, or call (718) 684-2900 first.

The Verdict: the Throggs Neck room for the game — ten big HD screens, a lounge that does birthday parties, and the Bronx Times readers’ pick for best sports bar in 2025. The city inspected it on 8 October, so it is very much open. The honest caveat, and it is the whole story here: its website still advertises $5 martinis on ladies’ nights, $5 house drinks on Saturdays, a $5 Sunday liquid brunch and a late-night happy hour, but that page was last edited in July 2021. Five-year-old prices are not something we will print as current, so we have not given it a window. Call (347) 398-9145, ask what still runs, and tell us — one phone call turns this into a top-five card.

The Verdict: an Irish bar with an Italian-American kitchen, steps from Bridges on East Tremont, and the Bronx Times readers’ best Irish bar in 2023 and 2024. Tuesday is the night: Tacorita Tuesday, 4 to 9, with cheap classic margaritas and Modelo on tap. Sunday brunch runs noon to 3 with mimosas, Bloody Marys and the house sangria, and there is a private room for parties. The honest caveat: the Tuesday prices on their site carry no date, and the same site’s event listings could belong to this year or to 2020, so we have not printed the numbers. The city inspected it in September, so it is open — ring (718) 829-4400 before you build a Tuesday around it.

The Verdict: the Bronx’s favourite dive, by popular vote — Bronx Times readers named it the borough’s best dive bar in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and its best happy hour in 2024. It has been on East Tremont Avenue since 1979, with dart boards, pool tables, burgers and sandwiches, and drinks the readers’ poll calls reasonably priced. The honest caveat: McDermott’s has no website and publishes nothing — not the happy-hour window, not a price, not its hours — so everything above comes from that poll and from the city’s records, which show an inspection in July 2026. Walk in, ask what the happy hour is, and tell us.

The Verdict: City Island does not do happy hour, so do the next best thing: a Bud and a basket of fried seafood at a picnic table at the very end of the island, where the road runs out. Johnny’s has been out on the point for more than 60 years, with picnic tables inside and out. Fried clam strips are $21, fried oysters $28, Manhattan clam chowder $7. The honest caveat: the drinks are not priced on their own menu — mixed and frozen drinks are listed as “prices vary” — and it is closed Monday and Tuesday, which is worth knowing before you drive out.

The Verdict: the City Island room for a group, priced like it. Sea Shore has been on the island since 1929, and what you are paying for is the outdoor deck over Pelham Bay and the private guest docks — boaters sail straight up to lunch. Beer is $8 domestic and $9 imported, baked clams oreganato $15.95 a half-dozen, and the bar sells a giant sangria bowl for $130, which tells you who the room is built for. The honest caveat: Bronx Times readers voted Sea Shore the borough’s best happy hour and best margarita in 2025, but neither its website nor its menu publishes a window or a discount. Ask at the bar, sit outside at sunset, and treat the rest as the price of the view.

The Verdict: do not turn up on a whim. The Bronx Brewery’s own page, updated June 2026, says the Port Morris location has reopened as a community event hub with Pizza Zoo and VS World, that the Backyard will not be open for daily service, and that hours are set by scheduled events. For years this was the borough’s default first beer, so it is the biggest change on this page. The local move: check the brewery’s Backyard page for what is on, and drink the beer in the meantime at Bar 47 and Charlies, which both pour it on draft. The honest caveat: plenty of guides still list this as a daily taproom with regular hours. It is not one any more.