At low tide you can walk along the sand to a pub that has been voted the third best beach bar in the world. It is in Wales, on the Llŷn Peninsula, in a village of two dozen houses that you cannot drive to. The Tŷ Coch Inn was a vicarage before it opened as an inn in 1842, and on a sunny afternoon in August its picnic benches are dragged onto the beach and the queue at the bar is barefoot. Park at Morfa Nefyn, take the path down, and walk twenty minutes with the Irish Sea on your right.
It is not the only one we have. This is where to drink with sand under your chair in 2026.
These are picked for the bar itself, not just the beach attached to it. Beach quality matters. So does what's actually being served, what it costs once you've climbed back up the cliff, and whether you'd recommend it to a mate.
1. Lusty Glaze, Newquay, Cornwall
The 133 steps down to the sand are part of the deal. So is the climb back up. What you get in between is a privately owned cove with a bar and restaurant on the beach, two log burners going year round, and Sundowner Sessions with live music most weeks in summer. Pizzas from noon, hot rock dining if you fancy cooking your own steak at the table, and a wine list that will make you forget you're forty feet below sea level.
The drinks are not cheap. You're paying for the location and the climb is part of the price. Worth it for an evening, less so if you've got a buggy and three kids in tow.
Best for: sunset drinks, a long Sunday lunch, anyone willing to take the steps seriously. Order: a frozen cocktail at the bar, a wood-fired pizza if you're staying for dinner. Where: Lusty Glaze Road, Newquay, TR7 3AE.
2. Tŷ Coch Inn, Porthdinllaen, North Wales
You can't drive to Tŷ Coch. The road into the village is for residents only, so you either park at the National Trust car park at Morfa Nefyn (around £5 a day) and walk along the beach at low tide, or cut across the headland through the golf course. Both are good. The pub itself is a red-painted ex-vicarage from the 1820s with a sandy floor, picnic benches on the beach, and views straight out across the Irish Sea to the mountains.
The food is sandwich-and-chilli simple and the drinks come in plastic cups outside in the summer because they cannot wash glasses fast enough. None of this matters once you've sat down. Travel writers have repeatedly put it in the world's top ten beach bars, and on its day it earns the ranking.
Best for: a slow afternoon, a long walk, lunch with a view that does not need filtering. Order: a pint of Cwrw Glaslyn from Purple Moose Brewery, a prawn baguette. Where: Porthdinllaen, Morfa Nefyn, LL53 6DB.
3. The Boathouse, Portobello, Edinburgh
Portobello is Edinburgh's beach. Two miles of flat sand, twenty minutes from the city centre, and an entire promenade of independents that have made the seaside cool again. The Boathouse closed for a full refit and reopened in late 2024, and it is now the place doing the best job in town of pretending you're somewhere warmer. Wood-fired pizza, decent pasta, fish and chips that genuinely live up to the location, and outdoor seating with heaters for when Scotland reminds you what month it is.
The cocktails are pricey by Portobello standards but Thursday's £6 specials are the workaround. Saturday nights get loud. Sunday afternoons in the sun are when it really earns its keep.
Best for: city dwellers wanting beach without leaving Edinburgh. Order: the fish and chips, a frozen pina colada. Where: 3 King's Place, Portobello, Edinburgh, EH15 1DU.
4. The Sun Deck, Margate, Kent
Margate has changed and the bars have followed. The Sun Deck sits on the promenade opposite Main Sands, a community-built outdoor terrace with deckchairs and parasols and a view straight across the bay. It looks rougher around the edges than the polished places on this list, which is the point. Beers cold, drinks reasonable, and the sunsets over the Thames Estuary are the best in the south of England.
If you want a Margate day with the bar built in, walk down from the Turner Contemporary, eat oysters at the harbour, and end up here.
Best for: an unfussy drink with one of the best sunsets in the country. Order: a beer and whatever's been put on the chalkboard. Where: Marine Terrace, Margate.
5. Catch Beach Club, Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire
Saundersfoot is small and the harbour is the centre of it. Catch is the place that's done the most to drag the place into 2026. A modern bar and seafood kitchen with a long terrace looking onto the beach, a proper drinks list, and live music most summer weekends. It's where locals fight for tables and visitors find out about three days into the holiday.
Pembrokeshire is having a moment. Catch is part of why. Pair it with a sauna session at Hwyl Outdoor Sauna a few doors down and you've built yourself a Saundersfoot afternoon that beats most things on the south coast.
Best for: seafood and a glass of wine with sand visible from your seat. Order: the catch of the day, a Welsh gin and tonic. Where: Saundersfoot harbour, SA69.
6. Surfside, Polzeath, Cornwall
Polzeath is North Cornwall's surf town and Surfside is its bar. Wood-clad, beach-facing, and built around an obsession with rum. The food menu is short and unfussy, the cocktails are properly made, and the staff are surfers who clock off and walk thirty feet to the water.
Cornwall has more beach bars per square mile than anywhere else in the UK. Polzeath is where to go if you want one that still feels like a surf bar rather than a destination restaurant.
Best for: an after-surf drink, a long evening in flip-flops. Order: a dark and stormy. Where: Polzeath Beach, Polzeath.
7. Key West, Bournemouth Pier, Dorset
Key West is on the pier itself. Properly on it. You walk past the arcades and the doughnut stand and end up at a glass-walled bar at the end of a Victorian pier, sticking out over the sea. It is the most touristy bar on this list and unapologetic about it. American-leaning food, big sharing plates, decent burgers, and tables that put you closer to seagulls than seems wise.
Bournemouth has Britain's best urban beach. The bar at the end of the pier is the most fun way to drink on it.
Best for: a holiday drink, a long lunch, anyone with kids who'll be entertained by the pier itself. Order: the baked camembert sharer. Where: Bournemouth Pier, BH2 5AA.
8. Barricane Beach Café, Woolacombe, Devon
Barricane is the small cove just along from Woolacombe's main beach. The café on it is tiny, family-run, and serves Sri Lankan curries in the evening. That's not a typo. They've been doing it for years and the queue still goes round the block on a warm Friday. By day it does sandwiches, soups, and homemade cake. By dusk it does the best curry on a UK beach.
It's a café more than a bar in the strict sense, but you can BYO and eat curry with your feet in the sand watching the sun set over Lundy Island. We are happy to bend the definition for that.
Best for: an evening that does not feel like the UK at all. Order: the curry, whatever's on. Where: Barricane Beach, Woolacombe.
A few honest notes
None of these are cheap. UK beach bars charge a premium because they are seasonal businesses with short windows to make their money. Book ahead in summer, check opening hours out of season (most of the Cornwall and Wales options scale right back from October to Easter), and don't drive if you can help it. Half the appeal is being able to stay for one more.
If we've missed your local, send it in. We'll go.