Bars in Ottawa by age group
Updated Thursday, September 17
Walking into a room where you are ten years older or younger than everyone else is the fastest way to waste a night. Ottawa has a wide spread and the places do not advertise who actually turns up.
This is rough guidance, not a rule. Crowds shift by night and by what is on. The live score on each page will tell you more about tonight than any list can.
Student crowd, mostly 18 to 22
Ottawa has uOttawa and Carleton both close to the core, so the student crowd is large and concentrated. These rooms are cheap, loud and busy early in the week when everywhere else is quiet.
Cheap kitchen and a young room. Thursday is the student night.
Big main room club, heavy on pop and EDM. Skews young on the weekend.
Afrobeats and hip hop in an eighties arcade fit out. Young crowd, low cover.
Mid twenties, out to actually go out
The main weekend crowd. Old enough to be annoyed by a two hour line, young enough to still be out at two.
Multiple rooms means the crowd splits by what they came for.
The Elgin dance floor. Mixed twenties, less student than the Market.
DJs and electronic in a narrow room. People come for the music.
Afrobeats and Caribbean nights. Dressier crowd, bottle service.
Late twenties and thirties, still out but sitting down
Rooms where you can hear the person across the table and nobody is queueing to get in.
Rooftop on the sixteenth floor. Older crowd, seasonal, worth it for the view.
Cocktails and a gastropub menu on Elgin. A room for a conversation.
Brewpub with live music most weekends. Mixed ages, nobody is performing.
Stand at the cicchetti bar with a spritz. A good start to a night that is not a big night.
Properly mixed, all ages in one room
Places where the crowd is set by the music or the thing happening, not by age. Usually the most interesting rooms in the city.
Pinball brings everyone from nineteen to fifty. Nobody cares how old you are.
Blues since 1984. The crowd is whoever is into the band that night.
Punk and metal dive. Age has nothing to do with it.
Local and touring bands, DJ sets after. Crowd changes completely by the show.
Questions people ask
What is the drinking age in Ottawa?
Nineteen in Ontario. Most Ottawa bars and clubs are nineteen plus and will check ID at the door. Gatineau across the river is eighteen, which is why some younger groups cross the bridge.
Where do students go out in Ottawa?
Mostly ByWard Market, especially Clarence Street. Thursday is the big student night because both uOttawa and Carleton schedule around it.
Where can you go out in Ottawa in your thirties?
Elgin Street, the rooftop bars, the brewpubs and the live music rooms. Any place where the draw is the music or the food rather than the dance floor.
More Ottawa guides
Where people in Ottawa actually go out, by neighbourhood, with live crowd reports from people already there tonight.
A bar worth going to in Ottawa on every night, Monday through Sunday, including the quiet nights. With live crowd reports.
Where to eat in Ottawa, from tasting menus to the 2am shawarma, with live reports on how busy each room is right now.