If it has good beer, good music and bad lighting it's already a nice place.
But my favorite place would be a place with my favorite booze, good music (mostly stoner, grunge or some garage. even some older classic rock/heavy metal) and nice food. Wings, nice portion of fries, stuff like that. Here in São Paulo, Brazil I have a favorite bar that is just that, a pub called Partisan's. Pretty cool place, mimics the characteristc pubs in the UK (underground bar, etc).
Not a big fan of clubs, I only go in clubs if I have friends that REALLY wanna go there or if it's mostly a rock club, that only plays stuff I like haha. Not a big fan of techno clubs, stuff like that. It's hard to explain because I imagine that clubs and bars are completely different in each country.