Top Party Places in Belmont Shore!
Best Bars For the Young and Fun in Long Beach

The young and thirsty pack the bars of Belmont Shore in Long Beach.

These are the bars by the beach, the place to find the party, the nighttime home of Long Beach's young and fun, its beach bums and longtime locals.

It's Belmont Shore, a small section of a big city within an even bigger city, Los Angeles.

Belmont Shore is a community revolved around its beach and centered around 2nd Street, a 10-block (appx) business area that contains restaurants, shops, banks and bars. And there is a roar in this Shore.

On both sides of 2nd street are houses, mainly rented by people who walk to the shore, play in the sand and play hard at night in the bars.

And those bars are not fancy, but as casual as the people who frequent them and their lifestyle dictates. The spots are busy most nights and on weekends small lines are common, for these are hardly mega-clubs, but intimate dives and semi-dives.

Legends goes from sports bar to party bar at night.

The party along Second Street hits the many bars of Belmont Shore.

The cornerstone of Belmont Shore's nightlife is Panama Joe's. It's as much of an institution here as the Belmont Pool (home of the 1932 US Olympic swim trials), the place where if it's not happening every moment, it sure will be happening at another moment.

Owned and operated by Sharkeez, the place knows how to run a fun bar (see Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach and all the way up to the Sand Bar in Santa Barbara). The crowd is mainly in its 20s and they like to enjoy their nights out in Belmont Shore!

For many, the party stars (and continues) at Panama Joe's.

It provides a cut-loose atmosphere with both a pub and club setting and TVs all over the place make it ideal for sports. Like Sharkeez, Panama Joe's has food specials M-F (the menu here is quite good, especially for a crazy bar) and half-priced drinks on just about anything those days from 4-7 p.m. Weekends feature brunch with mimosa and bloody mary specials.

Whether its for sports, Happy Hour, Taco Tuesday or just party time, PJ's is one of the Shore's top party places.

The lively atmosphere of PJ's makes for easy conversations.

Occassionally, you'll run into a Bud Light girl at PJ's.

own 2nd Street are two of the long-time legends of Belmont Shore. We'll get to Legends later, because we're talking about Shannon's Bay Shore and the A.I.

Shannon's is a true Belmont Shore bar institution.

The front bar area of Shannon's is happening.

At the back of Shannon's, there's pool; rack 'em up folks!

Shannon's Bay Shore is one of those institutional bars that some towns have, the spot that seems to have been there the minute the first concrete was poured. It's dark, narrow and has a long bar, framed alcohol-sponsored mirrors and a pool table with hanging Budwesier light over it at the back.

The crowd is anywhere from bar veterans to wetbacks, and it has a kind of funky vibe that's unique to the Shore. It's also home to the "Shoot the Root." a shot of schnapps dropped in a beer and chugged.

PubClub.com was originally informed the Shoot the Root was created at the Acapulco Inn, or the "A.I." Actually, the A.I. is an ideal beer joint, a total dive that's ideal for pounding down the Bud. It's undergone a bit of a modern makeover and has a semi-patio, an area that's opened up to the street. It's a big improvement over the dark and sweaty side room of the past. The A.I. is a lean-on-the-bar, play-or-watch-pool joint. Oh, and they have Shoot the Roots, too.

It's Legend's on a weekend night.

The Belmont Shore babes with a party partner at Legend's.

It's party time in Belmont Shore! Then again, isn't that always the case?

In football season, Legends is packed daytime to nighttime.

There's also dancing ot the music at Legends.

Legends has tons of TVs and at night tons of partying locals.

The legend of Long Beach is just that – Legend's. A sports bar opened by a few Los Angeles Rams back in the day, it instantly became one of LA's most noted sports bars before sports bars became as prevalent as traffic jams.

The original Legend's burned down a few years ago – taking with it prized memorabilia hanging on the walls and even replica race cars from the Long Beach Grand Prix – but has been rebuilt. It's absolutely pumping for sports events and cranking on weekend nights. It has the second-biggest line next to Panama Joe's, in fact. When the fairly large and open main bar become too frenzied, take a break upstairs and look down at the action from this observation perch.

All these spots are within a couple of blocks walking distance of one another.

There is a club in the area. But even that is not a snooty mega-club or a long-lined thumping spot just a few miles to the north downtown. Shore Ultra Lounge is a semi-casual nightclub with DJ and occasional live bands. Quite often, the fun and funky Spazmatics play the place. It's just a little beyond Belmont Shore at 2nd Street and PCH.