By Marcia Blondin***Dozens of places in Puerto Vallarta offer live entertainment. Every bar and every other sidewalk offers it during our busy winter season, but the ones listed below have my personal stamp of approval and are venues I love and visit often. Without them, I would have nothing to write about! Here they are, in alphabetical order:
Awaysis: Always friendly, fun and 
informal, with entertainment pretty much nonstop from 3 PM til closing, with breaks lasting however long it takes for the bands to switch instruments. Good and plentiful bar food, great music from rock to country, Awaysis has always had a tight community closeness and consciousness that I love a lot. Aquiles Serdan 625, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
Bar Frida 4.0: In their 4th iteration since their opening 25 years ago, this season, they will sizzle with one of the finest musicians with a long, inherited history in Vallarta. With a vision to create a welcoming space for the community, the bar-restaurant has become a neighborhood institution and gathering place. Francisco I. Madero 418, Colonia Emiliano Zapata
Casita & Garden: This locale recently 
and deliberately gave up a chunk of restaurant space to build a good-sized raised stage that features homegrown local talent. The food is Vietnamese, Asian, with also fine paper-thin-crust pizza. The service at Casita & Garden is impeccable, and the music is mainly on the soft side of the spectrum, but sister restaurant Bonito Kitchen right next door has featured some kick-ass rock and roll, so check beforehand. Naranjo 321, Zona Romántica, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
Coco Cabaret Performance Art Theatre: In only its second season, sharing the love with sister cabaret The Palm, Coco Cabaret brings aerialists to fly across the six-meter-high staging area. Think breathtaking Cirque du Soleil talent. Not only gymnasts, but a great cross-section of drag, tribute shows (Pink), and some serious flying time with European and international acrobat/bodybuilder/dancer physiques. Francisco I. Madero 369, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
La Catrina Cantina: was born smack in t
he middle of the pandemic that closed all the ‘real’ entertainment venues, partly because La Catrina Cantina also serves food. And good food at that. The wait staff, most of whom have been there from the get-go, are friendly, fast, and my favorite bunch in town. Designed to be a Mexican cabaret featuring Spanish-language artists, most of whom are bilingual, so there are rarely language issues. Lazaro Cardenas 315B, upstairs, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
Nacho Daddy: A ‘Mex-Tex’ restaurant and bar with a stage and sound and light booth upstairs, with seating for 75 comfortably. This is very much a neighborhood bar with sports showing on multiple TVs downstairs and music every night of the week upstairs. Nacho Daddy also serves as a fundraising bingo hall for local animal welfare organizations. 287 Basilio Badillo, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
The Palm Cabaret and Bar Performance Art Theatre: In their 26thseason, The Palm wins the Best Venue in Vallarta award every year. From their drag-show beginnings—The Palm is in the middle of the Gayborhood—they still have the best drag performers in the biz, plus offer high-tech tribute shows with costumes as identical as possible, and sound and light down to a fine art, managing a magic show to a full-blown rock musical. In the height of season, and during Gay Pride in May, The Palm produces four or five shows a day! Olas Altas #508, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
The Social Club: Puerto Vallarta’s first Speakeasy has been open just over a year and has been wildly successful. The owners took a derelict, abandoned-for-twenty-years house built on various levels, painted the inside black, installed furniture and memorabilia, much from Elizabeth Taylor’s estate here, added a lot of red lighting, installed velvet drapes, put in a small space for a line of musicians, typically piano, percussion and bass, some tables and chairs and created one of the most ingenious interiors of a cabaret I have ever seen. The Social Club opens late and closes in the early morning, 4ish. Their ticketed shows are often booked weeks in advance. Being small has its privileges. Basilio Badillo 447, upstairs, Colonia Emiliano Zapata.
White Rabbit Lie: The club is Vallarta’s second Speakeasy, newly opened with a tricky entrance: it’s disguised as a laundromat monitored from the inside on closed-circuit TV. The very heavy door will swing open and let you into the cool interior just at the point you give up trying to figure out how to get in! Occasionally, very good local rock bands take to the stage, with a troupe of innovative hip-hop dancers providing the bulk of the ticketed shows. White Rabbit Lie specializes in fine, old-fashioned cocktails. How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go? Calle Morelos 701, Colonia Centro.
Marcia Blondin is NLE’s correspondent in PV, and a contributor to the Vallarta Calendar
