Best Sports Bar: McIntyre’s Downtown
Drink specials are fine and a good pub feed is nice but the main reason to visit a sports bar seems fairly obvious. If you want to watch a sporting event, you could do it at home, seated in your trusty recliner, stripped to your boxers, a $7 six-pack of beer on ice in your Styrofoam cooler. Sounds kinda lonely, though.
The folks who run McIntyre’s Downtown are highly aware that the best way to root for your team is with the teeming masses. The spacious three-level bar, located along the banks of Buffalo Bayou in one of the city’s oldest (and allegedly haunted) building was designed for you and hundreds of others to celebrate our sports teams’ wins together.
Of course, it’s more than just space which makes McIntyre’s Downtown the city’s best sports bar, it’s also everything that’s offered within the 7,500-square foot complex. Colorful, playful décor and variety of seating options, from barstools for traditionalists to posh sofas and Insta-ready swings. More than five dozen televisions air an array of contests and if those games prompt the urge to compete there’s table tennis, basketball and Golden Tee onsite.
You might catch a band or DJ on the bar’s stage or nosh on nachos from a quaint snack trailer between innings or halves. Massive windows offer scenic views of the bayou, Commerce and Main Street. The whole place is dog-friendly until 9 p.m. and people-friendly all operating hours, with personable bartenders like Mel (our favorite), who make venturing away from the TV den and into downtown Houston worth the trip. Even if you don’t see a ghost, McIntyre’s Downtown is a great place to scare up some fun.
901 Commerce, Houston
713-255-5581
mcintyresusa.com
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
