Do you like showing off how many bars on a list you’ve been to? Are you annoyed by having to arrange all the little checkmarks manually in your phone’s photo app? Well, be annoyed no more – this form lets you easily track your bars!
Check off which of the 2026 North America’s 50 Best Bars 51-100 you’ve been to, then screencap or download it to share with your friends (don’t forget to tag @Bar_Notable!). A more polished and automated version of this will be a premium feature of our site, but you get to test this rough and ready version for free.
(On iPhone, this opens zoomed in and the check squares look like circles, so the checkmarks look a little odd. I’m working on a fix but since I learned all of this in like four hours, I’m going to be happy for what *does* work.)
It was the sound of a whistle in our favorite bar that made me realize nothing felt normal anymore. Going out to eat and drink during unprecedented times is simultaneously important and stressful, but maybe what we’ve learned here in Minnesota can help you should your community face a similar crisis.
On January 24th, 2026, my husband and I went to a Minneapolis bar a few hours after the murder of Alex Pretti by a Customs and Border Protection officer. We wanted to be with our community as everyone moved about the city in a state of shock that this kind of violence could happen, again, and just hours after the massive peaceful march and general strike the day before. I knew that whoever was working would be hanging on by an emotional thread and we wanted to be peaceful, friendly faces on a hard day.
A little while into our drinks, someone from a group seated at the tables behind us got up, looked over the bar’s stash of resistance supplies—cards outlining immigrant rights, lists of rapid response phone lines, pins, etc. He grabbed a couple of the 3D printed whistles and gave them to others at his table. One woman blew the whistle a couple of times, causing several people in the bar to immediately tense up and frantically look around.
When a manager politely explained that this was inappropriate to do inside the bar, the woman and her group got defensive.
“I didn’t know.” “I’m from the suburbs.” “She didn’t believe a 3D printed whistle could actually work and was just testing it.” “We’re on your side, I swear. It’s not a big deal.”
But here’s the thing: When your city is making national and international news, “I’m from the suburbs” is not a good excuse. It might have been an honest mistake, but it was an avoidable one.
3D printed whistles such as these have become a common sight at bars, restaurants, and shops.
When asked, hospitality professionals offered the following suggestions of how to make going out a good experience for everyone. This is far from a comprehensive list of suggestions, but hopefully something here makes these strange situations easier for everyone. If you’re a bar or restaurant patron like me, I hope this encourages you to get out and support your local community. If you’re a hospitality worker, I hope this helps you have an easier time as you navigate your job.
Practical Tips from the Professionals
First and foremost, support your community by being a part of your community.
Get out to your favorite spots and try to find new favorites along the way. Dining in is always the best way to show financial and emotional support, but even ordering takeout can help.
All locally owned bars and restaurants need support, but those owned by immigrants and people of color are hurting most of all. Workers are staying home out of fear causing a lot of spots to reduce their hours, which means fewer sales, shifts, and tips.
If the closure of a bar or restaurant would make you think “I loved that place; I wish I had gone more often,” go there now.
Your community can’t thrive if it can’t afford to survive.
Go to those fundraising pop-ups and spend money, but be sure to order from a venue’s normal menu as well. The amount of mutual aid fundraising that is happening is amazing, but if the proceeds from a special drink, dish, or menu are going to fundraising, that means they aren’t going to the venue. By ordering off the standard menu as well, you help support the space and the people hosting the fundraiser. And it should go without saying: tip generously!
Here’s one I wouldn’t have thought of: Be thoughtful about how you’re paying. When bars and restaurants are struggling, every penny counts. If you close out and have your card run for every order, that costs the venue more credit card processing fees than having a tab open. If you’re out with friends and want to split who pays for each round, consider one tab and then splitting costs on Venmo or PayPal.
Daiquiris as a fundraising tool for Minneapolis mutual aid organizations
Treat everyone with grace.
Bars and restaurants that are actively speaking out and working against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are being targeted by smear campaigns, harassing phone calls, and sometimes even violence. Even if a venue is vocal on social media, they may be hesitant to have in-person conversations about their thoughts on the situation, especially if you aren’t a known regular.
Support bars and restaurants that share your values. No one has the energy to argue with you, and staff members aren’t there to engage in a political debate with you. Either stick to places that agree with you or keep it to yourself.
It’s okay to acknowledge the strange circumstances, but remember that hospitality workers are having this conversation with dozens of people a day. One bartender I talked to suggested avoiding the basic “How are you?” greeting, because there’s no good answer. Some good alternatives might be “Good to see you,” “Happy [insert day of the week],” or simply “Glad to be here.”
Emotions are running high and most people are functioning in an extended state of fear. Remember that you’re there for an hour or two but the people working have to be worried for the entirety of their shift, and are probably worried about their colleagues even when not working. Imagine having to do your normal every day job while also being on high alert every second for people coming to detain your friends, your neighbors, your colleagues, and possibly even your customers.
It’s not appropriate to ask probing questions, such as if anyone from the restaurant has been detained or if they have a lot of immigrant workers. This isn’t safe or appropriate information to share with customers and may make staff suspicious of your intentions. (ICE agents have been known to dine at a restaurant and then come back later to make “arrests.”)
Some of you may not be at personal risk of being detained, but you may be worried about the risk of a disruption to your experience. Disruption might look like your reservation getting cancelled because the restaurant is understaffed and shortening their hours, ICE showing up to detain the people who are plating your appetizer, or a protest passing by as you’re having dessert and causing you to wonder if you’ll get stuck in traffic as you leave.
Some Dos and Don’ts if ICE shows up while you’re at a bar or restaurant
Do follow the staff’s lead if there’s an incident. Most bars and restaurants have a plan.
Do not independently interact with ICE agents. The venue should have someone trained to ask the right questions and assert the business’s rights.
Do take video of the situation. Photos of agents, vehicles, badges, etc., are valuable but only if you can do so safely.
Do NOT post the video without the restaurant’s permission. Video of an incident should be carefully reviewed before posting so that agents can’t use it to find justification for their actions.
If you’re comfortable, and the situation calls for it (take the staff’s lead), you may help form a barrier between agents and private spaces.
Do not get aggressive with ICE agents. It is likely to escalate the situation, putting yourself and others in danger.
If you’re uncomfortable, at risk, or simply unsure what to do, do nothing. It’s better to be a passive observer than to risk making the situation worse.
At the end of the day, the key message is that if it’s safe for you to be out and about (and as long as you’re not one of the minority groups being targeted, you’re probably safe), your community needs you. Your favorite restaurant needs you. Your favorite bar needs you. But they also need you to be kind, patient, and understanding. The only way we all get through this is together.
Going out to eat and drink can feel strange when your city is experiencing ongoing violence and trauma. Humans are complicated creatures and it is possible—perhaps even necessary—to seek normalcy, joy, and connection even while your heart rages. Here in Minnesota, we remain angry at the deaths, angry at the lies, and angry for all of the families being torn apart by the violent actions of ICE, but we resist and we persist.
To resist we must refuel, and for many people, going out to eat and drink refuels the spirit as much as it does the body. This is the power, and necessity, of hospitality.
This whole article, summed up by a sign at Pony Up in Denver, CO.
This is the more detailed followup to a reel I posted on Instagram about the regional diversity of the North American bars on The World’s 50 Best Bars list vs. that of North America’s 50 Best Bars. Spoiler alert: the more regional list not only showcases far more cities (not surprising) but the percentage of bars per city is more varied as well.
An Instagram reel is great for engagement, but not the best for presenting data so here is a little more detail about how I got all those numbers. (And holy hell, finding a succinct way to talk about percentages of percents of lists took me a couple of WEEKS. Not to mention the actual data work.)
First off, let’s look at these first four years of North America’s 50 Best Bars. I love seeing the absolute explosion up to 31 unique cities represented on the 2025 list! As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s also really cool that seven of those 31 are brand new to the list (though two, Boston and Seattle, were previously on World’s 40 Best Bars).
Next up, a deep dive into the North American cities that have been featured on World’s 50 Best Bars. While looking for patterns here, one thing I noticed is that over the course of World’s 50 Best Bars, only six North American cities have had more than one bar on the list at a time. And only three have had more than two bars on the list at a time. Does this pattern hold up for other regions? I don’t know . . . yet. But you can bet I’m going to find out.
As you can see, over 47% of the North American bars to ever appear on the World’s 50 Best Bars have been in New York. Now I’m not dunking on New York – it’s an amazing city and I know it’s a cultural center of the world. But that’s a big number, and it’s a big drop to the next couple of cities.
Since sometimes it’s easier to see the relationship between numbers with a visual representation, here’s a funnel chart of all the North American cities that have been on World’s 50 Best Bars.
After the announcement of the 2025 North America’s 50 Best Bars list, with it’s 31 unique cities represented, I got really curious about what would happen if you applied the North America percentages to the World list. After all, the 23 (on average) North American bars that are good enough to also be a World’s Best Bar should reflect what’s doing well regionally, right?
As you can see, it’s similar but just more interesting. (To me, at least)
Of course, this is just one award and one voting system. I wish I could wrap this up with a great way to help 50 Best Bars increase their reach across more of a region, that was easy to implement and didn’t feel like cheating – but I’m not sure what that solution looks like. I know one big challenge is that a voter who lives in Milwaukee is more likely to visit New York (or another large city) than a New York voter is to visit Milwaukee. For now I’m just trying to bring data driven awareness to the issue in hopes of increasing voter pools, promoting more varied nominations for those awards that accept them, and encouraging the people at the top to talk to bars and people they are promoting to see how they feel about all this.
Oh, and I’ll keep telling New Yorkers to visit Milwaukee (and Minneapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, etc) – the Pink Squirrel at Bryant’s is worth the airfare, I promise.
