St. Thomas Nightlife Best Bars Redhook & Island Music Reviews

Top Nightlife Spots For Locals & Tourists

The beaches and water activities of St. Thomas give way to its small bars by night. There are fine places and fun places, spots with live music and bars for tourists and joints for locals (of course, tourists are always welcome)

But, of course, any discussion of bars and nightlife in the Caribbean has to start with the rum. After all, with juice and mixer more expensive than the alcohol, the drinks in St. Thomas contain a lot of rum.

You can have a couple of afternoon drinks at the Green Parrot in Charlotte Amalie, but don’t linger in the area after dark. Head to Redhook (20 minutes by taxi) because that’s where the partying takes place at night.

St. Thomas Bars and Nightlife

With all that rum, there must be a bar or two on the island to enjoy it with other thirsty buccaneers, and that’s what this article details.

It’s small but Duffy’s Love Shack is the place to party in St. Thomas.

There’s not much to Duffy’s Love Shack that initially meet the eye – it’s a small open-air building with a few tables outside in a small strip mall – but it’s the one place on the island where the locals and tourists in the know go to party.

It has a good Happy Hour that often doesn’t begin until midnight, there’s nightly food specials like all-you-can-eat shrimp (Wednesdays) and drinks with wacky names (and mixes) like Jaws, The Funky Money and Lime in Dee Coconut.

In short, it’s hang out and have a good time at Duffy’s. It even has a Taco Tuesday, which may be common in Southern California but is not exactly a part of Caribbean culture.

Across the street at the American Yacht Harbor are other bars, each with a unique identity Overlooking the bay, The Island Time Pub is an outside oasis which gets just gets better and better with each drink. It’s the kind of place to kick off the sandals and have “one more.”

Then “one more.” Then “one more” again.

No worries here, mon, you’re on island time!

Next door is the best sports bar on St. Thomas, Caribbean Saloon. It has big screens showing multiple games. After midnight, this becomes more of a full-out bar with many of the island’s sexiest singles downing drinks.

And why not have an Irish bar in the Caribbean and for that there is Molly Molone’s Irish Yacht Pub.

The place with the most Caribbean character in St. Thomas is also the most difficult to find – a little past Red Hook, up a bouncy dirt road, around a curve, behind a few palm trees.

It’s Latitude 18 and it’s nothing more than a roof over a bar and a small stage for local musicians such as the ever-popular Eric Stone with a few tables lined up against a seawall. The views are outstanding, the music is entertaining and the Painkillers give even the #4 at the Soggy Dollar Bar a run for their rum.

In the area known as Havensight, by Hooters, is The Rum Shack. It’s just what it says – a shack that sells rum drinks. The $15 bucket of some type of concoction packs a powerful punch even by Virgin Islands standards. It’s only open at the whim of the owner, so ask the taxi driver before departing.

And yes, there’s a Hooters. It’s stocked with mainland girls who come down for three months to train in St. Thomas.

Locals like Budda Sushi for its Happy Hours, 5-7 p.m. Order everything at the same time, for it typically takes 45 minutes to get a roll. So get on a roll by chatting it up with the friendly bartenders and other sushi seekers until the meal arrives.

Betsy’s in Frenchtown (a safe walk from the ferry terminal/Holiday Inn, even at night) is the wild child of St. Thomas. It’s got pool tables, foosball, a big-screen TV and, most important to fun-seeking PubClubbers, a sometimes raucous local crowd. In short, it’s a good drinking spot. It also has a late-night menu.

Drink ’em if you got ’em in St. Thomas is 2 a.m. Or 3 a.m. Or 4 a.m.