I like my bars dank with a fantastic jukebox, and this is the one in Arlington. It's my go-to spot. Leather chairs, smokey red lighting, obscure films silently playing on small TV's hidden in the corner, and a killer music selection. The drink specials always lend to a festive evening. You can bring your dog, which is just plain awesome and the patio is huge. I avoid the weekends though, gets packed and sometimes karaoke is afoot. It's a well designed dive. Come for the ambiance, stay for the random vendors delivering tamales and pulled pork sandwiches. read more

It is a real dive. But the decor is FUN! Great prices. It does take a Masters degree to figure out the jukebox lol

I've been here twice on my trips to Dallas. First the drinks are cheap. I'm used to DC prices but the quality is still good. The ambience is pretty cool and comparable to places I have been to in Miami and DC. I noticed there can be a wait for drinks but the bartenders are nice. I made sure to leave a nice tip for the bartender cause I'm cool like that. When I move maybe I'll pass by again. read more

I enjoyed my visit to Caves. Went on a Tuesday night around 11. Friendly crowd and there was a DJ playing classic Hiphop. The only bad thing about this place is the smoke. I plan on being back. read more

Awesome place to hang, too bad they allow smoking inside, don't come here unless you want to smell like an ashtray.

One of my 3 favorite bars in the metroplex. Great music. Quick bartenders that are friendly and generous with the alcohol. Fun atmosphere. Good place to hang out with friends. read more

This place was cool(3 years ago). I still love the bartenders, the sunday dog day afternoons(free bbq) the beer specials, but the people that now come here are not the best. This place used to have a ecclectic variety of people, from gutterpunks, hipsters, fratters, discofreaks, europhiles and so on but now it seems to be usually frat kids or girls wearing short dresses(in this little dive bar) which looks so silly! I love the backyard area and have shared some great moments with people here, I still will go here because of the memories and the drink specials but maybe not as much because of the people and the lack of interesting people to surrond myself with. read more

Favorite bar ever. No matter what your lifestyle is or what you look like you will always feel welcome here thanks to the friendly staff and clientele. Drinks are cheap too and karaoke on Thursday's are the best night ever! read more

I've been coming to this bar for 6 yrs now. I was introduced to it by my college buddies at UTA. I LOVE IT! It's casual and has great outdoor seating. Really loud , dark and smokey. The bartenders are really chill. Infact, writing this review makes me want to get out of my jammies and head overthere with my hubby :) It's like 7 minutes from my house so why wouldn't we? read more

Decent drink prices in a divey bar with a bit of a punk/psycho-billy vibe. Service can be rough when they're crowded, but it is generally pretty spot on. They have a big and fun patio, and one of the best jukeboxes ever if you are into punk. read more

Great dive bar. It's a bit of a drive for me, but it's the only bar I want to hit up in DFW when I come through visiting my folks. Great outdoor patio seating, but it can be smoky indoors from what I remember from my last visit. Very dark inside and the bar is a little small/crowded. It also doesn't help that the pathway to the outside patio is crammed next to the bar. But still my favorite bar in the mid-cities. read more

I enjoyed Caves the one time I was here. Their drinks during the day are super cheap, so I came here around 5 PM, I believe. You get a wide range of people, so if you're interested in meeting some interesting characters, I would come here. The atmosphere is a little on the dark side, which I guess is fitting for the name Caves. Don't expect fanciness, because it's a dive bar. read more

Karaoke nights are awesome. I hope they never change. Love this place. Drinks aren't that great but they have a fun atmosphere and you know that when you go to caves it'll be a legendary night. read more

I recommend going during the weekday, amazing chill nice bar tenders that take care of I & my wife. I have been there on the weekends usually packed, but totally during the week very nice & mellow. Beer section is always awesome. I prefer Caves over World of Beers or any other bars. It's caves or I go to liquor store to get my fancy beer fix. read more

Caves Lounge - Dive Bars Near Me - Arlington, Texas

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Caves is the best bar in Arlington near UT-Arlington. I hangout their often. Drinks are moderate pricey. Bartenders are cool and friendly. Thursday nights are the best night to hangout at caves. They have a pool table and a big patio. read more

I love this bar. Dang good juke, dang good prices. Love the patio bar out back and the food. Brought a friend from Austin by, and he's used to all these hipster bars, well how can you not love a bar that is jamming to the Arcade Fire when you walk in? Love this place and Love the Sunshine Bar right next to it! read more

Don't let the exterior/parking lot fool you! It's awesome. The inside is kitschy dive bar & the back is a huge, really relaxing & quite lovely patio. Throw in cheap drinks & a great rock n roll juke box & it a great spot to hang! read more

Caves is an odd bar for odd folks. Personally, I think it's a lot of fun, and I've had a lot of good times there. The main reason I'm doing 4/5 is because of the really inconvenient bar - and if you've been there, you know damn well what I'm talking about. read more

Caves Lounge - Good times had by all Caves is a different kind of bar. You won't get a smile, the service is awful, and the place is absolutely disgusting - but for some reason, it's still busy after 7 or 8 years of being open. They have a great beer selection, plenty of liquor, and almost no wine. They always have a drink special, so if you're on a budget you can still have a good time without breaking the bank. Unfortunately, if you do use your debit card they automatically pre-authorize you for $25 and that does hit your account making those funds unavailable for the next few days. It's not a big deal now, but when I was in college that $25 was budgeted for lunch and dinner the next day. People drone on and on about the jukebox, it's okay. Music is by definition polarizing - so you probably won't like what other people play. Also, it's really loud. Even if there are only 10 people in the bar they crank the volume way up and you can't hear the people you are trying to talk to. If the bartender doesn't like the song you payed for, he just skips it (that happens a lot). There is a nice patio out back. It's partially covered and it's great to escape the smoke/volume inside. But, don't expect to stay in your seat long. They absolutely refuse to bring drinks to you, or to clean up the table after someone else. That brings us to the patrons - pretty weird lot. In the outset, caves was a refuge for architecture students and 20 somethings that needed a place to drink. Overtime, Caves has become the stomping ground of the less than sociable. Their current clientele makes for great people watching, but don't watch too long - or they will come over and talk to you. I've met strippers, male prostitutes (recently), oil riggers, bartenders, cowboys, beer fanatics, and students - nothing to normal or outlandish. All in all, if you started going to Caves when it opened (like most of us who no longer go there), then don't bother going back. It was a different time - when service and "theme nights" gave Caves the additional character it needed to reel us in. However, if you're a young student looking for a place to let off some steam and have a blast, Caves might be the right place for you. 4/5 - We still stop by once a month or so.. RIP - Martini Menu (We all miss you) read more

This place has everything you would want in a dive bar: great jukebox, cheap drinks, nightly specials/events, and the best bartenders in town. The patio also makes it one of my favorite bars in Arlington. Highly recommend. read more

Caves is a awesome place with good cheap drinks and awesome staff! If you are lucky enough to be served by the best bartender ever Wes, you have been served by the hand of the drink Gods! read more

Cave's, is it fair? Is it fair to compare you to another bar? Even if that bar is yourself? Fairness be damned! Here I go. I still patronize Cave's. Cave's was/is great, but it was better before it was invaded by the frozen and uptight. Ok, I mainly do this, because it is one of the few bars that breaks the honky tonk, sports bar, truckerish, biker bar format that so prevails in Arlington. Imagine this, a young ex-punk....ish man comes back home after college. He was glad to get out of the school he was at because it didn't have much of a bar scene or people scene for that matter. He finds his mecca, a jukebox that would make Matt Pinfield cry, great drink specials, patrons from hipsters to indie kids to punks to punk....ish kids like himself. The decor is jet black and deep reds. An Xbox sits in the corner and kids play Halo 2. I mean it's great he feels at home. Then he leaves for a city that will in good time be described by most as Godforsaken. Cave's now: Cave's has good prices, a jukebox that gives you selections off the beaten path, and a unique look and atmosphere. Most nights I enter Cave's it's to the beat of a song I've never heard or reminds me of a more indie me years ago. Smoke stings the eyes a bit, but that's OK. I'm not one of the "they sold out crowd" when it comes to music, but there is something pure about a scene when it starts or is still below the radar. When I first came to Cave's I liked the punk...ish atmosphere for punk...ish me. One thing I have always liked about that scene is the friendliness. The people are always open and willing to just come up and talk to someone random. Yeah punks can be mean assholes, but not to other punks, or punk....ishes? Cave's still has some of the best drink specials in Arlington. Every night is some kind of drink special beyond happy hour hours and including weekends. To just say the drinks are cheap and the jukebox is great is not...enough. Let me clarify. We can all drink cheaper at home, that's not why we go to bars. We could just get some friends together and drink our Schlitz on the back porch. We go out for the social stimulation. As for the jukebox, we got that too. Thanks to the miracles of the internet we can bit torrent or itunes our way to music heaven, whateva your anti-establishment pleasha. Not only do I go to bars for cheap drinks and good music but....well... atmosphere. I know, I'm a heterosexual male, atmosphere???!!! but Cave's used to have it, now it doesn't. The bartenders seem a little less friendly and frankly they seem more at home at Cave's sister bar Ozzy Rabbit's Lounge off of Lancaster in Fort Worth. The crowd at Cave's stopped being like the interesting passionate kids you bump into in the mosh pit or at the merc table at the concert. It seems to have gotten a bit more poserish. Everybody seems to be strutting their flat ironed hair, and skinny jeans. I usually don't have a problem with this...when I go to Dallas. This is Arlington folks. Cave's can be a breath of fresh air in this city, but not put on airs. I know this seems petty and discriminatory of scenesters and hipsters, but damn it, a bar shouldn't be so damn cold. That's what happened to Cave's my former favorite bar. The vibe is like a funeral. I don't expect boisterous or even fun. I do expect life though. I don't think I'm the only one either. I notice the bar isn't as busy as it used to be when I went there first. Also a lot of familiar faces (not names, i'm horrible with names) are no longer there. Well here are the brass tacks. Caves has a dark black and red decor, cool and sleek. It has interesting paintings cast about the wall. A great patio deck from which I hear a DJ sometimes holds court. Also, if I'm not mistaken and things haven't changed there is free barbecue on Sundays(early afternoon and first come first served, get there quick). Cave's sporadically has bands play. They also have some interesting and slightly disturbing anime playing on the tubes there. The Xbox is gone. People there are not too open and overly friendly, they seem to keep to themselves or their small tight knit groups. If you are going with a group you already know, not by yourself, with a buddy or in a small group then its probably not going to bore you. The jukebox is still great, but more of the selections seem to be pretty slow and more like funeral dirges and sad bastard music. Where have all the concert kids gone??? read more

This place is full of 22-25 year olds wich is great compared to sherlocks wich is packed full of old people. I recently went on a pub crawl from this bar and it was AMAZING. We started here went to five other bars and my friends and i had an absolute blast when we got back they had tons of pizza ordered from mr jims. The only thing keeping this place from having the 5th star is that this place can get packed full of smoke and they don't have very good air circulation so you can end up wreaking on your way out. On thursdays they have .25 cent beers and it gets pretty busy. they have good drink specials every night though. read more

Caves is a great bar to break the normative of most bars. The music will jump around genres and decades. I don't visit often but when I do it's a great bar to visit. The outdoor patio/chill area is a great place to hang out with friends on the night or day. Prices are very good. The parking lot could be better, there's times I've pulled up and I was glad I drove a truck because of some of the divots in the lot. still a great time to be had. read more

I've been going to karaoke night on thursdays for about a year now. Noah and Will do an excellent job hosting, by the way. I love the vibe but they don't look like they're going to expand or put a ventilation system for the smoke. I will continue to make my occasional appearance but will inebriate myself prior to. read more

One of my favorite places to go during my college years. They've updated their patio since and it looks great. Miss the kareoke nights!

Probably one of the coolest bars to hang out at. I love the environment there. They have a huge outdoor patio with lots of tables. They have pool, darts, and street fighter. The people are usually pretty nice but easily offended( but who isn't these days) most of the staff is pretty cool as well. I do wish they had more whiskey specials though. They also need to fix their parking lot. I'm always afraid my cars going to fall into a sink hole. read more

OK, my friends and I are not the typical patrons. We're 40+, but this place is what it is - a dive bar by the railroad tracks with cheap drinks. We always have fun here. No pretense. We sit outside during warm weather to avoid the smoke inside. Great jukebox! read more

Not real impressed. The Beer was good I had pumpkin spice! The crowd was young! Bathrooms dirty, staff rude!

If I passed out somewhere else and woke up in this place, I would think I was in Austin, TX somewhere on 6th Street... (Cheer Up Charlie's??). Its right by UTA so that explains the eclectic group... I saw people dressed to impress, hipster folk, and even some crust punks... Needless to say, this place was PACKED when I got here. Jukebox selection is neat. While I would wanna call this place "avant-garde", it is probably best to just say that this is a dive bar that happens to be close to a university. What more can you expect? Now, I don't mind big crowds, but if you're gonna be busy, then step up your game at the bar... Only 2 people working it on a muggy Saturday night made for a congested area and a 10 min wait to get a drink. The patio is cool (again... very much ATX vibe, in my opinion). Ah, but as other Yelpers have mentioned... Parking lot was a pain. I don't mind parking on dirt, but potholes suck and people can be real Douchelord Supremes when it comes to getting a spot. I personally did not dig this place all that much, but it definitely seems to be "a place to be" for many. Therefore, it seems more than evident that they're doing something right. So keep at it, I suppose. read more

red lights indoor, faux chimney,kool patio outback, great drink deals! - great bartenders- look up dive bar" in a dictionary ( or google) and this place should pop up read more