The Roundup Saloon

It’s a bit unusual that there is such a dive bar within Lafayette. However, feel this allows a truly interesting mix of people in a pretty safe place in a rather earthy environment.
Whether in a group or alone, go down to the Round Up if you want to meet and talk to interesting people, be casual, and play a few rounds of pool, shuffle board or foosball. Sorry, but they got rid of the ping-​pong table.
Sundays and Mondays are a bit quieter allowing you to talk it up with people. Tuesdays the pool tables are free. Wednesdays with Karaōke can be pretty crowded, especially with Saint Mary students when school is in session. Thursdays, they have live music. And, Saturdays is another Karaōke night.
The best night depends on what YOU want.
I’ve been to a lot of bars and each one of them have their own uniqueness that individuals can love or hate. First impressions (or even second impressions) for someone new to the bar and who have to make a snap decision can be quite different from someone who has been going there on a regular basis and is more familiar with the daily and seasonal rhythm of the place, as well as the regulars and workers there who create the core spirit of the bar.
Sure, it’s a DIVE BAR! Cash Only! the bartender may be perceived as «rude» and slow, and the bathroom is pretty bad! But, this gives it a unique, earthy character that bluntly tells you we are all equal.
With a little patience and getting to know the regulars and the workers there, you will see what a kaleidoscopic mix of people make up the place, and how well they all get along with each other (for the most part).
Why five stars? Whether in the end you love or hate it, you just need to check out this unusual place at least once, if not three times, to get a sense of what it’s like.

We walked in for a drink so we could continue the warriors game and were not impressed. Bartender was not friendly and we didn’t know until we received our beers that it was cash only.

I have been here frankly too many times to count throughout the years. I do believe I actually ended up here on my 21^st birthday on my way to a crawl in WC.
I like many others have a love hate Slash don’t care relationship with The round Up Saloon.
We love it because it exists and it allows all the Moraga Lafayette Orinda folks to actually go out and have drinks without having to get their Butts to walnut Creek or Oakland. I personally like the fact they have their ping pong table and pool table.
I think people hate it for the same reasons we love it. First off its always hot as hell inside this bar. I typically sweat like a greased pig in a Texas summer weather when I’m in this bar. Also when it’s busy it can take anywhere from 8 to be 18 minutes to get a drink. This is typically because they only have one bar tender working even when it’s busy.
They do offer cheap beers and have some draft ones as well.
It’s by no shot a nice bar. It’s a dive bar. We go because other people we know do. It’s a hangout spot. It’s not where you want to take your date. It’s where you want to just get drunk and or be with your people’s.

Worst wait staff in the East Bay! Long waits and rudeness to customers. Stinking open-​latrine style rest rooms. This poorly maintained has-​been dive bar should have been torn down 20 years ago. One star due to live music and cheap drinks. Stay away!

I’ve been in here a few times, every time the bartender makes me wonder why I did. Im not a fan of the other pretentious options in Lafayette when I want a beer after work, so I want to like this place so bad,…but I can’t, the female bartender with brown hair in here which I always seem to get is borderline hostile, like I’ve walked into her house uninvited, kicked her dog and demanded she cook me dinner. She can’t smile, the word please and thank you are not in her vocabulary and I think her doctor has told her eye contact is potentially fatal. Maybe I’ll come back in another year and give it another try, hopefully she’ll have quit or gone to charm school. Until then I’d rather drink a 40 out of a brown paper bag under the freeway than come see her again.

I love the Round Up.
My friends introduced to me to this place after moving to Walnut Creek. Apparently it’s the only bar in Laffayette, which would explain why it’s always packed! But man, this bar has characters! The people that are at the Round Up are Saint Mary’s kids, married couples that would be my parent’s friends, old men and their buds (as my friends would say, if they are old enough, call the Uncle), and then the bunch of me, mid 20s overly single girls.
This place is always a good time and good laugh! Knocked the star off because the DJ would let random people do karoke for hours. NO THANKS. But other than that, Bartenders are sweet, bouncers are great, and the décor is questionable.
Also, beware for the bathroom. It being a round up… it’s a little small and yeah…
Round Up Tip: Cash only. There are banks nearby!

How great to have an unpretentious bar in kind of a pretentious town. The hand-​carved wooden bar itself is really great, the shuffleboard always welcome, karaōke fun if that is your thing. They have a good selection of everything– even those small champagne bottles! A good mix of people from college kids to after-​work people, to locals who’ve been going there forever.

Love this place. Cheap drinks (cash only), friendly crowd, karaōke on Saturdays, hot dog truck in the parking lot — what more could you ask for? Walking distance from Lafayette BART station too — so no need to drink and drive. Bartenders are friendly, Blue Moon on tap. Pool tables — live music on certain nights. Always a good time!

This is a cash only charming dive bar. I love the cheap drinks and straight forward service. I enjoy coming here with friends and meeting new ones. There’s shuffleboard which I am finding is a great game to play by myself or with others. Pool and ping pong can be played around the sides of the bar area. Just remember. Don’t bring your drinks outside.

I wish they had good bartenders, the place located close to me so I’m always hopeful. The female bartenders should leave the service industry forever, they are rude and I’m amazed the owners are oblivious to their terrible service and rude behavior, I will never return three again until there are new bartenders. The guy with the handle bar mustache is a great bartender … Hence the 1 star

How have I not reviewed this place yet? This is the classic spot for my friends and I. The drinks are decently price and the atmosphere is chill. It’s the only bar worth hanging out at in Lafayette. They always have sports on t.v. and sometimes have live music. The bartenders are friendly enough but some are nicer than others. I love sitting around one of the round tables with all my friends or family.

Always nice to stop by a bar. Play a few games of pool with some friends. Enjoy and relax. Nice bar

Great local dive bar with wonderful characters and awesome live music.

To say that this place is my favorite local watering hole is an understatement. The friendliest staff, cheap drinks, inspiring graffiti in the women’s bathroom– what’s not to love?
I do frequent this place earlier in the day so not sure if the crowd gets younger and worse as the sun goes down but if you are looking for a chill, fun place to enjoy a beer, whiskey or 5, this is your place.
The ambiance is one that brings a smile to even the meanest of faces, with memorabilia dating back decades, you really feel like you have stepped into a little piece of old school Lafayette history.
Just one last shout out to the bartenders who are always welcoming, friendly and quick on their feet.

If you want to go in there for an ice cold beer! Get ready to deal with an ice cold bartender!

The Roundup is a little piece of Lafayette history. Located across from a Starbucks and as you enter La Fiesta Square, this divey, cash-​only bar seems somewhat out of place… but it’s been here since as long as I can remember and barely anything has changed since the first time I stepped in.
What hasn’t changed:
***It’s still a dive: In this upscale area where you would expect to find a wine bar or a gastro pub, this place is still the sticky, rowdy «scene» that it’s always been.
***It’s still stuck in the payment Stone Age: Like I said before it’s cash only so if you forget, you’ll have to use their on premise ATM or walk down the street to the bank
***Shuffleboard and pool is still a staple: There is still always a shuffleboard or pool game going on in this place
What has changed:
***Karaōke: Yes I said Karaōke! They have it on the weekends and it’s a bizarre mix of good and bad (a couple weekends ago I saw nautical clad folks do a pretty good rendition of «I’m on a boat!»)
***Wifi: This hasn’t changed recently but it is new if you haven’t been to the bar since your first weekend back from college. And yes this means that occasionally during the work day you might see a business person at the bar with their computer.
If you’ve been around Lafayette long enough to remember Petar’s (sniff) or the Kilarney house or that weird bar/​club-​ish place that was down by the old Hillside Inn, then you can appreciate that we have the Roundup right where I remember it, across from Uncle Yu’s. For a divey and historic bar holding both old and new memories, Yay! I’m a fan!

This place is in the wrong spot… It needs to be in Rodeo or Concord. Lafayette needs to run them outta town! Fights are common. Owners look the other way. Patrons from out of the area frequent this place and typically cause problems. BUYER BEWARE !!!

Was here tonight for the first time, despite living in Lafayette for 3 years now and being in my mid-​20s.
The crowd wasn’t too bad, definitely not as full as I’ve seen it some nights when driving by, but it was still pretty full. The clientele was people of all ages and ranged the full spectrum (I.e. appearing very wealthy, looking like a biker, or college students).
I’d say service matches your standard dive bar – could be great or could suck, depending on the bar tender and how you act, as well.
I’d come back, maybe, but nothing stood out to me as being «Omg I NEEEEEEED to come here again!!»

A gaggle of girls in matching Urban Outfitters skinny jeans drunkenly butchering Miley Cyrus on the karaōke machine, a deranged elderly lady picking up pieces of her lipstick off the damp bathroom floor to use at a later date, smug guys with sporty haircuts in RVCA bro tanks trying out embarrassingly bad pick up lines… I wasn’t prepared for The Roundup Saloon.
It’s a reasonably energetic, shabby bar equipped with a jukebox, pool tables, karaōke, shuffleboard, taxidermy, pinball, and ancient video games. It seems like there’s a shortage of locations to swill alcoholic beverages after hours in this area so people of various ages all gather here. The place could definitely benefit from a good cleanse but in all fairness, it is a dive.
I wouldn’t mind the absurdity of the atmosphere so much if my drink wasn’t so terrible. Whiskey sour somehow translated to Country Time lemonade mix with a wimpy splash of Jack. The bartenders look completely disinterested in serving anyone. It’s a cash only, pay as you go type of deal. Tipping seems like a laughable concept at this place yet I did it anyways.
Set the bar low, folks.

Whoa… What happened to the cool bartenders?
It had been years since I had been to the good old Roundup, let along a bar in general, and since my best friend and I wanted to meet up at a so called «dive bar» just for the heck of it to grab a drink, I decided to take her to this little saloon that I once thought was quite cool.
Ok, ok, so I still absolutely loove the completely ancient, rustic, never been touched since it opened in the early 1900s ambiance — all equipped with pool tables and a jukebox playing back to back 80s rock music, but my gosh, you would think that an actual cool bartender would come with the package right? eehhh
We went to the bar to order our drinks from the so called «bartender» and we asked about the different beers they had available. He rolled his eyes and vaguely went over the different types… almost like a teenage girl finding out she was grounded for staying up late… this guy was literally a priss disguised in tattoos… who was he foolen? We then ordered our 2 beers. I pulled out my card to pay which he then CLEARLY STATED that its cash only and that an ATM was towards the back… Ok dude! Sorry its that time of the month for you! Well, we decided to not let him ruin our experience here, so we paid for our drinks and sat at a nice round table far away from the WONDERFUL bartender.
We ended up getting in a few good laughs and took in the rest of the cool ambiance. The beer we had, also took the ease off. We were there for less than a half hour and decided we had enough.
You know, the place is certainly quite cool as far as ambiance goes, and if it wasn’t for that poor bartender, we probably would have enjoyed ourselves more, but unfortunately attitude and drinks just don’t mix… at least not with me. We did however get in a few good laughs.
Well, don’t think I’ll be haven any ROUNDS here again.