Margate, FL nightlife is a neighborhood bar scene rather than a club district, and it runs along three streets. West Atlantic Boulevard carries the sports bar and the comedy nights. State Road 7 carries the dart leagues, the Caribbean and Latin clubs and the kitchens still cooking after midnight. Margate Boulevard keeps an old-school lounge and the city’s own concert series. The nearest brewpub is Big Bear in Coral Springs, and the live band rooms are a 10-minute drive over the city line. 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 9-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 commercial spines as everything else here: West Atlantic Boulevard and State Road 7, which everyone calls 441, plus quieter Margate Boulevard. None of the three is a strip you walk. Each bar sits in its own plaza with free parking, and the hop between them is a few minutes by car.
What Margate doesn’t have is worth saying plainly: no cocktail row and no block where you park once and drift between four rooms. What it does have is cheap drinks, bars running to 4 a.m. on weekends, two Caribbean and Latin clubs and a casino about 15 minutes north that never closes.
West Atlantic Boulevard: Sports Bars, Comedy Nights and a Late Last Call
West Atlantic Boulevard is where a Margate night runs long. The bars here are neighborhood rooms with televisions and a printed events calendar, drawing people who live within a couple of miles.
Jesse’s Sports Bar & Grill at 5442 West Atlantic Boulevard opens at noon and stays open until 2 a.m. early in the week and until 4 a.m. on its late nights, so check its hours page before you plan around a closing time. The kitchen turns out bar-and-grill food like steak-and-cheese sandwiches, and the room books stand-up comedy nights alongside the games on its screens. Comedians and event hosts who move a PA system from bar to bar often keep it in a 5×5 locker, about the size of a small closet.
Pasta And, at 4990 West Atlantic Boulevard, is the dinner half of the evening rather than the drinking half. Chefs Luigi and Esperanza Marenco run a northern Italian room with their son Gian Marco, pasta made fresh and a large Italian wine list. Service is 5 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, Caribbean Clubs and Kitchens Open Past Midnight
State Road 7 is the more interesting half of Margate after dark. Within a few miles you can throw darts in a dive bar, dance to Kompa or a Spanish-language DJ, or sit down to Haitian griot at 2 a.m. on a Saturday.
Brady’s Pub at 988 South State Road 7 is the one to know. It runs 15 steel-tip dartboards, two pool tables and a ping-pong table, with dart and pool leagues most weeknights, karaoke on Friday and Sunday and bingo on Sunday. Hours are 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday through Thursday and to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday, with happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. on weekdays. It’s 21 and over after 9 p.m. One honest warning: Brady’s serves no food at all, so eat first.
BimBom Night Club at 1388 North State Road 7 is a small Spanish-language discoteca with live music and DJs, open Thursday through Sunday from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. Al’s Night Club, south at 199 South State Road 7, is a Caribbean and international room with live entertainment, DJs and four VIP sections for birthdays, and food comes from the restaurant next door. Neither gets going early, and Al’s posts its events 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 South 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 on Friday and 4 a.m. on Saturday. That Saturday close makes it one of the few real meals in Margate once the bars empty.
Margate Boulevard: An Old-School Lounge and a City Concert Series
Margate Boulevard is quieter, and that’s the point of it.
Sharkey’s Boulevard Lounge at 5889 Margate Boulevard is a beer-and-wine neighborhood bar that has been in business for more than 40 years. It closes well before the 441 rooms do, which makes it the pick for an early drink and a conversation you can actually hear.
The one option that isn’t a bar belongs to the city. The Margate Sports Complex hosts Sounds at Sundown, an evening concert series with food trucks, and the next show is October 3, 2026 at 6 p.m. Bring lawn chairs, come early and treat it as an all-ages evening rather than a night out. Anyone throwing parties for a living around here tends to park the tables, speakers and decor in a 10×10 unit, about half a one-car garage, between bookings.
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 about 15 minutes away.
Big Bear Brewing Co at 1800 North University Drive in Coral Springs has brewed on-site since July 1997 with no preservatives, and its American grill menu leans on homemade soups and locally sourced seafood. Happy hour runs daily from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Set expectations on the hours: it closes at 9:30 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, early by South Florida standards.
JD’s Bar & Lounge at 10311 West Sample Road in Coral Springs is the nearest room with live bands on a regular schedule, every Friday and Saturday night, plus karaoke and trivia 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, about the size of a small walk-in closet, takes a drum kit, two speaker stacks and the road cases.
Seminole Casino Coconut Creek at 5550 NW 40th Street is open 24/7, about 15 minutes from Margate. Alongside the slots, more than 80 live table games and a poker room, it books live music at Legends Lounge, Nectar and Sound Bar, with outdoor concerts at The Stage at Coco.
Farther out, Las Olas Boulevard is roughly 30 minutes southeast and South Beach is more than 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. Pasta And is closed Mondays, and BimBom doesn’t open until Thursday. Jesse’s, Brady’s, Sharkey’s and Delish Caribbean are the reliable Monday answers.
Last call doesn’t belong to one bar. Brady’s runs to 4 a.m. on Friday and Saturday, BimBom to 4 a.m. Thursday through Sunday, Delish Caribbean to 4 a.m. on Saturday and Jesse’s to 4 a.m. on its late nights. Sort the ride home first, because no two plazas are within walking distance and the free Margate Community Bus stops by 4:30 p.m.
Parking is the one real advantage Margate holds over a night on Las Olas. Every Margate venue in this guide sits in a plaza with its own free surface lot.
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: dartboards, cheap drinks, a late kitchen and no dress code. It isn’t 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. on a weekend, 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 an hour or more to Wynwood or South Beach. Margate’s draw is the opposite of that, which is free parking, low prices and a 4 a.m. weekend 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, comedy at Jesse’s, Caribbean and Latin club nights at Al’s and BimBom, and a 24-hour casino floor about 15 minutes north. By day there’s Oriole Golf Club, the city’s only golf course, 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. Margate has no rail station, and the nearest Brightline stops are in Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton, 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 holds the contents of one room, and a 5×15 space takes a studio apartment. The 10×15 units hold a two-bedroom apartment, while a 10×20 unit covers a three-bedroom home and a 10×30 unit a four-bedroom home or a small business’s inventory. If you’re not sure which one fits what you own, the storage size guide sizes it up before you reserve anything.
