Around Great American Ball Park

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The quick read

A lot of parks in this guide sit in a sea of parking lots, and the pre-game plan means driving somewhere else for a beer. Great American Ball Park doesn’t have that problem. It sits downtown on the Cincinnati riverfront, and The Banks, a mixed-use district of bars, restaurants, apartments, and a hotel, is built into the blocks between the ballpark and Paycor Stadium next door. Smale Riverfront Park runs along the water beside it. Park the car once, walk to dinner, walk to the game, walk to a nightcap.

The picks below are short on purpose. The Banks turns over its lineup, and there are more bars within a two-minute walk of the gates than one visit needs. These are the ones worth anchoring a pre-game around.

The Banks lineup shifts by the season, and a name that’s open this year may not be next. Give any pick a 30-second check before you build a night around it.

The Banks at the gates

• Cincinnati Lager House (formerly Moerlein Lager House) is a brewery and restaurant on the Smale Park side of the riverfront, tied to Cincinnati’s brewing heritage. If you only get one stop before the gates, make it this one.
• Yard House at The Banks carries the long beer list and the large patio, which is the combination that settles a group argument fastest.
• The AC Hotel rooftop bar gets you the skyline and the river from above, which is the view the street-level bars don’t have.

Over-the-Rhine, a streetcar north

For a bigger night, ride the Connector north. It’s Cincinnati’s streetcar, it’s free to board, and its Station 1 platform is right at The Banks, steps from the ballpark. A short ride up puts you in Over-the-Rhine, the city’s historic brewery district, where the taproom scene is the draw: Rhinegeist and MadTree are the taproom names to know, and Findlay Market is the daytime end of it.

The Banks keeps you at the gates. Over-the-Rhine is a short ride each way into a neighborhood with more history behind it, and that ride is the whole trade.

One thing to settle before you go up: the Connector runs to roughly 11:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday and roughly 9:30 p.m. on Sundays and holidays. That’s enough to get you back down after a weeknight night game and not enough to start a trip up there once the game ends.

Before and after the game

Arriving early breaks into two options, and neither one is wrong. Stay tight to the ballpark and post up at Cincinnati Lager House or Yard House for the hour before first pitch. Or ride the streetcar up to Over-the-Rhine first and work your way back down for the game. Pick by whether the night is built around the riverfront or the neighborhood.

After the last out, the plan inverts. If you want one more round, you’re already standing in the district and nothing about that requires moving the car. If the streetcar is your ride home, check the last-car time before first pitch rather than after the ninth. Rideshare is the fallback, with the usual surge and a walk from the curb once the park empties.

Two minutes from the last barstool to the turnstile is close enough that you will cut it close. That’s a feature.

Family-friendly options

The kid-friendly stretch sits right beside the gates, and it holds up on both ends of a game day.

Play-based, anytime: Smale Riverfront Park. The park runs along the river directly east of the ballpark and is open before the game and well after it. The Great Adventure Playground, Carol Ann’s Carousel, the porch swings out over the water, the water and spray features, and a labyrinth give kids somewhere to burn energy before first pitch or long after the final out. Walking in is free, and you can time it around the gates.

Non-alcohol, anytime: Graeter’s. Cincinnati’s French-pot ice cream has a Fountain Square location a short walk up from the riverfront, so a cone works before or after the game with no bar involved. Inside the gates, the TriHealth Family Zone runs kids’ activities and a nursing suite, anytime once you’re through the turnstile, and ticketed.

More to do in Cincinnati

Cincinnati stacks Over-the-Rhine, the riverfront, and its brewing history into a walkable downtown core, and most of it is doable on a game day as long as the game is at night. Viator lists what’s running while you’re in town.

The sites-and-bites tour meets at The Banks at 10 a.m. and runs about three hours, so it fits a night game and not a 1:10 first pitch. It walks the riverfront, downtown, and Findlay Market with food stops along the way, and it tends to book weeks ahead, so line it up before the trip rather than the morning of. Free cancellation up to 24 hours out.

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