The Times Bar & Coffee Shop

Patton Avenue at Its Most Comfortable

Asheville's downtown drinking scene has always operated on a different register than Nashville or Charlotte. The city's bars tend toward the lived-in and locally rooted rather than the polished and trend-chasing, and Patton Avenue captures that disposition as well as any corridor in the city. At 56 Patton Ave, The Times Bar & Coffee Shop occupies a position that feels both central and unhurried — a space that functions as a neighbourhood anchor across the full span of the day, from morning coffee to late-evening drinks.

That dual identity, coffee shop by day and bar by night, reflects a format that has taken hold in mid-sized American cities where the boundaries between daytime and evening socialising are deliberately blurred. In Asheville specifically, where independent operators define the character of most blocks, venues that serve multiple dayparts without losing coherence in either direction tend to build the deepest local loyalty. The Times Bar & Coffee Shop fits that pattern: a 4.8 Google rating drawn from 540 reviews is not the result of occasional novelty visits but of repeated, returning custom.

The Space and How It Reads

The dual-format model only works when the physical environment can accommodate both moods without feeling like it is straining in either direction. The bars in Asheville that succeed across dayparts tend to share certain spatial qualities: seating that invites lingering, lighting that can shift in register as the hour changes, and a general atmosphere that does not demand performance from the people inside it. The Times Bar & Coffee Shop is read by its regulars as exactly this kind of room — a place where the expectation is comfort rather than occasion.

This positions The Times Bar within a specific tier of Asheville's drinking infrastructure: not the craft cocktail destination that draws out-of-towners with technical programming, and not the dive that operates on price alone, but the neighbourhood bar that earns its authority through consistency and atmosphere. For comparison, venues like Antidote at Chemist Spirits and Leading of the Monk sit further toward the craft-forward end of the Asheville bar spectrum, while The Times Bar occupies a more relaxed, all-day position in the city's drinking map. Benne On Eagle brings its own distinct character to the scene, rooted in Southern tradition. Together, these venues illustrate just how varied Asheville's bar culture has become.

Pearl Recommended: What the Recognition Signals

The Times Bar & Coffee Shop received Pearl Recommended Bar recognition in 2025 , a designation that carries weight precisely because it does not default to the highest-profile or most technically ambitious venues. Pearl recognition tends to identify bars that perform well on the terms they set for themselves: consistent quality, a coherent sense of place, and a guest experience that holds up across repeated visits. For a dual-format venue on Patton Avenue, that recognition signals something specific about the bar's ability to sustain both its coffee-shop and cocktail identities without one undercutting the other.

In the broader context of American bar culture, this kind of recognition matters more than it might initially appear. The bars earning attention in cities like Asheville are increasingly not the ones with the most elaborate menus or the loudest press profiles. Jewel of the South in New Orleans, Kumiko in Chicago, and Bar Leather Apron in Honolulu represent one end of the craft-cocktail spectrum , deeply researched, high-production programs. Julep in Houston, ABV in San Francisco, Superbueno in New York City, Allegory in Washington, D.C., and The Parlour in Frankfurt on the Main each occupy their own distinct positions in the international bar conversation. The Times Bar & Coffee Shop belongs to a different but equally legitimate tier: the neighbourhood bar that has earned recognition by doing the quieter work of becoming indispensable to its local community.