What Is the Best Rooftop Bar in Times Square with a View?

Times Square sits at a strange altitude. At street level you are inside the light show, hemmed in by the crowd, craning your neck at screens the size of buildings. Ten or twenty floors up, the same screens become the view: a glowing canyon you look down into rather than stand inside. That inversion is the entire appeal of a rooftop bar here, and only a handful of rooftops in the Theater District can actually deliver it, because most of the tall buildings around the square are offices and hotels with no public bar at the top.

The question of which one is best has a defensible answer, and this page gives it directly, then earns the rest of the space with the comparison: what each rooftop actually looks at, what a drink costs up there, when to go, and how to avoid the two or three ways these evenings go wrong. The New York City Travel Guide covers the wider drinking scene, including a full rundown of rooftop bars across NYC, if your plans extend past Midtown.

What Is the Best Rooftop Bar in Times Square with a View?

St. Cloud, the rooftop bar at the Paramount Hotel in the Theater District, is the best rooftop bar in Times Square for a view, because it sits close enough to the square to look straight down at the billboards from open terraces. The screens fill the lower half of the view and the Midtown skyline the upper half, which is the exact picture most visitors have in mind. Its position a block off the square is the whole point.

That answer comes with a caveat worth stating plainly. St. Cloud wins on the view because of where it is, not because it is the quietest, cheapest or most polished rooftop in the neighborhood. It is a busy, high-energy terrace in the middle of the busiest tourist district in the busiest subway station in the United States. If your evening is about a calm drink with a partner, other rooftops nearby serve that better, and the sections below name them.

The Paramount Hotel sits on West 46th Street, a block from the square itself, and St. Cloud occupies its upper floors with terraces facing toward the lights. You are close enough that the billboards fill the lower half of the view and the skyline fills the upper half. That combination, the screens below and the towers above, is what no downtown or riverside rooftop can offer, because there is only one Times Square.

A practical note on timing: the view changes character completely between daylight and dark. Before sunset you see the architecture, the roofscape of the Theater District, and the screens as bright panels in a grey canyon. After dark the square becomes the thing itself, a floor of light you look down onto. Visitors who arrive at golden hour and stay through the switch get both for the price of one drink, and that is the slot to aim for.

One way to build the evening is to walk the district first with someone who knows it. The free Times Square and Grand Central tour on GuruWalk, run by the operator CityShuffles, covers the square and the station in one walk, and it ends close enough to the Theater District that a rooftop afterward is a short stroll.

Which Times Square Rooftop Bars Have the Best Views?

Bar 54 at the Hyatt Centric Times Square is the strongest rival to St. Cloud, sitting higher than almost any other bar in the district with a sweeping view over the Midtown skyline, while The Attic at the Riu Plaza offers a more compact terrace closer to the heart of the square. Between them the three rooftops cover the range: St. Cloud for the billboards, Bar 54 for the skyline, The Attic for a loud, quick night.

Here is how the three compare on the things you actually decide between:

Bar 54 deserves the longer case for the runner-up spot. It sits high enough that the view opens up past the immediate blocks, so you get the Empire State Building and the Midtown towers in the frame rather than just the canyon of light. For a visitor whose real want is "a rooftop with the New York skyline in it," it is arguably the better pick than St. Cloud, and the walk between them is two minutes.

The Attic is the third option, and it plays a different role. The terrace is smaller and the room louder, which makes it a better stop for a nightcap than for a two-hour sit with the view. It suits the traveler who wants the rooftop experience without committing the whole evening to it.

A word on what "Times Square" means here, because the district's edges matter. All three of these sit within a block or two of the square itself. Rooftops a ten-minute walk away, in Hell's Kitchen or down toward Bryant Park, have fine views but they are not Times Square rooftops, and several lists you will find online quietly stretch the boundary to pad the count. This page keeps it tight.

If the view matters more to you than the drink, there is a bigger question worth asking: should the evening be on a rooftop at all, or somewhere the whole city is the view? SUMMIT One Vanderbilt sits next to Grand Central, a few blocks from the square, and its mirrored rooms and glass ledges put you above Midtown in a way no bar terrace can match. It is a ticketed attraction rather than a drinking spot, but for a milestone evening it competes for the same slot in your night.

How Much Do Drinks Cost at Times Square Rooftop Bars?

Expect to pay roughly $18 to $25 for a cocktail at a Times Square rooftop bar, with beer toward the lower end of that range and wine in the middle, which makes a round for two people land somewhere between $40 and $60 before tip. These are planning ranges rather than promises, since each bar sets its own prices and seasonal menus move them. Nothing about a Theater District rooftop is cheap.

The ranges deserve one honest note. Midtown rooftop pricing is not a scam, it is rent: a terrace with a direct view of the most valuable advertising real estate in the world carries a cost, and the drink prices are where it lands. The premium buys you the seat and the view, not a better martini. Anyone telling you a Times Square rooftop has bargain drinks is selling something.

Two ways to soften the bill exist, and both are legitimate. The first is timing: many rooftops run a happier hour earlier in the evening, before the post-theater crowd arrives, and the view at 5pm is still the view. The second is the walk-up alternative: the Theater District's ordinary bars on 8th and 9th Avenues charge half these prices, and the plan of a cheap drink first and one rooftop cocktail second works well. What does not work is going up for the view and then resenting the menu, so set the budget before the elevator.

When Is the Best Time to Go to a Times Square Rooftop Bar?

The best time is the hour around sunset, arriving early enough to claim an outdoor table in daylight and staying through the moment the billboards take over the view. The second-best window is late, after 10pm, when the theater crowds have gone and the square is lit but calmer. The worst time is the 8pm to 9:30pm post-theater surge, when every rooftop in the district fills at once.

The sunset logic is specific to this district in a way it is not for other rooftops. Most rooftop views get better as the light drops. Times Square's view changes state: the screens that look like bright panels at 6pm become the entire show at 8pm, and the moment of transition, when the sky goes dark blue and the canyon ignites underneath you, is the single best fifteen minutes on any terrace in Midtown. Arriving in daylight to catch it costs nothing extra.

Season matters too, and not in the way visitors assume. July is actually the wettest month in New York by the official Central Park climate normals, averaging 4.60 inches of precipitation, ahead of August and June, so the summer terrace you booked weeks in advance is the one most likely to be rained onto the indoor section. February, by contrast, is the driest month of the year, and a clear, cold February evening on a heated terrace, with the snow-free lights below, is one of the district's underappreciated experiences. Pack for the cold and the rooftop is a year-round play.

Weekday versus weekend changes the crowd, not the view. Weeknights are lighter, easier for a walk-in table, and calmer for conversation. Friday and Saturday evenings bring the full energy, and if the energy is the point, that is when to go. Either way, check whether the bar takes reservations before you arrive, because the walk-up line at peak time is the most common way a rooftop plan collapses.

Do You Need a Reservation for a Times Square Rooftop Bar?

On a weekend evening or any night near a holiday, yes, a reservation is the only reliable way to get an outdoor table with a view, and even midweek in summer the terraces fill within an hour of sunset. Walk-ins work on a quiet Tuesday in the shoulder season, and some bars hold part of the terrace for them, but planning on that is a coin toss. Reserve the table if the view is the reason you are going.

Reservation mechanics differ by bar, and the details shift often enough that printing them here would mislead you. Some take bookings through their own sites, some through the hotel's restaurant line, some hold tables only for groups or bottle service. The move that works is to check the bar's own website the week you travel and reserve the earliest outdoor slot you can, because the terrace tables with the clean sightline down at the square are few, and the indoor seats behind glass are a different, lesser product.

Two failure modes account for most bad rooftop evenings in this district. The first is arriving at 8:30pm on a Saturday with no booking and discovering the terrace has a 90-minute wait, then watching the sunset from the elevator lobby. The second is booking a table and being seated indoors, which some bars do quietly when the terrace is overcommitted. Ask, when you reserve, whether the table is outside, and ask again when you are seated. It is a fair question and the staff answer it many times a night.

A third, smaller note: dress codes at these rooftops are real but light. Nobody needs a jacket, but beachwear and sports kit get turned away at hotel rooftops, and the doorman's judgment is final. The safe uniform for a Midtown terrace is smart casual, and checking the bar's site for its stated policy takes one minute.

What to Do Around Times Square Before or After Drinks?

The strongest pairing is a Broadway show with the rooftop afterward, since the theaters sit directly under these rooftops and the post-curtain walk is two minutes. A free walking tour of the square and Grand Central earlier in the day works just as well for orienting yourself before you go up.

Rockefeller Center, Bryant Park and the Museum of Modern Art are all within a short walk, and the subway hub underneath the square reaches anywhere else in the city in minutes.

The show-plus-rooftop evening is the classic for a reason. Curtain down around 10:30pm, a short walk, and a nightcap above the lights while the crowds drain out of the theaters below you. If tickets are part of your plan, the site's guide to cheap Broadway tickets covers the honest routes to discounted seats, including the TKTS booth in Duffy Square itself, which sits at the square's northern end and sells same-day tickets at up to 50% off face value with an $8 per-ticket service fee.

For the daylight hours, the free walking option deserves its mention again, because it earns it. The Times Square and Grand Central tour on GuruWalk is a tip-based walk, and the operator CityShuffles runs it among a set of New York walks that cover the bridge, downtown and the Village as well. The square-and-station pairing is the one that fits this evening's geography: it ends near the station, a ten-minute walk from the rooftop, and it explains the two spaces you will otherwise only photograph.

If your group wants the skyline itself rather than the bar version of it, the helicopter option is the other end of the same impulse. A sightseeing flight from the Downtown Manhattan Heliport crosses the harbor and Midtown in about fifteen minutes, which is a shorter experience than a rooftop evening and a much more expensive one, but for a milestone trip it is the view without the glass between you and it.

The wider district is worth a mention before you commit the whole night to one terrace. Rockefeller Center and its observation deck are a few blocks north, Bryant Park and the New York Public Library a few blocks south, and the things to do in NYC at night guide covers the full menu of evening options if the rooftop is one stop on a longer plan. The square's own guide, Times Square, handles the neighborhood in depth.

Common Questions About Rooftop Bars in Times Square

Most questions about Times Square rooftops come down to four practical worries: which one has the best view, whether you can just walk in, what a drink costs, and whether children are allowed. The short answers are St. Cloud for the view, reserve if it matters, roughly $18 to $25 a cocktail, and children are generally welcome in the earlier evening but not late at night, with each bar setting its own cutoff.

The details below cover each of those, plus the questions visitors forget to ask until they are standing in the elevator lobby.

What is the best rooftop bar in times square with a view?

St. Cloud at the Paramount Hotel is the best pick for the view, because its terraces sit close enough to the square to look directly down at the billboards. Bar 54 at the Hyatt Centric Times Square is the stronger choice if you want the wider Midtown skyline in the frame instead, and The Attic at the Riu Plaza works for a quick, loud nightcap. All three are within a block or two of the square itself.

Can you walk into a Times Square rooftop bar without a reservation?

On a quiet weeknight, often yes. On a weekend, a holiday week or any evening after a Broadway curtain, a reservation is the only reliable way to get an outdoor table. Some bars hold part of the terrace for walk-ins, but the wait at peak time can run long enough to cost you the sunset. Reserve the table if the view is the point of the evening.

How much is a cocktail at a Times Square rooftop bar?

Plan on roughly $18 to $25 for a cocktail, with beer lower and wine in the middle, so a round for two people lands somewhere between $40 and $60 before tip. These are planning ranges, not promises: each bar sets its own prices and menus change seasonally, so check the current list when you arrive.

Are children allowed on Times Square rooftop bars?

Generally yes in the earlier evening, since these are hotel rooftops that serve food as well as drinks, but each bar sets its own age policy and evening cutoff, and some restrict the terrace to 21 and over after a certain hour. Check the bar's own policy before you plan a family visit, and expect the rule to be enforced strictly at the door.

What time should you arrive for the best view?

Aim to be on the terrace 30 to 45 minutes before sunset. You get the daylight view first, then the moment the sky drops and the billboards take over the canyon below you, which is the best part of the evening. Arriving after dark means you skip the transition, and arriving at 8pm on a show night means you may skip the terrace entirely.

Is a Times Square rooftop bar worth it, or should you go somewhere else in NYC?

It is worth it once, for the specific view that only this district offers: the lit canyon of the square seen from above. If what you actually want is the skyline, a quieter drink or a better cocktail list, the city has stronger rooftop options elsewhere, and the site's guide to rooftop bars across NYC covers them. The Times Square rooftop is a view product, and judged as one it delivers.