Following is our list of the 20 best places to go dancing on Cape Cod. While we haven’t attempted to rank them, we have organized the list in an order that roughly reflects our own preferences. We’ve also separated out those places that are primarily geared to a 20-something crowd in order to make it easier for you to identify those venues that will provide the experience you are looking for. As always, if we’ve overlooked a venue that you think belongs on this list, please share your thoughts in the Comments section.
The Loft (West Yarmouth)
Located in West Yarmouth at the Cove Resort, this casual and lively restaurant/bar offers excellent food—we especially like their salads—and an extensive wine and drinks menu. From Thursday through Sunday, The Loft offers live music, starting with Happy Hour performances by solo or duo acts that go until about 8 p.m. On Friday and Saturday, full bands take over the stage to provide music that is sure to get you out on the large dance floor. In 2023, The Loft was named The Best Place to Dance on the Cape, and we happen to agree. We love the bands they bring in and we have enjoyed many fun nights of dancing here. During the summer, The Loft opens an outdoor venue, The Loft Shack, that features live music from 5- 8 p.m. seven days a week. So come for dinner and stay for the music; this is a fantastic spot to spend an evening!
Dino’s Sports Bar (Mashpee)
As a sports bar, Dino’s is about as good as it gets. Lots of room to spread out, amazing sports murals on the walls, decent pub fare, and tons of TV screens so that you won’t miss a minute of the action. But the surprise is that on the weekends, it is also a great place to go dancing. Dino’s has a generously sized dance floor and makes an effort to bring in quality bands. We’ve been to a couple Saturday dance nights so far and we’ve had a blast. As for the food, it’s simple but good: beer, burgers, pizza, and sandwiches –and fantastic tater tots, too! Finally, Dino’s has a huge outdoor patio that we hear gets hopping in the summer. We haven’t had a chance to experience that yet, but we look forward to the opportunity.
Jake Rooney’s (Harwich Port)
Jake Rooney’s in Harwich Port is both a great restaurant and a fun, casual tavern. The locals love it, and you’ll find them here most any night, year-round, seated at the large, friendly bar. The crowd gets especially big on Friday and Saturday night when Jake’s brings in live music that gets people moving up on the medium-sized, raised dance floor. The dancing is especially energetic on the first Saturday of the month. That’s Disco Night, and prizes are awarded for the best outfit. As for the food, which includes burgers, steaks, tacos, salads, and seafood, it’s all great. Jake’s even offers a Stonegrill dining experience that involves cooking your own protein on a super-heated lava stone right at your table! Definitely an experience worth trying.
Oliver’s & Planck’s (Yarmouth Port)
There is lots to like about Oliver’s & Planck’s – from the expansive dining area to the huge, nautical themed bar, to the wide selection of tasty foods, which includes pasta dishes, burgers and sandwiches, oven-fired pizza, calamari, cedar plank salmon, taco salads, and more. They host a popular trivia night on Wednesdays, but on Friday and Saturday night, it’s all about the live music and dancing. They sport a good-sized dance floor and they bring in quality bands that know how to fill it. In the summer, they have a rooftop patio that we’ve heard good things about. We haven’t made it there to experience it for ourselves yet, but we hope to give it a try before this summer is over.
Sea Dog Brew Pub (South Yarmouth)
Given its name, we expected this place to be tucked into a scenic spot near the ocean. It’s not. It’s in a strip mall. But don’t let that turn you off. The pub-like ambience in this spacious South Yarmouth restaurant is fun and welcoming. There’s a great bar area for socializing, munching on casual eats, and watching the big game on their numerous TV screens scattered all about. During the week they hold trivia and karaoke nights, and on weekends they offer live entertainment. The dance floor is small, but it is often packed with enthusiastic dancers. The crowd here skews a little bit to the younger side, but people of all ages will feel welcome. There are also two separate dining areas that provide space to enjoy a quiet meal, and the menu offers a number of creative and tasty dishes that you’ll find tempting. Finally, the Sea Dog merchandise is really cute, and you’ll find it hard to resist the temptation to buy something, be it a Sea Dog T-shirt, sweatshirt, or baseball cap. Definitely worth a visit.
Tomatillos Southwestern Grill & Tequila Bar (Sandwich)
This is one of our favorite Southwestern/Tex-Mex restaurants on the Cape because we love their food, their decor, their trivia night, and the live music they bring in on the weekends. It’s a spacious venue with restaurant tables and booths, high-tops, and a beautiful bar. They also have a huge dance floor, so there is plenty of room to shake your groove thang when the bands start playing. Tomatillos’ menu of burritos, tacos, enchiladas, chimichangas, and salads is extensive, and everything we’ve had here has been delicious. And they are served in portions so generously sized that we’ve had plenty left over for meals the following day. To top it off, Tomatillos also has an amazing menu of unique margaritas and cocktails. If you find yourself unable to decide what to order, try their flight of margaritas. It’s a fun and refreshing treat!
The Pilot House (Sandwich)
Located at the East end of the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich, The Pilot House is one of the more well-known restaurants in the Upper Cape. Situated in Sandwich Harbor, it provides a nice venue for those who like to enjoy a scenic water view with their meal. We visited the restaurant for the first time on a pleasant but cool evening in April, and found it was much bigger than we anticipated. It has at least three large dining rooms as well as a spacious bar area. Large windows wrap around the building, giving you a great view of the harbor, and in the warmer weather, you’ll have the option of enjoying that view from one of the outside sitting areas. The Pilot House menu offers a variety of options from sandwiches and burgers to soups and salads, but the focus here is on seafood. The list of appetizers includes things like sushi, oysters, crab cakes, and PEI mussels, and there are also tuna, lobster, and mahi tacos. Entrees include things like lobster and chorizo bolognese, Portuguese stuffed cod, seafood pot pie, and a Korean fried chicken sandwich. As for dancing opportunities, The Pilot House brings in quality bands on Friday and Saturday night, and the bar area sports a moderately sized dance floor. On the night we were there, the floor was packed with dancers bouncing to the music of Thee Midnight Society.
emBargo (Hyannis)
This very popular restaurant and bar on Main Street in Hyannis has a lot to offer, from music and dancing to karaoke, along with a menu that features an extensive array of delicious cold and hot tapas. They also serve oysters, soups, salads, tacos, flatbreads, and full plates. We’ve been here numerous times to enjoy the food and the Wednesday night karaoke, which always draws a crowd. But on other nights of the week, emBargo offers other options—there’s a Jazz Night on Tuesdays, and on the weekends there’s live music and dancing that goes late into the night. What makes it all work, besides the delicious food and excellent cocktail and martini offerings, is the enormous oval bar that sits at the center of the restaurant, creating an incredibly social atmosphere. And the bartenders are among the best in the business, greeting everyone with a smile and an appreciative “welcome back” when you haven’t been there in a while. This is a go-to place that you’ll keep coming back to again and again.
Tomatoes Italian Grill (Sandwich)
Tomatoes is a hugely popular Italian restaurant that manages to be both elegant and casual at the same time. Plus, the food is amazing. We love the fettuccine and the stuffed quahogs. And the scallops and bacon appetizer—sweet, plump scallops served with a thick slab of tasty bacon—is out of this world. Tomatoes is a spacious venue that gets even bigger in the summer when the outdoor seating area is open. If you eat there, you’ll be treated to some soft music while you dine, then afterwards you can head over to the bar area to test out a few moves on the small dance floor. Tuesday is jazz night, and on Wednesdays through Saturday you’ll find a mix of solo and duo acts as well as full bands.
Hog Island Beer Co. (Orleans)
We’ve only been to Hog Island in Orleans a couple times so far, so we hardly consider ourselves experts on the place. But from those couple of visits, we know it has to be one of the most impressive breweries on the Cape. In addition to the popular craft beer they brew on-site, they are a go-to destination for live music and dancing, as well as a variety of other entertainment options that they offer on a somewhat regular basis during the week, like open mic night and country line dancing. The breweries on the Cape don’t stay open late, but they can be high-energy places until about 9:30 or so if they have a band playing. For its part, Hog Island consistently brings in full bands on Friday and Saturday night, and they have a huge dance floor that easily accommodates a large crowd of dancers. While we’ve only been there twice so far, we know it is a regular weekend night destination for lots of folks.
The Parrot Bar & Grill (Cataumet)
Located in Cataumet, one of the small villages of Bourne, The Parrot Bar & Grille is a comfortable hang out for locals, and probably attracts a fair share of tourists in the summer, due to its location right beside a mini golf course and the Lazy Sundaes Ice Cream stand. Inside there is a mid-sized bar and a large dining area, and on weekends they do a good job of bringing in live music, including quality bands like Flydown, who know how to get people dancing. The food is passable pub fare, but mostly it’s just a comfortable, friendly local bar that’s worth making the effort to get to if there’s a band playing there that you’d really like to see.
O’Shea’s Olde Inne (West Dennis)
O’Shea’s is a hopping place that’s both a fun, quaint Irish pub and a quality restaurant. Irish character and Irish music are in abundance here. It’s also one of the few places on the Cape that serves up live music seven days a week. We’ve been here a few times and enjoyed both the music and the food. The menu features Irish favorites, of course. We’ve tried and liked the bangers and mash and the shepherd’s pie, but they also offer locally caught seafood as well as a variety of other entrees. The dance floor here is small, but you’ll almost always find it occupied by at least a few people bopping to whatever music happens to be playing on any given night.
The Red Nun Bar & Grill (Dennis Port)
Located right in the center of Dennis Port, The Red Nun Bar & Grill is a local watering hole that offers a creative menu of tasty burgers, salads, sandwiches, seafood, and cocktails. It sports both a spacious dining area and a huge bar. By day it feels like a family restaurant, but by night it feels more like a nightclub, especially on Friday and Saturday when they bring in live bands. When the music is pumping, the dancers are dancing. Although there’s no formal dance floor, there’s enough space in front of the band to find room to bust some moves.
The Lanes Bowl & Bistro (Mashpee)
This upscale bowling alley located in Mashpee Commons is not only a great place to go bowling, it’s also a surprisingly good place to go for a casual night of dining. The food menu is limited, but the quality of the food is surprisingly good. On the weekends it’s also a decent place to go to enjoy some live music and dancing. You’ll find some quality local bands playing here on Friday and Saturday nights, and the pub-like bar area serves as a comfortable place to relax and enjoy the evening. On Monday nights they also host a trivia night that is so popular you often have to make a reservation to secure a table.
The Underground (Provincetown)
We love the energy of Provincetown and have been there numerous times to walk its streets, eat at its restaurants, and enjoy its beaches. But, full disclosure, we’ve not yet had the opportunity to check out its night time music and dancing scene. But when we do get that opportunity, one of the places we’ll go to is The Underground. We don’t know exactly what we’ll find, but based on what we’ve seen online, it seems like a place with plenty of character and lots of music and dancing. At the very least, it’s sure to be a unique experience!
OPTIONS FOR THE 20-SOMETHINGS
The Chatham Squire (Chatham)
This lively, iconic spot in Chatham is hugely popular with tourists and locals. The bar itself is large and full of character, with walls decorated with license plates from all over the country. In the off-season, it feels like a relaxed pub, but in the summer, it is a party. On the weekends, when the full bands come in, the place gets absolutely packed with 20-somethings. The dance floor, such as it is, is small, but when the music is pumping, the dancers are shoulder to shoulder.
Chapin’s Bayside (Dennis)
Located in Dennis just a few hundred yards from the ocean, Chapin’s Bayside has an interesting dual personality. Up through the dinner hour it is a highly popular family restaurant. At night, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, it transforms into a hotspot for the younger crowd. Chapin’s has a huge bar that only just barely fits into the room in which it’s located. Still, somehow the bands manage to squeeze in there and still leave just enough space for people to dance. There are no waltzes or fox trots happening here. This is shoulder-to-shoulder, jump and bounce dancing. A fun place for those who are young–or young at heart–and are eager for a high-energy night of music that lasts until 1:00 in the morning.
The Sand Bar (West Dennis)
There are a number of restaurants that can reasonably claim to have the best water view on the Cape, and the Sand Bar in West Dennis is one of them. This modest-sized, seasonal pub is tucked away in the river marsh of West Dennis Beach, and the view is beautiful and serene. That’s reason enough to come here, but this seasonal spot also offers amazing seafood (try the fish tacos!), outdoor dining, lawn games, and nighttime entertainment, including live bands, karaoke, and comedy. On weekend nights, when the bands are playing, the crowd skews to the younger side, but there’s enough outdoor space to make it enjoyable for older folks who enjoy being close to the action without being in the middle of it.
Trader Ed’s (Hyannis)
This seasonal waterfront bar/restaurant in Hyannis boasts a large outdoor patio that wraps around an in-ground swimming pool and offers scenic views of busy Hyannis Harbor. It’s a great dining destination for people of all ages, but the night belongs to the young. This is party central during the summer–the kind of place that makes us older folk nostalgic for those long-ago glory days.
Grumpy’s Pub (Falmouth)
This place is not much to look at from the outside, and inside it looks like nothing so much as a college dive bar from back in the ‘70s. Not the kind of place most of us older folks would gravitate to any more, especially since the music doesn’t even start until 9:30 p.m. But they do bring in quality bands, making it a perfect destination for the 20-something crowd looking for a place they can call their own.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
While the following places didn’t make our top 20 list, they are all quality venues that offer dancing opportunities, some on a more regular basis than others.
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