Where to drink in Hialeah

Aravita has only been around since 2013, but it’s quickly become a local favorite. With more than 45 different flavors of Bubble Tea alone, you can mix and match to your heart’s content. Need to get some work done while you sip? They provide comfortable seating and free wifi. Sweet!

This place doesn’t even have a website. You just have to know what’s up. It serves delicious traditional Cuban food, but it’s not the food that makes it memorable, it’s the weekends. After 8 p.m., it’s LIT. The lights dim, a DJ starts to spin, and this chill little restaurant becomes something altogether different, with strong, cheap drinks and Latin music spinning until late. Some Friday nights you can also catch a damn good drag show. Dale.

*Reader’s suggestion

This is a typical Cuban cafeteria, which means you can get all the staples here, but we come for the café con leche because we think it’s the best around. It’s open 24 hours, and they have good eats for any time of day. We vote for a breakfast of pan con mantequilla (Cuban toast) and café con leche any day of the week. 

Yea, we know, it’s Flanigan’s. But we have it on good authority that this is one of the places to drink in Hialeah. It’s kind of like the Miami Cuban answer to the English pub. Show up on a Thursday night and there’s a good chance it will be so packed you’ll have to wait for a table.

*Reader’s suggestion

Walking into La Fresa Francesa, it feels like you’ve been magically transported to a little bistro in Paris. Hialeah native Sandy Sanchez and husband Benoit Rablat brought a little je ne sais quoi to the city. Order a mushroom crepe and a pot of chamomile tea, wait a little while, then order a Croque Madame and bottle of wine because you will not want to leave this place. Enjoy the hospitality of the awesome waitstaff and kick up a conversation over a Guava Bellini.

*Reader’s suggestion

It *literally* has one star on Yelp, but we don’t care. It is THE Hialeah club. By day it’s just a generic office building, but on weekend nights the 5th floor of this shopping center off the Palmetto turns into a packed club blaring bachata, reggaeton, merengue, salsa, and hip hop. It was recently named Best Latin Night Club by the Miami New Times. We cosign. 

*Reader’s suggestion

If you’re feeling that Mad Men vibe, check out The Bend, where wood-paneled walls and salmon-colored cushioned booths make you feel like you’re drinking in the 1950s. The bar opened recently in a strip mall, replacing a dive bar which closed down because of some shady stuff, we hear. Its got fresh beers on draft, a well-crafted cocktail menu, and board games galore.