PHILLY'S BEST DIVE BARS : ENJOY!!

Philly's Best Dive Bars

Written by Eric Horvath

Take the Plunge College Living Ranks Philly’s Top 5 Dive Bars By Eric Horvath     We love lists.  “Top 10 this” and “5 Worst Ways To Do That.”  This whole town loves lists, actually.  Every publications has it’s own variation of a “Best of Philly” list, and each carries its own unique weight and significance within the crowd its constructed for.  This is our best of Philly list…with only one category.  You see, this is the one category that college students can honestly agree is a make-or-break situation for them on any given Friday or Saturday (or hell, Tuesday) night.  We like to think we know where the best ones are, and we’ve always got the inside story or guy on the inside to help us out.  “I got a guy, who knows a guy who told me about this great place with really cheap drinks, unpretentious music, a mechanical bull and ashtrays for seats!” is usually how the conversation starts.  Well folks, here’s how its gonna end.  College Living proudly presents our Top Five Dive Bars.     We made our decisions based on a few criteria: drink price and selection, setting/neighborhood, reputation, clientele and most importantly, hipster quotient.  The last criterion is somewhat tied to reputation, in that the level of hipsters is usually a good indication, one way or another, that a dive bar is either ‘up-and-coming’ or ‘come-and-gone.’  It may seem silly that a few patrons donning tight jeans, ironic t-shirts and fuzzy hats in June could sway a bar’s legitimacy in this list, but it’s a very real situation.  If a bar is infested with hipsters, that means it may be time to move on to a new watering hole, as drink prices tend to rise with the number of fixed gear bikes parked outside.  Without any further stalling, here’s our list.  Raise thy glass and argue away! #5 Locust Bar 235 S 10th St Philadelphia, PA 19107 Phone: (215) 925-2191     Easily one of the top dives in Philly, Locust Bar proudly straddles the line between undiscovered Philly treasure and dive bar gem.  Center City stalwart dives like Dirty Franks and McGlinchy’s could potentially stand in for Locust Bar, but luckily we don’t have to worry about some sort of constitutional dive bar succession taking place.  The Locust Bar is here to stay.  Situated on the corner of 10th and Locust, near Jefferson Hospital, the aptly named Locust Bar serves up the standard middle-class beer alongside more highbrow brews like Flying Fish along with even “regular Joe” bar food, like fried ravioli and waffle fries.     This may be the only thing keeping Locust at #5 on the list.  Also, last year’s smoking ban isn’t worth a damn in this place, so take that for what its worth.  Other than a grim food and drink selection and a White Album overload on the jukebox, the Locust Bar is the perfect place to go after work or class to unwind on the cheap.   The crowd is a good mix off drunk old timers and almost-drunk-but-just-out-of-class-students.  The best deal?  Make your way here on the second Thursday of each month for $2.75 pints of Yards, and make Second Thursday cooler than First Friday. #4 Bonner’s Irish Pub 120 S 23rd St Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 567-5748     Easily the hidden gem of the list, and for good reason, Bonner’s doesn’t yank in the college crowd that much.  Actually, they don’t yank in much of a crowd at all for an Irish Pub in Philly.  You see, to be an Irish Pub in Philly is like belonging to a soap opera family.  Some pubs had plastic surgery and went on to become famous (Kildare’s), some found success as a sort of regional chain (the generically named Irish Pub), and some welcome the ‘popped collar/new haircut/GHB crowd’ (Finnegan’s Wake).     Bonners, set off the west end of Rittenhouse Square, doesn’t subscribe to that trajectory.  As the black sheep of the Philly Irish Pub family, they take a no frills approach, with one room for a bar, and another with scattered tables.  Add in a few dart boards, video games and televisions probably playing The Departed on a loop, and you’ve got Bonners.  With nary a hipster in sight, the bar frequently drinks so cheap, there shouldn’t even be specials.  With a chill atmosphere and cheap drinks, why #4 you ask?  No live music.  While sometimes that’s a good thing, usually we’d like a little more stimuli than Jack Nicholson beating the shit out of people on TV.  That’s just us, though. #3 The P.O.P.E Pub On Passyunk East 1501 East Passyunk Avenue Philadelphia, Pa 19147     With this particular area of South Philly in the redevelopment fast lane, its tough not to recognize a bar like the P.O.P.E, which seems to be at the center of it all.  Literally in the center, perched on a Passyunk corner near Acme, Rita’s Water Ice and every other amenity you could imagine, the P.O.P.E acts as part medieval dungeon (sans Renaissance Fair) and part beer oasis upon walking in.  The dark but not dreary interior is supplemented by a huge bottled beer selection, dotted with many IPA and Belgian selections.  As for the cheapness…there are the old standbys like PBR and the like for reasonable prices, but the P.O.P.E’s devil is in their craft brew prices.  They even have Mississippi Mudd!     Cons?  Well, this brings us back to our nasty hipster quotient.  On any weekend night, you could easily arrive to see this place packed with every bearded indie music lover in town, as the P.O.P.E tends to turn standing room only on these busy nights.  Also, even with their incredible bottled beer selection, the P.O.P.E doesn’t get all culinary on your ass.  While most would expect some more intricate dishes from a place like this, you’re left with standard fried bar food.  We don’t expect highfalutin meals, though.  That’s what keeps this place a dive, and a pretty damn good one at that. Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar 1200 E Passyunk Ave (Corner of Passyunk and Federal Sts.) Philadelphia, PA 19147     Oh, where to begin.  Walk into Ray’s, and you won’t just see the ambiance, you’ll hear, feel and even smell it.  One of the preeminent ‘shot-and-a-beer’ joints in Philly, Ray’s is known for wild karaoke nights and moreover, the red carpet treatment on your birthday.  It really doesn’t get any more laidback than this, with a comfortable bar area, and second room behind the bar for private events or, you know, to just kick back and drink.  Bartenders like Tony keep the cheapest drinks imaginable (regular priced, anyway) flowing while surrounded by walls of historic pictures from other eras.     Nestled right behind Pats and Geno’s, the cheese steak casino/Mecca of the universe, Ray’s has gone from a cliché neighborhood bar into a dive phenomenon and must try for Philly visitors, and back again to its comfortable perch as a great place to enjoy a few laughs and a lot more beers.  The whole time, neither the bar nor its staff has changed one bit.  The beers are tastier, the shots are just a little stronger, and the karaoke is just a little, well, stop by and sing Sweet Caroline to see for yourself.  As soon as you walk in, you’re a regular.  Sweeeeet Caroline!  Ba ba ba! #1 Sugar Mom’s 225 Church St. Philadelphia, Pa 19106     Sugar Mom’s hit all the criteria on our list, and then some.  Conveniently hidden in Old City, among Stephen Starr goliaths like Continental and posh haunts like Buddakhan and Red Sky, Sugar Mom’s is, the put it bluntly, the shit.  If you can find it, on its Church Street hiding place, you’re in luck.  Enter the front door and descend the stairs into the dark, dank basement and you’ll be transported back to the illicit affairs of your misspent youth.  That is, if your youth was misspent boozing in the basement of a rodeo clown packing a fully stocked bar, pool and fooseball tables, dated lush furniture and, are you serious, a cigarette machine?!  Seriously though, this place is a diver’s paradise any day of the week.  Weekends tend to bring out the crazies, where Mom’s features the “Mom’s Bomb,” a “Jager-Bomb” type mixture of Southern Comfort or Jagermeister with Mountain Dew instead of Red Bull.     Weekend nights not your bag?  Mom’s has you covered, with not a window in sight downstairs, you can hide your hungover ass from all sunlight while drinking yourself back into oblivion.  $1.00 (!) PBR 16 ouncers will juice you through the day and into the night.  Weeknights you ask?  How about 25 cent pierogie Wednesdays?  We can keep going here, which is the ultimate demonstration of a champion dive bar: regular quality food and drink, on the cheap, with a solid atmosphere.  That’s all you can ask for from a dive bar, and we’re proud to say that Sugar Mom’s is THE #1 dive bar on our list.