The Best Singles Bars in Atlanta, From a Local

The rooftop circuit: Atlanta's signature move

No city in the South does rooftops like Atlanta, and the rooftops are where the after-work singles scene actually lives. The Roof at Ponce City Market is the anchor: 9 Mile Station (the beer garden and restaurant), Skyline Park (carnival games, which are a better icebreaker than any bar), and 12 Cocktail Bar for the dressed-up end, all with skyline views over the BeltLine crowd that just walked up. Downtown, RT60 atop the Reverb hotel by the stadium pulls a young, social, pre-and-post-event crowd. Buckhead's hotel rooftops (the Thompson's is the standout) cover the polished 30s-and-up version. Golden hour on a Thursday or Saturday is the window; by 10pm they turn into groups-at-tables.

Midtown: the conversation end

JoJo's Beloved in Colony Square is the current standard: a 70s-glam cocktail lounge where the room is beautiful, the music allows talking, and the crowd is 28-45 and social. The cocktail rooms around Crescent Avenue and the Piedmont Park patio bars fill out the district. Midtown is also the city's LGBTQ heart; the gay dating guide maps that scene properly.

Buckhead: the polished end

The old Buckhead Village bar-crawl era is gone; what replaced it suits daters better. The cocktail lounges and restaurant bars around Buckhead Village District draw a moneyed, dressed-up, 30s-to-50s crowd, Buckhead Saloon and the Elbow Room keep the unpretentious end alive, and the hotel bars fill with professionals who came to talk. A note on the famous one: Red Phone Booth (the phone-booth-entrance speakeasy, downtown and Buckhead) is Atlanta's most-searched cocktail room, and it's a superb date spot, but it's a cigar-and-conversation den, not a mingling room. Take someone there; don't go there to meet someone.

The BeltLine corridor and the east side

The Eastside Trail's patio bars, Krog Street Market, and the breweries (New Realm's rooftop sits right on the trail) are the daytime-to-evening mixing rooms, and the crowd arrives on foot and unhurried. Further east, Edgewood Avenue is the late-night dance-and-dive strip where the creative crowd ends up, and East Atlanta Village keeps the scene going for the tattooed end of the spectrum. Atlanta's celebrated Black nightlife runs across the west side and downtown clubs; the Black singles guide covers those rooms properly.

How to work a bar in this city

• Golden hour beats midnight. Atlanta's rooftops and patios do their mingling from 5 to 9. Late night, the rooms close into groups.
• The bar rail is the social seat. Tables are for dates; the rail is for meeting people. JoJo's and the hotel bars especially.
• One district per night. The traffic decides this for you. Pick Midtown, Buckhead, or the BeltLine corridor and stay on foot.
• Thursday is the local night. Saturdays pull the whole metro plus bachelorette parties; Thursday's crowd actually lives here.

Pair this with the singles events calendar for structured nights, or the complete Atlanta singles guide for the whole scene.