I Bar

While MooTime draws families with waffle cones after beach days, I Bar pulls a different Coronado crowd: active-duty aviators, veterans making pilgrimage, and Top Gun fans who want to ring the bell in the place that inspired Penny's bar. This is an operational military officers' club on North Island Naval Air Station, which means you'll need a military ID or a sponsor to get through the gate — not a detail the movie mentions.

The bar itself is small, tight, and layered with decades of squadron patches plastering every surface. The bell hangs above the bar — ring it, you're buying a round, just like the movie trained you to expect. Models of jets and helicopters dangle from the ceiling. Astronauts occasionally stop by. It's not theatrical; it's just what happens when the same bar has served naval aviators since long before Tom Cruise showed up.

Drinks are standard base pricing — beer, wine, basic cocktails without craft pretension. You're not here for mixology. You're here because this is where they actually filmed reference footage, where production designers took measurements and photographs to recreate on a Hollywood soundstage. Every piece of set dressing in the movie's Hard Deck traces back to this room.

The authenticity cuts both ways: it's absolutely the real thing, but access is restricted, hours are unpredictable, and it's genuinely small — maybe two dozen people before it feels packed. If you're military or know someone who is, it's worth the logistical hassle. If you're a civilian hoping to walk in off Orange Avenue, you're thinking of a different bar. This one sits behind the fence, on the flight line side of the island, where Coronado stops being a tourist town and starts being a navy town.