Mac Bar
A friendly, venerable hole-in-the-wall owned by a chatty fellow with a massive collection of rock CDs. He's happy to take requests or just talk about music.
Kemby's
A big, friendly bar that's a favorite with locals for watching major sporting events. There's plenty of seating, and pool & darts as well. The English menu offers enough food mostly Italian and Mexican to make this a valid dinner spot. The same folks run the smaller Kemby's AM (http://www.kembys.com/a-t...) at 8-27 Nagarekawa, 10PM-6AM daily.
Barcos
All races and creeds are in attendance on an average night at Barcos — from the locals to the international community and not just English teachers, from fashionistas and lunkheads to lost souls and chatterboxes. If you come on a weekend or a holiday, be prepared for a massive crowd. The DJs play a wide range of music, including soul, techno, R&B, and Latin, but they're happy to take requests. Mambos Latin Bar, on the third floor of the same building and with the same owner, focuses on the Latin music, with dance classes in various styles in the early evening before things get rolling.
Molly Malone's
Another popular foreigner hang-out. It's a reliable source for rugby and soccer games, but arrive early if you want a good viewing spot. The Irish food is just all right ¥1000-1800, but the desserts ¥500 are quite good with a beer. Another good option from the same owners is the Molly's Med Cafe M-Sa 11AM-1AM, on the first floor of the same building entrance on the opposite side, which serves kebabs, shawarma, falafel, and other Mediterranean dishes ¥500-600, along with cold beer of course.
Mugen 5610
Local and traveling DJs spin quality dubstep, reggae, and drum 'n bass with the aid of a great sound system. The two floors are split between a big dance space and a more laid-back bar area.
Plum Garden
A female-friendly izakaya specializing in plum wines and light, healthy dishes.
Sacred Spirits
In business for years as Jamaica, Sacred Spirits has a long, narrow basement space devoted to mostly decent, occasionally great dance music, at least until it's too crowded to move any more. Foreigners should be sure to bring an ID, as they do check. It's on a side street just off the Hon-dori arcade — there will inevitably be people milling around outside, despite the owners' best efforts at neighborly noise control.
Fukuya Beer Garden
Many of the department stores have beer gardens on their roofs, and this is a nice one, directly across from JR Hiroshima Station — just you and a few hundred of your closest friends under the stars, sharing a terrific city view. Regardless of the crowds, though, there's plenty of room and the lines are well-managed. Admission varies from ¥1000 to ¥2500 by day of the week and season, which includes all you can drink, some desserts, and a ton of Western and Japanese fried food.
Nagarekawa has the highest concentration of bars in Hiroshima — the good, the bad, and the hostess — but there are a number of good, quiet wine bars on Hakushima-dori, and plenty of foreigner-friendly pubs clustered around the giant PARCO building (http://www.net-flyer.com). Yagenbori-dori is full of bars and clubs that are spread across floors of the various high-rise buildings.
Sake enthusiasts should not miss the chance to visit the breweries of Saijo, particularly during the annual festival in October — see above.
Kulcha
A popular bar just off Hon-dori, frequented mainly by ex-pats. It's known for monthly theme parties and televised rugby and soccer games. If you're walking towards Parco from Rijo-dori, take a right at Andersens. Walk one block down past Daiei supermarket and turn left. The bar is on the right.
Club Quattro
The biggest rock venue in town, Club Quattro hosts most of the major touring bands that deign to visit Hiroshima.
Some perspective for weary travelers
If you've lost your luggage, checked into a shoebox-sized business hotel that reeks of smoke, and had your stomach pumped after eating some bad eel, you still haven't had a worse trip than Tsutomu Yamaguchi did.
In August 1945, Yamaguchi was sent to Hiroshima on a business trip. With the job done, his co-workers left, but Yamaguchi realized that he had forgotten his personal seal for signing official documents, so he headed back into town to pick it up. That's when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Badly burned, deaf, and partially blind, he spent a night in the ruins of the city, and then found a railway station on the western edge of the city that was back in operation. He managed to catch a train home to Nagasaki, where — as Yamaguchi explained to his disbelieving boss what had happened in Hiroshima — the second atomic bomb was dropped.
In 2009, the Japanese government certified the still-living Tsutomu Yamaguchi as the first known person to have been at ground zero of both atomic blasts. A year later, Yamaguchi passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 93.