You can find the perfect island. You can book the perfect hotel. But your vacation hasn’t really begun until you pull up to your chair with an ice-cold cocktail at the perfect Caribbean beach bar. For all of the wonders and charms of this region, nothing manages to so easily access the hearts of travelers as a toes-in-the-sand shack or a rum punch under a palm tree. There’s just something romantic about it, something enchanting. The beach bar is more than just a table or a menu; it’s an idea, a fantasy, a distillation of all of the things we dream about on cold winter nights. We’ve been to more Caribbean beach bars than just about anyone, and the 2025 edition of our annual guide to our favorite beach bars is a curation of diverse establishments across the many islands of the Caribbean.
So how did our editorial team choose this year? It’s never easy to whittle the choices down to 25. But we do have some conditions: there has to be sand (no floating bars, unfortunately). There has to be good service, quality cocktails and, perhaps most importantly, good food. Because a great beach bar should ideally be a place where you can spend all day. Today’s beach bar patron is demanding more, and the Caribbean’s top beach bars are adapting, with more creative cocktails, better rum selections and food that can stand all on its own. Here are the best beach bars in the Caribbean for 2025, with a number of new entries on the list this year.
#1 Catherine’s Cafe, Antigua We have a new number one beach bar in the Caribbean: Catherine’s Cafe, the outrageously good beach bar and restaurant on Pigeon Point Beach in Antigua. Everything here is done meticulously, exquisitely. The cocktails (including the rather clever on-draft rum punch) are superb, the service splendid and the setting just magnificent. But the biggest story might just be the food — the best of any beach bar in the Caribbean, period. If you haven’t been here yet, it’s time to plan your visit.