Doyles Sports Bar

A hidden gem within durham. Cheap (STRONG) drinks and several pool tables and dart boards. A nice chill sports bar for a low key evening. Its at the end of a long pizza and thus somewhat «hidden» from the road.

The rumors are true — Doyle’s is one of Durham’s best kept secrets. The crowd and bartenders are friendly, the selection of bar games is great, and the beer is cheap. Think of it as this part of town’s answer to The Green Room but with a full bar and free pool.

Oh Doyles, my home away from home. Doyles is certainly a dive bar, if you are the type of person who is not okay hanging out with some locals who are a little rough around the edges then you might not like it. But learn to love Doyles and it will become your second living room and the perfect place to play some bar games and drink.
If you want pool, darts, ping pong, shuffleboard, fooseball, pinball they have it all. Depending on who is bartending (if its Chris you are in for a treat) there are often movies they picked out playing on the TV at the bar that you can chill and watch. Sometimes there are even video game systems available to play. What more could you want?
Oh yeah drinks. Affordable drink special every night, though unfortunately that is somtimes domestics like coor lights. Fortunately their bottle selection is solid (highland gaelic, sierra nevada/​torpedo being my favorite options) and they are always affordable at like 3 bucks a pop. If you want go stronger, their bartenders pretty much universally pour a drink that packs a punch. You won’t be disappointed.
Doyles is the place where you can go, get a buzz going and just relax and be yourself. There is no pretension here. They have a crowd of regulars who know each other but don’t let that scare you. The bartenders are friendly and will make you feel right at home.
Some problems I’ll acknowledge are their drafts have been broken for a while and even while they were running they often had issues. Also If you want music you have to put money in the juke box which can get pricey if you come as often as we do.
But overall, for a friendly dive bar they do it the way it should be done and I’ve seen many people I’ve brought get over their skepticism and fall for its charms. It should fairly be a 4-​star, but I’ll admit I am biased with my local watering hole and I can’t not give it a 5.

Best kept secret in Durham.

It’s an ok bar. There are better dive bars around the area. The owner was cool and let me and my buddy have drinks despite them not being open while they watched the UNC game. I have learned a couple of things about NC since moving here and from my experience at Doyles:
1)White Irish folks have other teams they like other than Notre Dame
2)Don’t order a Bud Light Lime. Apparently, Bud Light Lime is the drink of choice for gay men here and ordering a Bud Light Lime will send the owner into a tirade and call you all sorts of homophobic names for some odd reason.

It’s a nice small bar for local residents in the surrounding neighborhoods. It isn’t overwhelmed like many of the other bars in Durham or Chapel Hill. They also have 6+ pool tables, a ping pong table, dart boards, bumper pool table and some old pinball machines. Only down side is there is no food served, it’s more of an after dinner bar to watch the some sporting events. I do like the atmosphere.