Best-of list · Sports Guide
Want to watch Premier League in a bar? We've found the best venues across New York and Chicago where the atmosphere, screens, and early morning hours.
The short answer
8 ranked rooms follow. How we picked is at the end of this guide.
Finding the right bar to watch Premier League in the US comes down to three things: a licence to open before 8am, enough screens positioned so you can actually see the game from your seat, and a crowd that knows what they're watching. We've logged the kickoffs across New York and Chicago to find the venues that get all three right — no tourist traps, no dark rooms with one corner TV.
New York has a proper football-watching culture built around British and Irish expatriates, and the bars that serve them are genuinely good. These are the ones that open early, pull a proper pint, and fill with people who care about the result.
How we picked
For the early 7:30am kickoffs, arrive fifteen minutes before the match — the best seats in good Premier League bars go fast, and standing for ninety minutes of football before 9am is exactly as uncomfortable as it sounds. For the 10am and 12:30pm matches, you have more flexibility. In both New York and Chicago, the British pub options consistently outperform the American sports bars for Premier League atmosphere — the crowd actually knows the game, and that changes everything about the experience.
James has been watching Premier League in New York bars since 2011 — long enough to have opinions about which ones actually get it right. He has also been to Anfield twice and still considers it the benchmark for what a football atmosphere should feel like.
Last reviewed 2025-11-28 · The editors recheck hours and closures against current local coverage.