Margate, FL nightlife is a neighborhood bar scene rather than a club district, and it runs along two streets. West Atlantic Boulevard carries the sports bars and the latest last call in the city. State Road 7 carries the dart leagues, the Spanish language clubs and the only kitchens still cooking after midnight. Margate has no brewery inside its own limits, so the beer and the live music rooms are a ten minute drive into Coral Springs and Coconut Creek. Here's what's open late, what closes on a Monday, and what needs a car.
The Geography of a Margate Night Out
Margate is a nine square mile suburb of tree lined streets and about 30 miles of canals, sitting 7.5 miles inland from the Atlantic between Coral Springs, Coconut Creek and North Lauderdale. Nightlife follows the same two commercial spines as everything else here: West Atlantic Boulevard, and State Road 7, which everyone calls 441. Neither is a strip you walk. Each bar sits in its own plaza with free parking, and the hop between them is two minutes by car.
What Margate doesn't have is worth saying plainly: no craft brewery, no cocktail row, no block where you park once and drift between four rooms. What it does have is cheap drinks, dive bar hours running to 4 a.m. on weekends, two Spanish language clubs, and a casino ten minutes north that never closes.
West Atlantic Boulevard: Sports Bars, Comedy Nights and a 4 a.m. Last Call
West Atlantic Boulevard is where a Margate night runs longest. The bars here are neighborhood rooms with televisions, pool tables and a printed events calendar, drawing people who live within two miles.
Jesse's Sports Bar & Grill at 5442 W Atlantic Boulevard keeps the latest hours in Margate: noon to 2 a.m. Sunday through Wednesday and noon to 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday. Burgers, wings and Philly cheesesteaks come out of the kitchen, and there are pool tables and dartboards behind the bar seating. Check the calendar first, because the same room runs karaoke, bingo, comedy nights and a Dungeons and Dragons night across one month, and a Tuesday quiz crowd is nothing like a Saturday watch party. The hosts who run those nights move their gear bar to bar, and a 5×5 locker fits one karaoke rig and a box of lights.
Pasta And, at 4990 W Atlantic Boulevard, is the dinner half of the evening rather than the drinking half. Chefs Luigi and Esperanza Marenco run a small northern Italian room with their son Gian Marco, pasta made fresh daily, and a cellar of more than 1,000 temperature controlled Italian labels. Service is 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, closed Mondays, so book ahead on a weekend. Our Margate restaurant guide goes wider on the city's tables.
State Road 7: Dart Leagues, Latin Clubs and Kitchens Open Past Midnight
State Road 7 is the more interesting half of Margate after dark. Within about a mile you can throw darts in a dive bar, dance to a Spanish language DJ, smoke hookah at a late club, or sit down to Haitian griot at two in the morning on a Saturday.
Brady's Pub at 988 S State Road 7 is the one to know. It runs 15 steel tip dartboards, two full size pool tables and a ping pong table, with dart leagues, pool leagues, karaoke and bingo on rotation. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday, happy hour 3 to 6 on weekdays. One honest warning: Brady's serves no food at all, so eat first.
Amigos Beer & Wine Lounge, at 238 State Road 7, holds a beer and wine licence rather than a full liquor one, which keeps the volume down and conversation possible. It's closed Mondays and runs latest Thursday through Sunday. Pick it when you want to talk to the person across the table rather than watch a game over their shoulder.
Bim Bom Night Club at 1388 N State Road 7 is a small Spanish language discoteca with live music, DJs and food, and regulars call it the reason they don't drive to Miami on a Friday. Al's Night Club, south at 199 S State Road 7, leans Caribbean and international, with DJs, hookah, VIP tables and buyouts for birthdays. Neither gets going much before 11 p.m., and Al's posts its flyers online, so check what night you're walking into.
The bars and kitchens along 441 work out of tight buildings with almost no back room, which is why a fair number keep their event stock in climate controlled storage in Margate rather than behind the bar.
Delish Caribbean Restaurant at 171 S State Road 7 solves the late food problem most Broward suburbs can't. The kitchen turns out griot, tasso, stew chicken and whole fried fish until 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, midnight Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday. That Saturday close makes it about the only real meal in Margate once the bars empty.
Margate's Weekend Rooms off the Main Corridors
Two of Margate's later rooms sit away from both spines, and both keep short weeks, so they're easy to drive to on the wrong night.
Guapos Cocktail Bar & Lounge at 2160 Mears Parkway is the closest thing Margate has to a mixed drinks room rather than a beer bar. It opens Friday and Saturday from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. and Sunday from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., and it's dark the rest of the week. Turning up on a Wednesday is the common mistake here.
Centenario Night Club is Margate's other Latin room, open Thursday through Sunday only, and Spanish is the room's first language. Anyone throwing parties for a living around here tends to park the tables, speakers and decor in a 10×10 unit between bookings.
The free option belongs to the city: the Margate Sports Complex hosts Sounds at Sundown, an evening concert series with food trucks that runs alongside the rest of the city's special events. Bring lawn chairs, come early, and treat it as an all ages evening rather than a night out.
Beyond the City Line: Coral Springs, Coconut Creek and the Beach Drive
The brewery, the live bands and the 24 hour room all sit outside Margate, and none is more than fifteen minutes away.
Big Bear Brewing Co at 1800 N University Drive in Coral Springs has brewed on site since July 1997, with no preservatives and an American grill menu of homemade soups and locally sourced seafood alongside the beer. Happy hour runs daily from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Set expectations on the hours: taps close at 9:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 10:30 p.m. on weekends, early by South Florida standards.
JD's Bar & Lounge at 10311 W Sample Road in Coral Springs is the nearest room with live bands on a regular schedule, Friday and Saturday nights, plus karaoke, trivia and Texas Hold'em midweek. It's open 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily. Working South Florida bands haul their own rig, and a 5×10 storage unit swallows a drum kit, two speaker stacks and the road cases.
Seminole Casino Coconut Creek at 5550 NW 40th Street is open 24 hours a day, every day, ten to fifteen minutes from Margate. Alongside the slots, 80 plus live table games, a poker room and a sportsbook, it books live music at Legends Lounge, Nectar and Sound Bar, with outdoor concerts at The Stage at Coco. The gaming floor is 21 and over.
Further out, Las Olas Boulevard is roughly 30 minutes southeast and South Beach is over an hour, both covered in our guide to day trips from Margate.
Parking, Last Call and What Closes on a Monday
Monday is the night Margate goes quiet, and it catches visitors regularly. Amigos Beer & Wine Lounge is closed Mondays, Pasta And is closed Mondays, Guapos doesn't open until Friday, and Centenario runs Thursday through Sunday only. Jesse's, Brady's and Delish Caribbean are the reliable Monday answers.
Last call splits the city in two. Most Margate rooms stop at 2 a.m., but Jesse's runs to 4 a.m. Thursday through Saturday, and Brady's and Guapos both go to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday. Sort the ride home first, because nothing here is walkable between plazas and the buses aren't running at that hour.
Parking is the one real advantage Margate holds over a night on Las Olas. Every venue in this guide sits in a plaza with free surface parking, none of it metered or gated.
Weather sets the rest. Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 to November 30 and peaks on September 10, and September is also Margate's wettest month. Outdoor programming like Sounds at Sundown is the first thing to move, so an indoor plan holds up better from June to October. Our best time to visit Margate guide covers that seasonal swing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Margate good for a night out?
Margate is good for a specific kind of night out: pool tables, cheap drinks, a late kitchen and no dress code. It's not the place for a bar crawl, because nothing is walkable and there's no dense strip. If you want a neighborhood room still serving at 3 a.m., Margate beats most Broward suburbs.
What city in Florida has the best nightlife?
Miami and Fort Lauderdale hold the state's best nightlife, and both are drivable from Margate: about 30 minutes to Las Olas Boulevard, and 60 to 75 minutes to Wynwood or South Beach. Margate's draw is the opposite of that, which is free parking, low prices and a 4 a.m. last call at rooms where the bartender learns your name.
What are some fun things for adults to do in Margate?
Adults in Margate get dart and pool leagues at Brady's Pub, karaoke and comedy at Jesse's, Latin club nights at Bim Bom and Centenario, and a 24 hour casino floor ten minutes north. Daytime runs to three golf courses inside the city limits and the walkway trail along the canals, and our things to do in Margate guide has the rest.
How far is it from Fort Lauderdale to Margate, Florida?
Margate sits roughly 14 miles northwest of downtown Fort Lauderdale, about 30 minutes by car outside rush hour and longer on a weekday evening. The airport is around 20 minutes away. There's no rail link, so a night on Las Olas means driving or booking a ride both ways.
Are Pompano Beach and Margate, FL the same?
Pompano Beach and Margate are two separate Broward County cities. Margate is inland, 7.5 miles west of the Atlantic, with no beach of its own. Pompano Beach is the coastal city directly east, about 20 minutes down Atlantic Boulevard, and it's where Margate residents go for the ocean and the pier.
Where Margate Keeps the Overflow
Bar gear, band gear and party gear all have to live somewhere between nights, and so does everything else that stops fitting in a Margate garage. Value Store It runs a Margate self storage facility that rents month to month with no long term contract and is open seven days a week. A 10×5 unit handles boxes, a bike and a few bins, and a 5×15 space takes a small apartment's worth. The 10×15 units hold a two bedroom home, while a 10×20 unit or a 10×30 unit covers a full house or a small business inventory. If you're not sure which one fits what you own, the storage size guide sizes it up before you reserve anything.
