Kaprun Bars & Après Ski
Kaprun after the lifts stop
Short version: there is proper après here, there is not much of it, and that is the point of the village rather than a failing of it. If you want a big night you get the bus to Zell am See — and there is one thing about that bus you need to know before you rely on it.
Kaprun's evening runs on Austrian time, which catches British visitors out more than the size of the list does. Après starts when the lifts stop and it is loud and busy for a couple of hours; then it thins out; then people eat, and a great many of them eat in the hotel they are staying in, because half board is how Austrian hotels sell rooms. By ten o'clock the village is quiet on most nights of the week. That is not a slow night, that is Tuesday.
What Kaprun actually has, checked venue by venue this September: one large après operation with an open-air arena, a restaurant and a club, and two bars in the middle of the village that do the rest of the evening. That is the honest list. Other names circulate on ski sites and in old guidebooks, and we have left them out for reasons the section at the bottom of this page explains in detail.
If you are the sort of party that wants somewhere different every night, book Zell am See and ski over here instead — the pass is the same and our Kaprun accommodation page covers that decision properly. If you want a couple of good beers in the sun, dinner, and to be on first lifts in the morning, Kaprun is very hard to beat.
The one place that does après properly
If somebody in Kaprun tells you where the après is, they mean the Baumbar. It is not a bar so much as a compound, and understanding how the parts of it work is the difference between a good evening and standing in the wrong room.
It sits on Sigmund-Thun-Straße, a short walk from the middle of the village, and it runs three quite different things under one name. The Arena is the open-air après bar and it is where the afternoon happens — the operator calls it Kaprun's sunniest spot and it opens every day through the season, filling up as the lifts wind down. The restaurant is a serious one, spread across several rooms including a hayloft and a wine cellar, and it is open from the middle of the day. And there is a disco and club with three bars, a dance floor and a stage for live acts and DJs.
There is also a sports bar inside the arena building, which is the answer to the question every group eventually asks about watching a match. And the whole operation runs year round rather than only in the ski season, which is unusual and is why it feels like a proper business rather than a marquee that appears in December.
Two bars in the centre, and what each one is for
Both are a couple of minutes from each other and from most of the beds in Kaprun, and they are not really competing — one is where the evening carries on and one is where the afternoon lands.
- Kitsch & Bitter — the one that runs latestOn Wilhelm-Fazokas-Straße, and it describes itself as a cult restaurant rather than a bar, which undersells the bar half. It is a bar, a restaurant, a wine cellar and an enoteca called DiVino in one building, doing cocktails and a mixed crowd rather than a theme. It is the place in Kaprun that is still going when everything else has stopped, and at weekends it goes on considerably later than that. ⚠ It closes one day a week as its rest day — at the time of writing that is Wednesday, and it is worth checking rather than discovering.
- Pavillon — the terrace on the squareOn Salzburger Platz, in the middle of everything, and it has been there since the 1990s. It is a bar, a café and a restaurant with a large sun terrace, and its winter job is the drink you have on the way home rather than the big night: coffee and cake in the afternoon, cocktails and classic drinks in the evening. ⚠ The tourist board's own listing for it showed it closed for the summer 2026 season when we checked in September. The business is live and the copy describes a winter operation, but we are not going to tell you it is open for your dates — ring or check before you plan around it.
Over to Zell am See, and the catch that strands people
Kaprun's answer to "is that all there is?" is a town seven kilometres away with a proper high street, and the resort itself expects you to use it. Getting there is easy. Getting back is where people come unstuck.
Zell am See has what a village of this size cannot: a run of bars along the lake and through the old streets, places that are busy on a weeknight, and enough choice that a group of eight can actually agree on something. It is on the same lift pass, it is a short ride, and plenty of people staying in Kaprun spend two or three evenings of a week there.
The regional buses are public services rather than a resort shuttle, so the last one is a great deal earlier than a British visitor expects. If your party's idea of a night out finishes late, that is a real argument for booking your beds in Zell am See in the first place and treating Kaprun as the mountain you commute to, which is the other way round from how most people assume this valley works.
Four things that shape an evening here
None of these is a warning. They are the differences between a Kaprun week and the resort you went to last year, and knowing them in advance is most of what makes the evenings work.
- Everything happens earlier than you thinkAprès starts when the lifts stop and the busiest hour of the Kaprun evening is well before dinner. If you go back to the apartment for a shower and reappear at nine expecting to find the afternoon still going, you will have missed it. Austrian kitchens also stop serving earlier than British ones, so eat before you settle in rather than after.
- Half board is quietly running the villageA large share of Kaprun's beds are sold with an evening meal included, which means a large share of the visitors are in their own hotel dining room at eight o'clock. That is why the streets empty and why the restaurant and bar list is shorter than the bed count suggests. It is also worth doing the arithmetic on your own booking — if you have paid for dinner, going out for one is paying twice.
- The spa is a genuine alternative eveningKaprun has a large thermal spa on the edge of the village, and on a week here it does more custom in the evening than the bars do. If half your party does not drink, or you are here in October when the village has not woken up, that is not a consolation prize — it is what a lot of people came for. Our things to do in Kaprun page covers it and the rest of the off-snow half.
- Plan the journey home, not the journey outWhether you are going across to Zell am See or staying in Kaprun, the ride back is the bit that goes wrong. The in-village ski bus is free but it does not run all night; the Zell run is only free while the lifts are turning. If you are driving anywhere at all, do not take a view on how much you have had — Austrian roadside enforcement is routine, and we are not going to quote you a limit we have not read the statute for. Book a taxi or ask the hotel.
What still needs booking
The evenings here look after themselves. These four do not.
Kit sorted before you fly
Two Bründl Sports shops, one in the village and one on the glacier, with a deposit today and the balance at the counter.
Where dinner actually happens
In a village where half board runs the evening, the places worth leaving the hotel for are a short and specific list.
Where you sleep decides your evening
Kaprun or Zell am See, and what each one means once the lifts have stopped and the bus is no longer free.
The evening that is not a bar
The thermal spa, the ice and the winter walking — which in Kaprun is a bigger part of the week than the drinking is.
How we checked every name on this page
- Every venue was opened in a browser, one at a timeIn September 2026 we opened each venue's own website and read what the business says about itself — what it is, where it is, and which parts of it run when. Nothing on this page came from a directory, an aggregator or a review site, and no rating, review count or star score appears anywhere on it.
- Three names, and the reason there are only threeOther Kaprun bars are listed on ski-holiday sites and in older guidebooks. We could not confirm from a first-hand source that they are still trading, so they are not here. One of them looks to have closed several years ago and is still being recommended in print, which is exactly the fault this check exists to prevent — we found the same thing on one of our own Italian pages, where a restaurant we had recommended had been closed for over a year.
- No opening times, no prices, no drinks listsHours change every season and a guide carrying last winter's are worse than one carrying none. Where a venue's own schedule genuinely shapes your evening — a weekly rest day, a club that runs at weekends rather than nightly — we tell you the shape and send you to the venue for the detail. And there is not a single price on this page.
- What we will not claimWe have not worked a season in Kaprun — our Austrian seasons were Söll, Mayrhofen and Kitzbühel — so nothing here is dressed up as a personal favourite. We also will not tell you what the Austrian drink-driving limit is, because we have not read the statute and a legal position is not something to paraphrase from someone else's summary. And where a venue's own status was unclear, we have said so on the page rather than rounding it up to open.
Kaprun après ski: what people ask
Is there much après ski in Kaprun?
There is real après and there is not much of it. The village has one large après operation with an open-air arena, and two bars in the centre that carry the rest of the evening. It is busy for a couple of hours after the lifts stop and quiet by mid-evening on most nights. For a lot of people — families especially — that is precisely why they book Kaprun rather than somewhere louder.
Where is the best après ski bar in Kaprun?
The Baumbar, on Sigmund-Thun-Straße, and it is not really a close-run thing. Its open-air Après Ski Arena is where the afternoon happens, and the same site also holds a large restaurant across several rooms and a disco with a stage for live acts and DJs. If somebody in the village points you at "the après", this is what they mean.
Does Kaprun have a nightclub?
Yes, at the Baumbar — a disco and club with three bars and a dance floor. The important detail is that on the venue's own published hours it opens at weekends rather than every night, while the arena and the restaurant run daily. So a Saturday in Kaprun and a Tuesday in Kaprun are genuinely different, and it is worth checking the current schedule before you promise anyone a big night.
Is Kaprun or Zell am See better for a night out?
Zell am See, comfortably, and the resort itself expects you to go there. It is a proper town with a run of bars and enough choice for a large group, seven kilometres away and on the same lift pass. Kaprun is better for a couple of good drinks in the sun followed by dinner and an early start. Plenty of people staying here spend two or three evenings of a week over in Zell.
Can I get the ski bus back from Zell am See at night?
Not on the free ski-bus arrangement, and this catches people out. The lift company's own information says the Zell am See to Kaprun buses are free with a valid Ski ALPIN CARD during the operating hours of the mountain lifts — which a night out is not. Within Kaprun itself the ski buses are free for everyone, but they do not run all night either. Sort your way home before you go out rather than at the bus stop.
What time does après ski start in Kaprun?
When the lifts stop, which is the honest answer and the useful one, because it moves through the season. The practical point is that the busiest hour of a Kaprun evening is well before dinner rather than after it. If you go back for a shower and reappear later expecting to find the afternoon still running, you will have missed it — go straight there in your ski gear like everybody else does.
Is Kaprun any good if you do not drink?
Unusually good, actually. There is a large thermal spa on the edge of the village that does more evening custom than the bars do, an outdoor ice rink when the weather allows, and cleared winter walking paths. Add the fact that most hotels here include dinner, and an evening in Kaprun does not have to involve a bar at all. That is a real answer rather than a polite one.
Are there bars on the mountain above Kaprun?
There is mountain catering on both the Maiskogel and the glacier, but we have deliberately not named an on-mountain après bar here, because we could not verify one against its own website when we checked. The après that this page can stand behind is in the village, at the bottom of the gondola. If you know a hut worth adding, the form below is the fastest way to tell us and we will check it.
Know a bar we have left off?
This page is short on purpose — it only carries venues we could check ourselves. If we have missed somewhere good, or something here has changed hands or changed hours, tell us. We check every submission before anything goes on the page.
First things first: the equipment
The bars will still be there. Book the skis before you fly and collect them from the counter nearest your bed — a deposit today, the balance when you pick them up.
Book your Kaprun ski hire →