Dance clubs, live music, rooftop bars, speakeasies, LGBTQ+ venues, listening bars and late-night dives in Frankfurt.
Dance clubs, live music, rooftop bars, speakeasies, LGBTQ+ nightlife, listening bars and late-night dives across Frankfurt, with where to go and what is worth the late night.
Tanzhaus West drives Frankfurt techno through an old industrial complex on Gutleutstraße, marathon weekend sets running past sunrise into Sunday.
Tip: Events like the 28-hour season openers run through the morning; check the programme and buy ahead for anniversary nights.
Chinaski packs a bar-sized dancefloor near Frankfurt's Opernplatz, the late-week club for people who wanted a bar until midnight and then changed their minds.
Tip: Thursday is the local secret; Saturday queues build after 01:00 when the Opernplatz bars empty out.
The Jazzkeller has run jazz down 19 stone steps off Frankfurt's Fressgass since 1952, founded by trumpeter Carlo Bohländer and still programming new players.
Tip: The monthly Junge Szene Frankfurt night ends in a jam session; the cellar is small, so buy concert tickets ahead.
Balalaika's nightly music squeezes into a candlelit Sachsenhausen room, Frankfurt's smallest stage and its most devoted audience packed close.
Tip: There is no setlist and no stage to speak of; the night finds its own music, usually after midnight.
The MAIN TOWER lounge pours cocktails on the 53rd floor of Frankfurt's only publicly accessible skyscraper, 200 metres over the banking mile.
Tip: The lounge takes over from 21:00; a drinks reservation is the cheap way to get the starred restaurant's view.
OOSTEN's multi-level terrace around the old harbour crane gives Frankfurt its open-air riverside nightcap, skyline lit across the Main until closing.
Tip: The upper deck at dusk is the shot everyone posts; drinks-only visits are easiest on weeknights.
The Tiny Cup hides its cocktail counter inside Frankfurt's narrowest house at Mainkai 4, the closest the city comes to a speakeasy in spirit.
Tip: Blink and you miss the door under Seven Swans; the drinks list changes with the restaurant's farm harvest.
Harvey's is a fixture of queer Frankfurt, a Nordend corner cafe-bar named in the Harvey Milk tradition, open from morning to well past midnight.
Tip: It works as brunch spot, evening bar and community landmark in one; the terrace is the scene in summer.
Café Größenwahn has mixed queer culture, politics and dinner on its Nordend corner since 1978, Frankfurt's longest-running scene institution.
Tip: Come for dinner and stay for the room; the walls carry nearly five decades of Frankfurt counterculture.
Klapper 33 is Frankfurt's dive of record, a smoky Klappergasse Kneipe that keeps pouring until 05:00 when the weekend demands it of the room.
Tip: Cash only in spirit if not in fact; this is where Sachsenhausen's bar staff drink after their own shifts end.
O'Reilly's works the graveyard shift opposite Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof, pints and stray travellers until 03:00 on Saturday nights and first trains.
Tip: Between a missed connection and the first morning train, this room has sheltered generations of the stranded.