Ask Lemmy

T.G.I. Fridays

Ruby Tuesday

Applebee's

Hooters

...we don't have a great selection where I am in the South.

in my area of the us I find the places are trying to cash in on the dominant ethnicity of a place. So like near me they have irish names but near china town or the greek area you have chinese or greek sounding names. I mean a lot of it is not just to get the locals as the areas become and ethnic area and the people coming there are expecting an ethnic experience with bars and restaurants.

In the US the names are all over the place.

I live on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland so most of the “bars” on the bay have nautical names.

• The Rumor Reel
• The Hard Yacht Cafe
• Wicked Tuna
• LunaSeas
• Dock of the Bay
• Sunset Cove

Der Goldene Adler.

It's so bad that you usually have to ask which one.

Oddly enough in Salt Lake City, UT we have a few fun ones:

• A Bar Named Sue
• The Tavernacle (pokes fun at the mormon Tabernacle)
• Lake Effect

In the southern US, a lot of counties voted to prohibit the sale of alcohol. They thought prohibition was a good idea, despite the bad things that caused the nation to end prohibition at the national level. Usually this is because they are full of religious people, and these are called "dry" counties, as opposed to "wet" counties, where the sale of alcohol is legal.

A common name for a bar is "the county line" implying that it gets all the business from the neighboring "dry" county.

I don't go to bars anymore these days, these places are probably closed down by now since the last time I was in one of them was almost 30 years ago.

• club 21
• the oasis
• Clint's
• Charlie's

most the bars I went to were practically shacks in the middle of nowhere with zero name on the outside. only way you knew it was a bar was because of the beer signs outside.

• Bastard (reykjavik)

• Mollys (NYC)

• Tequila Mockingbird (Ocean City)

• Olive or Twist (Portland)

• Wish You Were Beer (Madison)

• Pour Boy (Toronto)

• Loose Moose (Toronto)

• Plug Uglies (NYC)

• LowBrau (sacramento)

• Pour House (everywhere)

• Beer and Loathing (Omaha)

• Deja Brew (Wendell)

• Paddy o'Beers (Raleigh)

• Crow Bar (Mount Holly)

Sweden also has many old English pub names but also many others, very mixed overall.
The street in my city (Gothenburg) I go to most has these bars:
Kelly's, Sejdeln (beer stein), King's Head, Queen's Head, Dansken (the danish), Republik, Down Under (Australian themed), Hops, The Abyss (heavy metal bar), Holy Moly, Bar Solo, Bongo, BIVAC, Haket (kinda "the place", a slang word), SoHo, Ölstugan (the beer cabin), Street Life, Brewers, Le Pub, The Northern Quarter, 9:ans (the 9's), Dirty Records, The Burger, Brygghuset (the brew house) and some more.
Yes, this is one street (both sides and some on corners and a bit up the perpendicular streets for a few).
Here's the map (street in question is the red line):

There are about as many on the lower and upper parallel streets (combined). And that's like 1/10th of the bars in that area, the whole city and outer areas has a total of over 1000 bars.

The reason most of our pubs are named like that is because when pubs first became a thing most people couldn't read, so instead they'd paint a picture on a sign outside to make it easier to direct people to the pub if they asked. They were also just regular houses that had spare beer that they'd sell to the public and wouldn't always be selling anything, that's why they were called public houses originally too.

Here in Germany, traditional names for pubs are often either animals (stork, eagle, bear, lion, trout, deer, etc.) or the original owner's name.

Not nearly as colorful as some of the other examples here but I'm not aware if there might be regional differences. My region might just be particularly boring in this regard.

(US) They vary wildly even in the same city. A lot of times, smaller dive bars will just be "[Name]'s Bar" or "[Name's] Bar 2" if they have more than one. Reason for the numbering, as was explained to me, is that allows them to operate under the same liquor license.

Then you get the punny named ones like "The Pour House" or "Keglers". Some are based on a gimmick like "The Fish Bowl" where you could order a giant glass fish bowl full of beer.

In college towns, they're often clubs rather than bars/pubs, so you'll see names like "Lazy Lizard", "Liquid Lounge", "Shooters", etc. The biggest and most popular one when I went to college was called "Bent Willey's". Sex pun aside, it was on a sharp curve near Willey St, which is probably how they got it approved.

On my first trip to NYC, in 1980, a college trip, I collected a bunch of little flyers that they were handing out in Times Square, for notorious gay clubs with names like The Meat Rack and The Man Hole.

They were a big hit in the dorm when I got back.

In my neck of the woods dive bars have the best names, we've got "the wooden nickel" and "the rusty nail". These are not nice bars.

Grew up in Florida which I feel has it's own unique style of pub names such as: The Thirsty Turtle Captain Jack's (or any other Captain) The Brass Ring Manatee Lagoon (or other animal or place lagoon) The Square Grooper (slang for packages of cocaine found in the water or on the shore)

Off the top of my head in Chicago:

• X's bar
• X's two-way
• The [evocative name]
• X's

Here in the NL we have names like "The Little Waterway," "The Bridge," "The Small Pond," "The Barking Fish," "The Elk," or the original owners name or a local joke. My local place is called "Rip and Pluck".

In the USA Most are generic names for chains like and they are bar in grills the other are shit pubs like the Londoner that are truing to be British pubs without the culture its like a pub at Epcot. There was a place called Wickers that was great but got shutdown for kids underage drinking.

In France it would be mostly "Le " or "Le ."

But the pubs themselves can have various "denominations" to talk about those places, and I think of 3 so far:

• bar (obviously)
• PMU (the national horse betting company)
• bistrot (a name with unclear origin, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bistrot) which is a place where you can both drink quickly and eat

It’s the same all over the world, although the UK definitely leads in original or funny names - which date back to times when people still couldn’t read. In France you will have a lot of places called the Cheval Blanc or other colored horses. In Germany, zum Ochsen, die Sonne, die Linde abound, anything that allowed the patrons to quickly find the locale.

Canada is a lot like the UK. We have a lot of old english pub names.

In the US, I'd say that "bar" is probably the most common, but you can find "tavern" or "pub" (the latter especially if the thing is British-themed).

searches Google Maps for "bar in Chicago"

The ones that show up in the first listings and have a suffix:

• "… Bar": 10
• "… Pub": 4
• "… Tavern": 4

Some of the "pubs" there were Irish-themed.

The nearest one to my apartment is called The Brass Tap. And it's one of those bars that is more like a coffee shop than a bar; well lit, sterilized, corporate shit.

We also have a gay bar in town called The Brave Bull which is apt, because you gotta be brave to go there considering it has a reputation as being a place you will likely be stabbed at.

Story time. When living in Helsinki, Finland my group of friends was approached by some tourists. 'Excuse me, we're looking for this pub'. Okay, lots of them around, which one? 'It's called, like, the bubble on the hill...?'

Took a good ten seconds of head scratching and then one of us got it. Mäkikupla! Literally Bubble On The Hill but since the names are so random over here, none of us had given second thought about the funny name.

Told this story online and a Finnish person posted a confession. They'd been in Australia or whereever and recommended that particular place to someone. Looks like someone remembered.

US absolutely has pubs, but maybe called taverns, specially on the east coast like in Boston where lots of colonizers lived. Bell in Hand is a popular one there. I guess it depends on your definition of a pub, but the US is so multicultural that you’ll find straight pubs or wannabe pubs here too with names you’d expect to see in Ireland or England (e.g. Red Lion).

I think the closest modern thing to a pub in the US is called a “dive” or a “dive bar” where you pretty much just go to drink.

New Zealand here. I've had a pint in The Queen's Ferry Tavern, The Queen's Head and The King's Arms. Also Bar None, The Crow Bar, Murphy's Irish Pub, The Whitestone Cafe, The Blacksmith, The Q Bar, The Web, The Bull, Studio X, The Rose and Crown, The Office, The Local, The Fat Dog, Broncos, Galbraith's Ale House and a host more I can't bring to mind right now.

The US doesn't have pubs like Britain - ours are mostly bars, or food places with beer, or beer places with food. I've known only a few places that are similar to British pubs where it's more like your local place for food and beer, where you'll see families and kids - though most chains are geared towards families too, it's not the same atmosphere as your "local" - at my local many people know each other, it's that "local".

Sports bars will have screens everywhere showing current games. Can be raucus during football season, but soccer is growing in the US.

Lots of places are simply the family name of the owner "Johnson's Tavern" kind of thing, some have simple names "The Pub" or mildy clever.

Chains have a certain motif - see BW3. And while not really pub-like, you could take kids there for meals.

Take a look in Google Maps - pick a US city and search for "bar" or "pub".

In Canada pub, tavern, bar, are common. Less common, at least in NS, is public house.