Interior of Moe’s and Joe’s
Courtesy Caroline Eubanks | Interior of Moe’s and Joe’s
Courtesy Caroline Eubanks

Atlanta bars with wild histories

From trading pitchers for a Rolls Royce to hosting resident crocodiles, these Atlanta bars have wild histories worth learning about.

Caroline Eubanks
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Atlantans have been imbibing since before the city was officially founded, when it was known as Terminus and rough-and-tumble crowds gathered in back alley taverns. In fact, the city’s first political parties were based around being for or against alcohol. One of the first bars, the Whitehall Tavern, gave its name to a street that is still a part of the West End neighborhood. Before inventing Coca-Cola, pharmacist John Pemberton first made a wine-based drink. And that doesn’t even factor in the moonshiners that came from North Georgia to sell their goods during Prohibition, which would continue in Georgia until 1935.

But it’s not all in the past. Some of these watering holes are still standing, with their secrets found behind every cocktail.

  • Bedford Pine

Atlanta’s most famous gay club started out as the majestic home of the former Atlanta mayor’s daughter. Built in 1889, it had several lives, including a stint as an Italian restaurant. In the 1980s, it was The Celebrity Club, where a young RuPaul and his fellow drag performers took the stage. 

You likely know it as the Atlanta Eagle, opened in 1987 under the historic Kodak sign. The LGBTQ+ leather bar hosts frequent drag shows, including the late Mr. Charlie Brown, an Atlanta drag icon, and contemporaries Lena Lust and Brigitte Bidet. After two fires to the original building, the Atlanta Eagle soars again, now in its new location near Ansley Mall, the site of Atlanta’s version of Stonewall.

  • Things to do
  • St. Charles Greenwood

Before becoming what’s known today as Clermont Lounge, which opened in 1965, the building’s basement space held several clubs over the years, including an unofficial Playboy Club, resulting in a letter from Hef and crew, and the Anchorage Supper Club, which offered burlesque shows. 

Today, it’s the city's oldest strip club. The dancers are celebrities in their own right, especially “Blondie,” given name Anita Rae Strange. The likes of the late Anthony Bourdain (who bought Alton Brown an on-air lap dance), Margaret Cho and Kid Rock have been spotted there. The main rule is no photos, which got members of Mumford & Sons kicked out. In 2018, locals feared the lounge’s days were numbered when the hotel was purchased by a Tennessee-based hospitality group, but the lounge remains.

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  • Nightlife
  • Castleberry Hill

Atlanta is known for its “adult entertainment” establishments but perhaps none is as widely recognized as Magic City. Opened in 1985 by Michael Barney, the club and its dancers have had an undeniable impact on American music and culture. 

The celebrity crowd has long flocked there, with a clientele list including Drake, rumored to have brought an armored car full of cash, Michael Jordan and MC Hammer. It’s also where up-and-coming artists could get their tunes played to a wide audience. In 1992, Tag Team’s single, “Whoomp! (There It Is),” debuted at Magic City before hitting radio airwaves. Future and Migos also had a helping hand from the strip club’s DJs. You may be surprised to learn that the club is known for its lemon pepper wings, which is one way to explain your credit card statement.

  • Linwood

In the 1920s, Lebanese immigrant Gibran Maloof opened Tip Top Billiard Parlor steps from the Georgia State Capitol. Despite being in the midst of Prohibition, the bar attracted a political crowd. In 1956, Maloof’s sons Manuel and Robert opened their own bar, Manuel’s Tavern, in Poncey-Highland.

The politicos followed, and it became an essential campaign stop for Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Behind the bar are a museum’s worth of artifacts, including portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, vintage beer cans and even the ashes of the Maloof brothers.

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  • Nightlife
  • St. Charles Greenwood

In 1994, MJQ opened in the basement of the run-down Ponce de Leon Hotel, which had previously been home to one of the city’s earliest gay bars. In 2004, the club, named after the Modern Jazz Quartet, moved down the street and added a second space called the Drunken Unicorn. The bar welcomed an eclectic mix of acts including the Black Lips, Deerhunter and Peaches. 

In 2025, MJQ moved yet again, starting its next chapter in a storied space at Underground Atlanta previously occupied by Dante’s Down the Hatch, untouched since its closure in 1999. In its heyday in the 1970s, Rod Stewart and Jimmy Carter were regulars. Dante’s even had a resident crocodile, Pinocchio. Today, MJQ has ditched the pirate ship vibes for an outer space theme.

  • Virginia Highland

The quintessential Virginia Highland drinking den opened in 1947 by brothers Moe and Joe Krinsky. Moe’s and Joe’s functioned as a sort of Pabst Brewing “tied house,” a bar that exclusively served one brand of beer. Even after a formal agreement passed, Pabst Blue Ribbon (PBR) continued to be the bar’s drink of choice. The brothers were said to have once traded 1,700 pitchers of PBR for a 1947 Rolls Royce (!!)

The building features a mural of former server Horace McKennie, the first employee hired by the Krinskys in 1949. He wore his signature red jacket and bow tie from his former life as a hotel banquet server, treating the humble beer as if it was the finest champagne. Customers continue to order $3.50 pitchers and the MoJo burger, two mainstays over the last 78 years.

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  • Bankhead

The blue-collar watering hole had a reputation before it became known as the beacon of the blues in Atlanta. The ramshackle Westside building was originally constructed as a 1930s grocery store and gas station to serve the nearby mill workers, one of the only surviving structures from a fire that destroyed the surrounding stockyards. 

In 1972, it began operating as a blues club and has continued to do so ever since. Even as skyscrapers surround it, the smoky Northside Tavern offers live music most nights of the week to a mix of blues enthusiasts and the young and hip. The bar also inspired a documentary and its peeling paint exterior have made it a popular filming location for movies and TV shows like Ozark and Anchorman 2.

  • Downtown

The space age staple of the Atlanta skyline is Polaris, which opened in 1967 in the Regency-Hyatt House (now the Hyatt Regency) by famed architect John Portman. The blue-domed space became a popular spot among visiting stars like Jim Morrison and Sidney Poitier, where they would take in the views while sipping the hotel’s signature peach daiquiris.

Polaris shuttered in 2004, but after a decade-long absence, it reopened and started revolving again in 2014. The bar and restaurant menu now focuses on Black-owned wine and spirits brands and incorporates honey from the rooftop beehives into cocktails.

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  • Nightlife
  • Five Points

Sweet Auburn’s heyday centered around nightlife, starting in 1938 when local businessmen opened the Top Hat Club, which attracted “Chitlin Circuit” acts like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong. In 1949, the property was purchased by Carrie Cunningham, a local hotel owner who transformed the space to accommodate touring artists. 

She renamed it The Royal Peacock, a name the property has retained ever since. Countless performers took the stage including James Brown, Otis Redding, Tina Turner and Little Richard. Cunningham later sold the club, closing its doors in 1973. But in 2010, it reopened, this time as a bustling nightclub. Some nights, the vibe may be more about bottle service and reggae beats, while on others, you can play a round of pool or catch a musician or comedy show. There’s a full bar, so you can sip your favorite rum punch and pretend you’re in Montego Bay.

  • Butler Street

Located inside a former Coca-Cola bottling works building, the wacky Sister Louisa’s Church of the Ping-Pong Emporium opened in 2010 by artist and Divinity student Grant Henry. Henry’s bar is filled with both his own artwork and vintage velvet paintings of Jesus and Elvis Presley. 

Often nicknamed “Church,” the bar pokes fun at traditional religion with choir robes borrowed over rounds of ping pong and DJ sessions called “Sunday Service.” Even the drinks are playful like the “Blood of Christ,” a rum and Cheerwine concoction. It’s no surprise that it’s a celebrity hangout spot, and Lady Gaga, of all people, wanted to buy it, but Henry held firm to the reins. 

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