This piece has been updated for 2023 as the Bowl Bar is now closed. However, as a true cultural gem to the City of Miami, the Bowl Bar may be gone, but it’s legend will forever live on at AllWorld.com.
Enjoy this piece of nostalgia….
If you ever make your way through the little Havana area of Miami, or if you are happen to be one of the 4,000 people who attend a Miami Marlins game any time, do yourself a favor and visit the Bowl Bar. The Bowl Bar is vintage Miami, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s just one of those things you have to experience to really understand. This seedy dive bar has everything you would expect from the disorganized City of Miami: filth, lawlessness, drunk employees, arbitrary drink prices at times, and prostitution. Yes, prostitution. Just a home run’s distance from Marlins Park, where a few people take their innocent children to watch the local baseball team.
This was, in my opinion, the #1 dive bar in Miami! Yes, it was that EPIC.
The Legendary Bowl Bar Review
If you’ve ever been to the slums of San Jose, Costa Rica, or Managua, Nicaragua, and gone to a bar where everything is makeshift and you are expected to urinate in a closet that contains a hole, you’ll be right at home at the Bowl Bar. There is zero English spoken by anyone who remotely works at this establishment, and when you find yourself ordering a beer, you may or may not get exactly what you ordered. But that’s okay. You’ll have plenty fo things to look at and admire at the bar, from old, crusty hookers, to the juke box which has 1,000’s of songs to pick from, all but 10 of them are not in English. Let me remind you that you are not in the United States here, you are in Little Havana, which may as well be the Capital of the America’s, not including North America. The streets that are adjacent to this place are some of the most old school Latino barrios you’ll find in Miami, and they pride themselves on keeping the concrete look and feel you’ll find in Central America.
The women who frequent this place are more or less in on the take. They want you to buy them drinks. Yours are $3, and theirs can be bought for $15. Heck of a deal, right? Well, if that sounds like a lot of money to pay for a beer, just know that these same women will grope you the whole time. Yep, it’s true. Seen it happen to unsuspecting friends of mine who thought it was fun to buy the slutty looking women drinks. You won’t be able to shake them and they won’t leave you alone until you get a restraining order, so be very careful what you wish for and how you act.
One of the people who gave a Bowl Bar review on Yelp said that this place looks like a “Strip Club without the polls,” and cited the mirrors that cover this place. It’s been a couple years since I’ve been to Bowl Bar, but yep, I will never forget the mirrors. It’s like they opted for those instead of wallpaper to cover the walls. Classic.
After some thought, I have to give a huge shout out to this guy Drew H. from Yelp, because his review just sums up this place so well. And yes, the old school Dan LeBatard segment they did on the place was one of the best pieces of media I’ve ever listened to. As a long-time listener to Dan and Stugotz, it’s honestly one of the best all-time shows I remember from their local days in Miami.
Drew also shared this amazing pic of the bathroom! Drew, if you ever read this, drop us a comment. Well done bud. I will gladly buy you beer if you ever want to link up at the bar before or after a Marlins game. 
It’s also only appropriate to make the same offer to Brian P. Brian’s review was so good that it has to be posted, and it was also chopped up into three screen grabs because he took the time to compose one of the best stories ever about this place. Brian, slow clap to you.
I’ll say this, if you are with a family or children, avoid this place at all costs. However, if you are with a group of people who appreciate either the ghettoness of Latin America, or just the primitive parts of Miami, you MUST stop at this place and appreciate what they have going on.
The Bowl Bar in Miami was a big piece of history in the red light district of Little Havana, Miami. Gone is the business, but the legend will live on forever.
About Peter C.
Peter is a digital nomad who largely writes from Asia, Europe, and South America. Always following the "vibe," he sets up shop in hostels and AirBNB's and continues to entertain us with wild stories from life abroad. Ask him anything in our community forum.
