Wagbar Wins Two First Place Best of WNC Awards for 2026
Wagbar Wins Two First Place Best of WNC Awards for 2026
Key Takeaways
Wagbar took first place in two 2026 Best of WNC categories, both at Hall of Fame level.
The categories: Pet-Friendly Bar or Brewery, and Outdoor Place to Take Your Pet.
Five straight years of first place finishes in the Mountain Xpress readers' poll.
Every one of those votes came from a real person in Western North Carolina who filled out a ballot.
Wagbar won first place in two categories in the 2026 Mountain Xpress Best of WNC readers' poll: Pet-Friendly Bar or Brewery and Outdoor Place to Take Your Pet. Both carry Hall of Fame status, which Mountain Xpress reserves for businesses that keep winning the same category year after year. Five years running now.
Two Wins, Both in the Pets Section
The Pets section of the ballot covers everything from vets to groomers to boarding, and readers voted Wagbar to the top of two of its categories. Pet-Friendly Bar or Brewery is the one we have held the longest. Outdoor Place to Take Your Pet is the one that puts us up against every trail, park, and patio in the region, which makes it a strange and wonderful thing to win.
Neither award is judged by a panel. There is no application, no submission fee, no pitch deck. Somebody has to sit down, pull up a ballot with dozens of categories on it, and type in the name of the off-leash dog park and bar in Weaverville they keep going back to. Thousands of people did that.
Six Years of Ballots
Winning once means you had a good year. Winning six years in a row means people built you into their routine. The first Pet-Friendly Bar or Brewery win came in 2021, back when a bar built around an off-leash dog park still needed explaining to most of Asheville. It does not need explaining anymore.
The Best of WNC wins also sit alongside a national nod. Wagbar landed at number 10 on the USA Today 10Best list of dog bars, which was a nice surprise. The local votes still hit harder. National lists come from editors and travel writers. Best of WNC comes from the people standing next to you at the bar on a Tuesday.
The Outdoor Award Says Something Specific
Western North Carolina is not short on outdoor places to take a dog. There are greenways, riverside parks, and hundreds of miles of trail within an hour of downtown Asheville. Beating all of that in a reader vote says something about what people actually want out of a Saturday afternoon with their dog.
Most outdoor spots ask you to pick a side. Either the dog gets to run and you stand around holding a leash and a water bottle, or you get to sit down with a drink and the dog stays home. The off-leash dog bar setup removes that choice. Wagbar features an off-leash dog park, everwhere, including the bar area.