Last Call at Big Bad John's

Free live music every night inside one of Victoria's most gorgeous rooms, in the old Bank of British Columbia, until 1am.

Order The Volcano (it's on fire), book the karaoke room, and accept that tonight is going to be a story.

Seven nights of live Celtic fiddle, the largest Irish whiskey list in Canada, and 1am doors on Bastion Square.

Twenty-nine craft taps, a late kitchen with a following and a historic brick courtyard open till midnight every night in Victoria.

An 18-hole haunted-house mini-golf course downtown with rocking chairs, transforming portraits, and a private ping pong lounge for the rematch.

Hold a tarantula at this tiny downtown menagerie of 50 species and discover exactly how brave your date actually is.

Victoria's first board-game café, eight dollars buys you all night, a game guru, paninis, milkshakes, and at least one minor dispute.

Victoria's neon-lit Korean pocha pub, where you pile the table with tteokbokki and pour each other rounds of soju all night.

Downtown Victoria's 4.8-rated Korean fried chicken spot, where the cheese-pull corn dogs are both a snack and a mild competitive event.

Downtown's most licensed way to throw sharp metal at things, with a scoreboard that'll tell you everything you need to know.

A women-run Fort Street bakery of French pastries and tarts, where the last croissant always causes a diplomatic incident.

Victoria's long-running Ethiopian-Eritrean room, where dinner is one shared platter by hand and the closing act is a from-scratch coffee ceremony.

Canada's largest used bookstore, three floors and roughly a million books, best navigated with a five-dollar scavenger hunt and no agenda.

Fort Street's oven-roasted Korean chicken spot where the lighter, juicier alternative to deep-fry has a near-perfect 4.7 to back it up.