Kip's Bar and Grill

Aman Yadav

The mood really sets in after around midnight. Will definitely recommend for a lively weekend night! There is one pool table at the back. Even though it was hard to make your shots because there were girls dancing in the pool table space, I enjoyed my time playing here.

thewrightbro1

This is one of my favorite places to go for several reasons. They have a variety of beers,a dance floor, and the bartender and security staff are amazing. Things that stand out, they have sour beers which I love. The bar tender (Johnny) provided me & my peers with excellent service. I had such a nice experience that I had to ask him for his name. He makes the environment way more chill and has great vibes. He is also one of the fastest bartenders there. I haven't had a bad drink from him yet. Yes I recommend this place. And if you want to have a good time ask for Johnny!! :)

Ian Larry

The whole place needs to be fix and clean probably they need bar rescue on the show of a good remodeling and good food quality. Still a good place to good and be cool to have pool tables and dance floors and arcades. Nice they have big screen T.V. need to make it great again for more future good times to role again.

Andrew Brikovich

Very fun place. Pretty packed most of the time where you can barely move and packed dance floor. That makes it not everybody's cup of tea but it's a college bar and if that's what you are looking for its very fun. Service can be medium slow sometimes but that's not because of the service but just because the place is usually packed. Overall good staff and fun experience just depends on what you are looking for

Bartenders are always amazing and very attentive they do get busy but if you give them a holler because the music is very loud they will turn around and spin around do a 360 and still give you a shot when they get chance lol 🤣 been in here twice now both times played some pool had a few laughs and danced pretty good atmosphere if you're going for 1990s_ 2000s vibes for the 🌃 night;)

Shaggy “Shaggy’s Reviews” Rivera ,

Bartenders are always amazing and very attentive they do get busy but if you give them a holler because the music is very loud they will turn around and spin around do a 360 and still give you a shot when they get chance lol 🤣 been in here twice now both times played some pool had a few laughs and danced pretty good atmosphere if you're going for 1990s_ 2000s vibes for the 🌃 night;)

Best (and technically only) club near berkeley campus. Cali's doesn't count.

Primitive dive bar & grill. Mostly a big, open space. Lots of stairs. No decor. Must show ID at door. College age crowd 99.9 percent. Grill closes early. Has Karaoke night, but 2/3 is DJ. The kids like dance music, of course. High energy after 11 pm.

I wish I could give Kip's a higher rating. The owner is a really nice guy. Their staff is really friendly especially if you're a regular and come in the daytime. It can be somewhat dark inside, and is located up a set of stairs, so it's not wheelchair accessible. Their food is pretty good and their prices are decent. On some nights they have karaoke or team trivia. They have a small dance floor and they play music. They've recently opened up a downstairs section that has much more space but the two locations have no connecting access point.

Rohan Vikrant Tawade

Best (and technically only) club near berkeley campus. Cali's doesn't count.

Wayne Calhoon

Primitive dive bar & grill. Mostly a big, open space. Lots of stairs. No decor. Must show ID at door. College age crowd 99.9 percent. Grill closes early. Has Karaoke night, but 2/3 is DJ. The kids like dance music, of course. High energy after 11 pm.

T Buttice

I wish I could give Kip's a higher rating. The owner is a really nice guy. Their staff is really friendly especially if you're a regular and come in the daytime. It can be somewhat dark inside, and is located up a set of stairs, so it's not wheelchair accessible. Their food is pretty good and their prices are decent. On some nights they have karaoke or team trivia. They have a small dance floor and they play music. They've recently opened up a downstairs section that has much more space but the two locations have no connecting access point.

Went to Kip's to watch G.S. WARRIORS game. Ordered Pineapple Fish bowl to share, Western burger and 5 tacos on Tuesday night. The burger came out first, 45 minutes after we ordered it. Having inquired about our drink, she admitted to forgetting to place drink order. 5 minutes later, we finally get our libation. She charges $35 for the drink, when they were on special for $25. Apparently the "special " had ended at 8pm. It was now 830. I explained that we ordered the drink well before 8 and were forced to suffer from dry mouth for way too long. Too bad, so sad. Shortly thereafter, my tacos arrived. Lots of screens, upbeat vibe, good food, and billiards are enough to return. Service and reconciliation difficult to attain.

james mcvicker

Went to Kip's to watch G.S. WARRIORS game. Ordered Pineapple Fish bowl to share, Western burger and 5 tacos on Tuesday night. The burger came out first, 45 minutes after we ordered it. Having inquired about our drink, she admitted to forgetting to place drink order. 5 minutes later, we finally get our libation. She charges $35 for the drink, when they were on special for $25. Apparently the "special " had ended at 8pm. It was now 830. I explained that we ordered the drink well before 8 and were forced to suffer from dry mouth for way too long. Too bad, so sad. Shortly thereafter, my tacos arrived. Lots of screens, upbeat vibe, good food, and billiards are enough to return. Service and reconciliation difficult to attain.

If you're going to be here when music is playing, wear earplugs. I went here about two years ago and it was so absurdly loud that it gave me tinnitus I'm still dealing with to this day.

This place is not for the girls. The men’s restroom is your run of the mill multi-stall, but the women’s restroom is just a single-use bathroom that feels like and after thought, was basically hidden, and had a significant queue (of the few women that were there). Why would you have a single-use restroom for women when our queues are already typically longer? Vibes = so off.

Matthew Thompson

If you're going to be here when music is playing, wear earplugs. I went here about two years ago and it was so absurdly loud that it gave me tinnitus I'm still dealing with to this day.

Chloe Goorman

This place is not for the girls. The men’s restroom is your run of the mill multi-stall, but the women’s restroom is just a single-use bathroom that feels like and after thought, was basically hidden, and had a significant queue (of the few women that were there). Why would you have a single-use restroom for women when our queues are already typically longer? Vibes = so off.

I’m leaving this review as a recent performer at Kips. I DJed a private event here and had a pretty bad experience. Upon arrival, there was nobody around to assist me with any kind of sound check. The one person who seemed to be in charge up and left when there were some difficulties saying “I don’t know” and storming away, leaving me to scramble through their audio equipment and cables (all of which was extremely dirty and sticky) to figure out how to make THEIR sound system work. It was very chaotic. The inside was hot, sweaty with 0 ventilation and 1 fan. The cherry on top was the staff member who came backstage to flirt with a couple of guests I brought with me, making sexual jokes, physical advances, and being completely inappropriate towards all of us. He made us very uncomfortable and we had to ask him multiple times to leave us alone. It shocks me that college aged students attend a place where staff behave like this, I can only pray this was a one time incident. The same unhelpful staff from earlier proceeded to shut the event down early, harshly cutting all power and corrupting my USB drive by doing so. This was by far one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had as a DJ and I hope to never set foot in a place like this again.

Kips is EXTREMELY HOMOPHOBIC and severely unsafe for women. A man was fetishizing my two friends for dancing together because they’re both women. We asked him 5 separate times to stop staring at two women dancing and he refused. A Kip’s security guard (Jo) watched the whole interaction and didn’t intervene until my 5’2” friend lightly pushed the (6 foot tall) perv away. Then he kicked our entire group out of the bar for being “aggressive.” He didn’t care when a man was making two sapphic women feel unsafe and only intervened to “protect” a straight man fetishizing patrons. Jo (the security) put his hands on my friend’s waist to forcibly push her out of the bar. He was touching her much more than necessary and not allowing us to discuss the situation, Jo exclusively yelled in our faces and pushed us. We asked to talk to a bar tender or manager and Jo would not speak to us and pushed us bodily out of the bar. Jo said “two women dancing is provocative, you can’t get mad when someone looks” which is blatantly queer-phobic and misogynistic (Jo had no issue with the straight couple literally two feet away dancing significantly more provocatively so it was clearly a comment on two women dancing vs the type of dancing). We had no desire to stay at Kips with such blatantly homophobic and sexist security, but Kip’s truly failed by allowing someone so clearly unsafe to put hands on patrons and refuse to hear us out or let us speak to other bouncers/bartenders. Kip’s should reassess its standards for who it allows to “protect” its patrons unless Kips wants to be known as Berkeleys most unsafe homophobic and misogynistic bar.

Regular since 2017. Terrible service by the server serving on the floor this weekend (5/16-17/2025). Train her better Kips! Seemed like we were invisible to her. Even after 60+% in tips day 1 same attitude day 2, shocking!!!

If this is the best place to dance at Berkeley, I’m sorry for the students who will never know a good place to dance. Someone please set up shop to end the lack of good places to club! Palo Alto has far better places.

HEADS UP. The bouncers have constantly been allowing minors / underaged people inside. They DO NOT check ID’s at the door and they allow fake ID’s to go through. This place needs to be reported to law enforcement and ATF. I’ve legit seen high schoolers let inside on Friday and Saturday nights. DO NOT GO.

I live in unit 3 and you guys are keeping the entire building up. It's almost 2 am. I live on the eighth floor and I can still hear every lyric on your awful soundtrack with my windows closed.

Teela Hamner

Kips is EXTREMELY HOMOPHOBIC and severely unsafe for women. A man was fetishizing my two friends for dancing together because they’re both women. We asked him 5 separate times to stop staring at two women dancing and he refused. A Kip’s security guard (Jo) watched the whole interaction and didn’t intervene until my 5’2” friend lightly pushed the (6 foot tall) perv away. Then he kicked our entire group out of the bar for being “aggressive.” He didn’t care when a man was making two sapphic women feel unsafe and only intervened to “protect” a straight man fetishizing patrons. Jo (the security) put his hands on my friend’s waist to forcibly push her out of the bar. He was touching her much more than necessary and not allowing us to discuss the situation, Jo exclusively yelled in our faces and pushed us. We asked to talk to a bar tender or manager and Jo would not speak to us and pushed us bodily out of the bar. Jo said “two women dancing is provocative, you can’t get mad when someone looks” which is blatantly queer-phobic and misogynistic (Jo had no issue with the straight couple literally two feet away dancing significantly more provocatively so it was clearly a comment on two women dancing vs the type of dancing). We had no desire to stay at Kips with such blatantly homophobic and sexist security, but Kip’s truly failed by allowing someone so clearly unsafe to put hands on patrons and refuse to hear us out or let us speak to other bouncers/bartenders. Kip’s should reassess its standards for who it allows to “protect” its patrons unless Kips wants to be known as Berkeleys most unsafe homophobic and misogynistic bar.

Leila R

I’m leaving this review as a recent performer at Kips. I DJed a private event here and had a pretty bad experience. Upon arrival, there was nobody around to assist me with any kind of sound check. The one person who seemed to be in charge up and left when there were some difficulties saying “I don’t know” and storming away, leaving me to scramble through their audio equipment and cables (all of which was extremely dirty and sticky) to figure out how to make THEIR sound system work. It was very chaotic. The inside was hot, sweaty with 0 ventilation and 1 fan. The cherry on top was the staff member who came backstage to flirt with a couple of guests I brought with me, making sexual jokes, physical advances, and being completely inappropriate towards all of us. He made us very uncomfortable and we had to ask him multiple times to leave us alone. It shocks me that college aged students attend a place where staff behave like this, I can only pray this was a one time incident. The same unhelpful staff from earlier proceeded to shut the event down early, harshly cutting all power and corrupting my USB drive by doing so. This was by far one of the worst experiences I’ve ever had as a DJ and I hope to never set foot in a place like this again.

Tru Nor

Regular since 2017. Terrible service by the server serving on the floor this weekend (5/16-17/2025). Train her better Kips! Seemed like we were invisible to her. Even after 60+% in tips day 1 same attitude day 2, shocking!!!

Joya Stewart

I live in unit 3 and you guys are keeping the entire building up. It's almost 2 am. I live on the eighth floor and I can still hear every lyric on your awful soundtrack with my windows closed.

Marcus Fredrich

If this is the best place to dance at Berkeley, I’m sorry for the students who will never know a good place to dance. Someone please set up shop to end the lack of good places to club! Palo Alto has far better places.

Rishab Malik

HEADS UP. The bouncers have constantly been allowing minors / underaged people inside. They DO NOT check ID’s at the door and they allow fake ID’s to go through. This place needs to be reported to law enforcement and ATF. I’ve legit seen high schoolers let inside on Friday and Saturday nights. DO NOT GO.