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Best of Hillcrest
Uptown dining, dive bars, and the Sunday farmers market.
Last updated
Aero Club Bar is the best dive-bars in Hillcrest — scored 90/100 in our citywide ranking. A dive bar with 1,000+ whiskeys — the best spirits selection at dive prices in the city. Also worth the trip: Nunu's Cocktail Lounge.
| Place | Area | What to get | Price | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aero Club Bar | Middletown / Mission Hills | Whiskey, neat | $ | 90 |
| Nunu's Cocktail Lounge | Hillcrest | Old fashioned in a red booth | $ | 87 |
A dive bar with 1,000+ whiskeys — the best spirits selection at dive prices in the city.
Aero Club looks like a neighborhood dive and stocks a whiskey wall that outclasses most cocktail bars. Prices stay reasonable, the bartenders know the shelf, and the room stays comfortably unpolished.
Local tip: Ask the bartender for a recommendation in your price range; the list is too big to browse.
A 1960s round-booth lounge that never modernized, and shouldn't.
Nunu's is a preserved mid-century cocktail lounge with red vinyl booths and low lighting, a few blocks off the Hillcrest bar strip. Drinks are strong and cheap, and the room feels like a set from a movie about 1965.
Local tip: Late nights get busy; the early evening is when the room is at its best.
Every revision to this ranking, newest first — additions, removals, and rank moves.
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Our rankings are editorial. This part is yours — vote for your favorite dive-bars in hillcrest in San Diego. One vote per reader.
Want the full city picture? See our complete best dive bars in san diego ranking →
Character
History, regulars, and whether the place could exist anywhere else.
Drinks
Pour quality, selection, and price.
Value
What a round actually costs.
Crowd & service
Bartenders, regulars, and how welcome a newcomer feels.
Extras
Food, jukebox, pool, patio, or live music.
A dive bar earns its score on character and price, not on cocktail technique. Anything with a curated menu and a $18 drink is a cocktail bar, not a dive.
Aero Club Bar is our top-scored pick for dive-bars in Hillcrest (90/100). A dive bar with 1,000+ whiskeys — the best spirits selection at dive prices in the city.
2 Hillcrest spots scored high enough to make our citywide dive-bars ranking. Every pick is scored with the same criteria we use across San Diego.
Expect roughly $, $ across these Hillcrest picks.
Written and fact-checked by the Sandi Spots Editorial team — San Diego residents publishing under Sleep Coast LLC. Every place we recommend has been visited in person or verified against an official source, and no business can pay for inclusion or a higher ranking. Last updated .