Monday is the best happy hour day in San Diego. It isn't close.
Of the 393 bars we track with a published happy hour, 321 run one on a Monday — more than double Saturday's 152. And Monday is the day bars do something unusual: drop the window entirely.
The Mondays that run all day
Save this list. No 3-to-6 window to beat. The whole day, or until close.
Brigantine Point Loma — Monday all day. Brigantine Coronado — till close, with $1.50 oysters and $3.25 fish tacos.
Pacifica Del Mar — Sunday and Monday all night. Oceanview seafood with a rooftop and no clock on it.
Duke's La Jolla — Monday 3PM to close, right over the cove.
Miguel's Cocina in Coronado — Monday 3PM to close, $3.50 Mexican bottles, $3 tacos.
Karina's Cantina in the Gaslamp — Monday all day, $8 margaritas, $5 drafts, $10 apps.
The Bar at Moniker General in Liberty Station — Monday all day: $10 cocktails, $5 beers, $3 off wine by the glass.
Hopnonymous Brewing in Convoy — Monday all day, and at 4.9 stars it's the highest-rated room here. Blind Lady Ale House runs industry Monday, $5 beers all night. Pacific Shores in OB does half-off whiskey after 10PM. The one real risk of a Monday is walking into a room with nobody in it. That's what Jellyfish_ tells you before you go.
The weekday blocks worth spending a Monday on
Most of the city folds Monday into a weekday block. These are the ones that give you the most for it.
Ironside Fish & Oyster, Little Italy — 3 to 5, $1 oysters, $7 craft beer, $9 cocktails. A dollar oyster in a room that nice is the best value in San Diego.
Tom Ham's Lighthouse, Point Loma — 3 to 6 at the bar, $1.50 oysters, $2 off craft cocktails, and the whole skyline across the water.
Georges at the Cove, La Jolla — 2 to 6, half off beers and wines by the glass. Four hours wide, at one of the best views in California.
Werewolf downtown does 3 to 6 with $5 wells and $7 sliders. Puesto La Jolla runs $4 tacos and $9 margaritas, 3 to 5.
Jellyfish_ shows you how many people are at the bars.
Why Monday works
Monday is the emptiest night of the week in every bar in the city, so the discount has to do real work. Two things land in your favor at once: the deal is at its most generous, and the room is at its least crowded.
You get a seat at the bar somewhere that'd be a forty-minute wait on Saturday, for less money, from a bartender who has time to talk to you. The trade is that fewer places stay open late. Monday is a good room and a conversation. It isn't a dance floor.
Where to actually go
North Park and Little Italy hold up best on a Monday — enough open rooms within walking distance that a bad first pick costs you four minutes instead of the night. North Park is usually full by 7PM, so even on its quietest night somebody is in there. Coronado and Point Loma are the other answer, for a different kind of night: water, seafood, an all-day happy hour, home early.
An all-day Monday is a promotion, not a fixture. So treat this as a shortlist — and if you want to know which of these rooms has anyone in it tonight, that's what Jellyfish_ is for.