How this works
Clears The Bar is a city guide built around one question: is this worth going out of your way for? Not a star average, not a weighted score — a straight answer, the way a high jumper either clears the bar or doesn't.
The ratings
Worth going out of your way for.
Good, solid, not essential. Bar wobbles but stays up.
Went, and it just didn't clear. Not worth the trip.
Actively not recommended.
Ratings are set by hand, venue by venue — never generated. A venue with no badge yet just hasn't been rated — that's a starting point, not a strike, and it's different from “No Height,” which is a real call someone made.
The prices
Priced items — happy hours, drinks, and anything else worth tracking — are scanned monthly, not live. Every price on the site shows the date it was last confirmed, so you know exactly how fresh it is.
The newsletter
Most issues are a category roundup pulled straight from the data. Every few weeks, a real local writes up their own pick, in their own words, with no connection to price or rating.