BUSINESS
Nob Hill cocktail lounge named best-designed bar in North America
Wes Anderson-inspired Daydream Rum Bar takes home top prize from ‘50 best’ group
A stylish Nob Hill cocktail bar is the winner of the award for best bar design in North America.
Daydream Rum Bar — accessible via a set of stairs tucked away in Little Bear Coffee — is styled as a velvet-and-wood mid-century tropical den, said owner Isaac Fox.
The bar’s design was as the best on this continent this week by 50 Best, an international group that provides annual of the world’s best bars and restaurants.
“It means the world,” Fox said. “We’re so, so honored.”
The heavily stylized movies of the director Wes Anderson served as the inspiration for Daydream’s design, Fox said.
“Those films are a perfect way for people to experience escapism, which is kind of what rum bars are notorious for — providing a tropical escape from the mundane day-to-day,” he said.
Fox said Daydream’s designers took a cue from Anderson by using a variation on a handful of colors — in this case, shades of sage green and golden brown.
“It’s an amalgamation of stuff that we thought was really beautiful and provided that sense of escapism but also didn’t feel out of place in our desert home,” he said.
Fox also owns Little Bear Coffee along with his father and brother. At Daydream, he led the design and construction via his firm, Fox MFG.
“The cool thing about the project was this is the first one I’ve gotten to be able to do start to finish — brand identity, concept creation, interior design,” he said. “We were able to find a golden thread for our concept and make sure that it was woven through every little piece of it.”
Since it opened in July 2025, Daydream has picked up another accolade: the cocktail lounge was named a for the James Beard Award for best new bar in January.
Daydream Rum Bar, located at 3123 Central NE, is open Tuesday through Thursday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Though its primary spirit is rum, Daydream also has a full bar.
Natalie Robbins covers education for the Journal. You can reach her at nrobbins@abqjournal.com.