Founding Editor
Maeve Doyle
Co-founder. Ran the Hawley Arms floor for eight years. Now edits the weekly email and writes most of the long-form pub pieces.
About Camden Bars — A locally-edited index since 2017
Where to drink tonight, ranked by the people who live above the lock.
Camden's definitive guide to the best bars, pubs and late-night spots — curated by locals, updated nightly. We are six editors, one canal, and 247 venues re-walked every quarter.
One email, every Thursday at 6 pm. 47% open rate — unsubscribe in two clicks.
Busyness now across Camden Town
The Hawley ArmsBusy · 78%
Lock 17Heaving · 92%
Fizz ClubQuiet · 34%
The founding story
Started in 2017 by two landlords who were tired of being misrepresented online.
Camden Bars began in the back office of a pub — specifically, the back office of The Hawley Arms, where our two founders spent eight years pulling pints and watching the same five venues turn up in every "best of" listicle, regardless of whether they'd changed ownership, head chef, or closing time in the last decade.
They launched a small WordPress site on a Tuesday night in March 2017 with twelve reviews and a promise: every venue listed would be re-walked, re-drunk-in and re-checked every ninety days, by an editor who actually lived within walking distance of it.
Eight years later we are six full-time editors, 247 venues, and the same quarterly rhythm. Our scope is deliberately narrow — Camden Town, Chalk Farm and Kentish Town only. We don't do Shoreditch, we don't do King's Cross, and we never will. Hyperlocal is the point.
Editorial method
How we keep 247 venues honest, every 90 days.
Editorial rigour isn't a vibe — it's a cadence. Four standing rituals run the index, every week, for every venue on the site.
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01
Quarterly re-walk
Every listed venue is physically visited by an editor at least once every 90 days — same night of the week, similar time, unannounced. Notes go straight into the live ranking.
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02
Six local editors
Our full-time editorial team is six people, all living within a 15-minute walk of Camden Town tube. No remote freelancers, no AI rewrites, no syndicated copy.
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03
18,400 weekly check-ins
Anonymous venue check-ins from readers power the live busyness meter you see across the directory — a real-time signal of where to go and where to avoid, tonight.
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04
36-hour owner reply
Every venue owner gets a 36-hour SLA from our team on corrections, fact-checks or right-of-reply. Fastest response time of any UK nightlife publisher.
The people
Six editors who live within a 15-minute walk of Camden Town tube.
Faces, then a board. The editorial team writes everything you read on Camden Bars; the advisory board keeps us honest about the trade.
Deputy Editor · Cocktails
Tom Reece
Co-founder. Owns the cocktail-and-basement-bar beat. Drinks more Martini than is professionally advisable.
Senior Editor · Pubs
Priya Anand
Covers the historic pub beat and the live busyness meter. Lives above the lock in Chalk Farm, which she claims is an asset and not a noise complaint.
Plus three more editors
A full bench of locals
Three additional full-time editors round out the desk — one on late-night venues, one on Kentish Town, one on neighbourhood new openings. All within the 15-minute walk.
Meet the full team →Advisory board
Nine Camden publicans and mixologists who keep the index honest.
A standing board of nine working publicans, head bartenders and one former licensing officer, all currently trading within our coverage area. They review draft rankings quarterly and flag any piece that misrepresents a venue they know first-hand.
Read the board's remit →Press & recognition
What the press, the readership and the owners have to say.
Time Out London · 2023 & 2024
Best Hyperlocal London Sites
Featured in both the 2023 and 2024 round-ups of the best hyperlocal London sites — the only nightlife guide to be named in consecutive years.
London Food & Drink Blog Awards · 2022
Best Local Coverage
Won "Best Local Coverage" at the 2022 London Food & Drink Blog Awards, judged on depth of review, editorial independence and revisit cadence.
Similarweb · Q1 2024
90,000+ monthly readers
Verified 90,000+ monthly unique readers in Q1 2024, with 62% of readers living in NW1, NW3 or NW5 postcodes — i.e. the people who actually walk past these venues.
Industry benchmark · 2024
47% newsletter open rate
The weekly "What to Drink in Camden" email runs at a 47% open rate — 3.1x the hospitality-media industry average. Verified by our ESP.
"We started this because we were tired of writing our own venue descriptions for journalists who had never queued for the toilet. Eight years on, the index is still six people, a notebook, and the same canal. If we ever lose that, close the site."
Read us every Thursday at 6 pm.
One email. Every venue worth your evening, ranked by the people who actually live above the lock.
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