Best Sports Bars in My Business Directory

Sizable haunt with TVs tuned to sports offering BBQ bites & brews, plus pool tables & video games.

The Goat sits on South Main in the West End, a short walk up from Fluor Field, which makes it a natural landing spot before or after a Greenville Drive game. It is local and family owned, with screens spread around the room so the game stays in view from just about any seat. The kitchen handles the bar-and-grill basics with some personality. The Goat Wings come in a range of flavors, the burgers run to a Southwest smashburger, and there are wraps, salads, and a South of the Border section that turns out shrimp tacos. The shareables draw the most attention at the table: Goat Tots, Cheesy Peaks, loaded fries, and fried pickles. Behind the bar it is draft beer, bourbon, and specialty cocktails, with a happy hour in the early evening. What sets it a step apart from the usual wings-and-a-game spot is the range on both ends, from a hearty signature Grand Slam Bowl to beignets for dessert, which is not what you expect next to a plate of tots. Talk to the regulars and the service comes up as often as the food, friendly and attentive even when the room is full. It gets full on a Drive game night, when the West End fills up and this becomes one of the spots that catches the crowd, so it pays to arrive before first pitch.

The real draw here sits upstairs. The team leaned the whole operation into the rooftop after realizing that is where this downtown location's energy lived, and it shows: an open-air upper level that opens to the sky when the weather is right, a long bar with room to work a crowd, and a perch over one of the busiest corners of Main Street. Everything else is the game-day formula run at full tilt. Screens cover the walls so no seat is a bad one when a game is on, the tap list runs long, and the kitchen sends out the familiar lineup of wings, burgers, and beer-battered fries. Fight nights and rivalry games pack the place, and it keeps going well after the rest of downtown has wound down, which makes it a dependable late stop on a night out. Ask a regular what keeps them coming and the answer is almost always the rooftop, especially on a warm afternoon with the air moving and the city in view. It stays one of downtown's most-visited spots for exactly that reason. Catch it on a clear evening with a game on every screen, and the pull is easy to understand.