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85 Awesome Places to Drink

Posted by Jason Sheehan on October 26th, 2011

Philadelphia magazine has released its Bars issue and listed the 85 best bars in the city and suburbs broken down by type.

For us here at Philly Mag, writing about drinking is a little bit like writing about art: We might not know precisely what art is, but we sure as hell know what we like. What’s more, we know what you like. And what you like is, well… everything. You like swank lounges and honest dives. You like the soft anonymity of hotel bars, the comfort of a street-corner neighborhood joint, and the raucous community of a sports bar on game day. You like gay bars and wine bars, gin mills, Irish pubs, British pubs, gastropubs and everything in between. And in this package, we cover them all.

Philadelphia’s Best Bars [Philadelphia magazine]


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    This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2011 at 12:13 pm and is filed under From the Magazine, Guides. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

    • http://gideonsbible.tumblr.com gijyun

      Not one mention of South Philadelphia Tap Room? Cummmmooooon.

    • http://twitter.com/alexrolfe alex

      wow.. that is proposterous. good catch gijyun.

    • Rachel

      McGillin’s didn’t make the list?! What are you guys drunk?

    • http://twitter.com/alexrolfe alex

      Oh, and no Khyber Pass. impressive.

    • yousuck

      Pathetic list, missing most of the good ones

    • Dan

      Hmmm, according to the list Paramour, a fully 1-month old restaurant-bar which has received tepid reviews, makes some of the best cocktails in the city. Well at least we know this isn’t related to advertising.

    • Joe K

      I hate to jump on the band wagon and agree with those who say that things around here are now being driven by advertisers. But I’ve seriously never seen anything more blatant. Kind of sad, really.

    • Ryan

      I know all “Best of…” lists get people worked up, but this is an absolutely horrible list that questions the credibility of anyone who currently works for this site and magazine… I barely got past Paramour and almost stopped completely at Fox and Hound.

    • David G

      Yes, grumble, grumble, this list is mediocre, somehow bestowing Coco’s and Bards as one of the best gastropubs in the city. I mean, Jesus.

      But all sins are forgiven, because it elicited this amazing comment on the PhillyMag article itself: “What no Capital Grille in Philadelphia! One of the best bars and bartenders (my son-in law especially) in the city. Gloria.”

      Gloria FTW!

    • David G

      “as one” should be “as some”

    • LipidLover

      Wow, another “Top X” post designed to incite and result in lots of responses/hits.

    • BenJaroo Green-Emlmin

      Hey Art… any chance we can all pool our money together and repurchase the website and put you back in charge?

    • barryg

      The cocktails at Southwark are not $15… they are actually a couple bucks cheaper than the ones at Franklin and Ranstead Room. What a dis.

    • http://www.federaldonuts.com Felicia D’Ambrosio

      I am uber-stoked the Clam Tavern made the list! Been going there since I was a kid and my Uncle Bob was a teenage clam-shucker/busboy. DelCo classic, yo.

    • Chris

      Coco’s has awesome burgers. How is the Grey Lodge not on hear they were a beer bar before it was cool to be one.

    • Rica

      Grace Tavern over Pistola’s? Blasphemy.

    • Willie

      @Dan: They’ve been suckin’ Paramour’s bozak from day 1. Been there, it’s not all that, but somebody’s getting a paycheck, y’know?

    • Willie

      @DavidG: Gloria is kvelling. Such a son-in-law!

    • KL

      In addition to SPTR and Grey Lodge, no Memphis Taproom or Kraftwork?

      Props for the Sweeney’s mention though…probably the last bar I’d ever think of that would get a Philly media mention. It is a true “Moe’s.” I will give them that.

    • really…

      foobooz has all but fallen off its credibility.

      philly mag is ran by jokers.

      this list is an embarrassment to philly, we should put the metro in charge of these rankings if there gonna be so out of whack.

    • Jobari Rolle

      Being in the publishing industry, i know most articles for monthly publications are due about 30 days before an issue goes to print. There is very little chance that anyone could make an official visit to Paramour since the place opened on Sept. 28th. What a sham.

    • Tex

      @ Felicia D’A: “Uber-stoked”? What are you, twelve years old? And don’t you have donuts to make anyway?

    • http://bhiladelphia.tumblr.com/archive bhiladelphia

      #OccupyFoobooz

    • Snake

      @KL

      Where is Sweeney’s? Sounds like a place that I’d like to hit.

      Fairmount always misses the cut somehow. London got mention for its bloody mary bar (deservedly) and it’s probably my least favorite bar in the neighborhood. BTW and a propos of nothing, Bridgids got a new chef and the food has made a nice turnaround. It’s a very recent thing, but it’s a spot that needed a little tweak and it’s much better. Forget the guy’s name, not a local celeb chef or anything, but he did work at Osteria.

    • rory

      more importantly, WTF is with this rebranding as “Love City” bullshit? fuck that. It’s either the City of Brotherly Love or it’s Philly or the Illadelph or Philadelphia.

      nothing else is acceptable.

    • Lord Chesterfield

      My friends and I are so hard. We only call it killahellfiah. And we give a sh*t about lists in magazines.

    • Andy

      Pineville Tavern is listed for craft beer, yet they don’t offer a single craft beer on their beer list (save the argument about Sam Adams). But, hey, they have Molsen Ice and MGD in bottles. Any list with a mistake such as this is extremely suspect.

    • Al

      So, will the next issue feature 85 awesome places to score the powerful hallucinogens the writers were clearly were taking while compiling this feature, or at least when writing the blurbs for each place?

      The Royal Tavern is apparently a good neighborhood haunt because it is “The bar you want to wake up in once you become the kind of person who wakes up in bars.” What can that possibly mean?

      The Ranstead Room is “a grittier, more authentic backup when you can’t get into Franklin Mortgage.” Ahh, right, if there’s one thing the Starr joints have going for them, it’s authenticity. And grit.

      The Bards is one of our top gastropubs. Sure.

      Paramour made the list because they’ve already zipped ahead and checked it out in mid-2014, then popped back to the current timeline to let us know. Those are some advanced reporting techniques.

      And while they were out there in the future, they discovered that the Rapture finally happened, and SPTR, Khyber and Grey Lodge were all transported off this mortal plane, so they couldn’t very well list them as good craft beer joints, could they?

    • Rick

      I second the lack of Khyber Pass on this list. “Gastropub” was quickly becoming a boring category for new places here in Philly and they basically brought it back from the dead.

      Obviously a bunch of the places on the list aren’t even bars (Percy St., Midtown Diner Fri Sat Sun, etc.).

      And Grace Tavern is probably the least interesting bar of the Tom & Fergie empire.

      Very strange list.

    • BillG

      Guys, no need to pile on about this.

      We can sum up the entire list with one statement:
      They called Fox and the Hound one of the best bars in the city.

    • JerseyGirl

      Ha!

    • NewInTown

      Hey everyone, I’m new to Philly and I’m looking for the best place to get good gin. I’m talking variety and quality.

      I’m sure this is the wrong forum, so if you can point me in the right direction – or if you just have some good suggestions – I would love to buy you a drink! Thanks!

    • Oscar

      What the hell happen to Foobooz?

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