The 50th Best Bar in North America Opens at 8 A.M. in Sandyport

How many of the bars on North America's 50 Best Bars list serve coffee before most offices open? On Sandyport's Sea Skye Lane, at least one does. Bon Vivants lists its address as 401 Sea Skye Lane, Sandyport. Its own site gives opening hours of 8 a.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. on weekends. It closes at midnight most nights and at 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

On April 22, 2026, that same room was named No. 50 on North America's 50 Best Bars 2026. The list was revealed at a live ceremony in Vancouver, and Bon Vivants appeared as a new entry under Nassau. According to The Nassau Guardian, it is the only bar, restaurant or hotel from The Bahamas ever included on a 50 Best list.

So the most closely judged hospitality room in the country sits inside Sandyport's marina village. It also does a full shift as the neighborhood's café. The rest of the village, from the breakfast tables on the canal to the conch salad on the beach, fits around that day.

How a Bar Gets onto That List

The ranking has a specific process behind it. The organization behind the list says its rankings are decided by voting academies of individually selected experts. On the bar side that means more than 800 people, including bartenders, bar owners, hoteliers and journalists. It also states plainly that venues "can neither apply to be added, nor pay to be included."

The list also has two tiers. The 2026 extended list, covering places 51 through 100, was released on March 31, 2026, three weeks before the main ceremony. Bon Vivants went straight onto the main 1 to 50 list, not the extension. The Guardian reported that the top three were Sip & Guzzle in New York, Bar Mauro in Mexico City and Bar Snack in New York.

The 2025 edition shows how big the step was. When the 2025 North America list came out in April 2025, Bon Vivants was on neither the 1 to 50 list nor the 51 to 100 extension. That year, Library by the Sea in Grand Cayman placed at No. 30. One year later, the Sandyport bar is on the main list.

Seven Years from Café to Ranking

The 50 Discovery profile says Bon Vivants first opened as a café in 2019 and "soon transformed into the cocktail bar that it is today," with the café still running so that "coffee leading to cocktails as the day goes on." Sandyport Beach Resort's dining guide places it in the Sandyport Marina Village at the resort's main entrance.

Recognition built up over several years before April:

When EyeWitness News covered the 2025 Discovery inclusion on February 27, 2025, it described the bar as nestled in Sandyport. By September 2025, the outlet was reporting that bartenders Niko Imbert and Anthony Major-Smith had been selected for a guest shift in Toronto. It named William Young and Kyle Jones as co-founders and Imbert as Senior Vice President of Hospitality.

The 2026 ranking also followed a Caribbean Cocktail Tour. Bon Vivants held guest shifts with La Factoria from Puerto Rico and Library By The Sea from Grand Cayman, two bars that had already been North America 50 Best honorees. The co-founders' response, as quoted in the Guardian:

"We've always believed that a bar in The Bahamas can stand alongside some of the best in the world, and now we know it can."

Imbert credited the result to "paying attention to every single detail," and the Guardian described the ranking as the culmination of more than seven years of work.

What the Ranked Menu Pours

After the ranking, management announced it would launch the 2026 menu on April 30, including a new section of Bahamian-inspired cocktails. The current menu on the bar's site calls that section "The Locals" and presents it as a celebration of the flavors of The Bahamas. It lists six drinks:

• Benny & The Jets
• Funky Nassau
• Gully Creeper Milk Punch
• Night Nurse
• Do Right In
• Bay Street Rush

The descriptions in that section draw on things a Nassau reader will recognize: a riff on the Gully Wash, a homage to the Goombay Smash, plantain-infused Hennessy and coconut-fat-washed whisky. Earlier favorites are still part of the story. The Guardian names El Chapo, Clean Slate and The Zephyr as signatures. The 50 Discovery profile mentions the fruity, vodka-based Mrs Brightside, the Sazerac-inspired The Guv'Nah, a tiki classics selection, a dedicated Negroni section and a substantial low- and no-alcohol offering. It puts the average cocktail at $17.

The bar also keeps its morning trade. The Guardian describes locally roasted coffee by day, with the room becoming a cocktail bar at night.

A Second Food Honor in the Same Village

The marina village has a second 2026 honor, and it comes from a different process. Sandyport Beach Resort's Conch Experience runs daily at 11:30 a.m. at Da Conch Shack. A chef harvests conch and prepares conch salad to order with diced vegetables and citrus, and tropical-fruit salad is available on request. The resort's dining page says the experience "was selected for the National Geographic Traveller (UK) Culinary Collection 2026."

That collection is put together on different terms from the 50 Best list. The Sandyport page in the Culinary Collection directory is headed "PAID CONTENT FOR SANDYPORT BEACH RESORT." It also states that the content "is brought to you by our sponsor" and does not necessarily reflect the views of National Geographic or its editorial staff. APL Media, which produced the collection, says its roundup of gourmet retreats was brought together by advertisers. National Geographic's separate editorial feature on 12 gourmet stays, published January 21, 2026, does not include a Bahamian entry.

None of this changes the conch salad. The directory piece describes the dish made with lime, tomato and Scotch bonnet and served with a Bahama Mama or a Sands beer, every day at the same hour on the lagoon side of the beach. In 2026, the village has one honor decided by a voting panel and one bought as a sponsored placement. Both of the things being honored are still there to try.

Coffee to Last Call Around Sea Skye Lane

Here is how the published hours line up across a full day. They come from the resort's dining guide and Bon Vivants' own site, and businesses update them, so a quick call before a specific plan is sensible. A few current details are worth knowing. The resort guide's listing for Bon Vivants shows different hours from the bar's own site. Its "Learn More" link for Spritz points to an unrelated Las Vegas restaurant. The explicit statement that Blue Sail is open to the public dates from the restaurant's opening in 2015.

Blue Sail lists Jacques Carlino as chef-owner and takes reservations through OpenTable. Twisted Lime publishes its number as 242-327-0061, and Spritz recommends booking ahead even though it takes walk-ins. Bon Vivants answers at 242-601-9463.

On a full weekday, the table shows Bon Vivants twice: as one of the first doors open in the village and as one of the last still serving after most kitchens close.

When a neighborhood's café becomes one of the most recognized rooms in the region, it shows in small ways, such as how a Sandyport address comes across to visitors and to guests from abroad. If you'd like to talk about life inside the Sandyport gate with someone who follows these details closely, Rolle Realty Group is glad to arrange a private conversation, perhaps over coffee on Sea Skye Lane.