The Phoenix is a LGBTQ+ bar in Old Market, Bristol.
Editorially verified August 27, 2026 by Lewis Vaughan, TableJourney editor. Source.
Tip: Don't Tell Your Mother, the monthly party, sells the place out; the garden is the summer hangout.
Address: 1 Wellington Buildings, Champion Square, Bristol BS2 9DB
Strange Brew's soundsystem makes it Bristol's closest thing to a listening bar, with record-led early sessions before the club nights start.
Tip: Early-evening sessions are seated and conversational; check the programme before assuming a rave.
Dareshack pairs its coffee bar with a studio stage on Wine Street, hosting intimate Bristol sessions where the room listens rather than talks.
Tip: Evening shows are announced on the venue diary; day visits preview the space over a filter coffee.
The Mothers' Ruin is the Old City's proudest dive bar, gin by name and band stickers by decor, with gigs upstairs and late Bristol pints down below.
Tip: Pair it with Seamus O'Donnell's next door and you have Bristol's smallest, best two-stop crawl.
The Love Inn keeps Stokes Croft dancing until 04:00 at weekends, Team Love's tin-signed Bristol local with a serious soundsystem and free early entry.
Tip: Free entry runs to 22:00 most nights; the Team Love bookings outclass the bar's dive-bar looks.
The Beer Emporium's cellars pour until 03:00 most nights, the late-shift refuge of Bristol's King Street with Pepenero pizza flying out past midnight.
Tip: Last orders land at 01:45; it is the sensible-drinks answer to the question of where to go after the pubs shut.
Motion turns a riverside skatepark-turned-warehouse complex into Bristol's biggest club, an internationally booked home of techno and drum and bass nights.
Tip: Buy tickets ahead through the club's own site; the Marble Factory next door handles the live shows.
