Bar #18: McGlinchey’s Bar and Grill Top’s, 15th and Locust
The sketchier regions of our bar graph are still pretty empty, so we’re going to try to challenge ourselves a bit more and venture out to some divier locations. With this in mind, after leaving Fado we walked around the corner to [attempt to] check out McGlinchey’s, a Rittenhouse dive bar that had been recommended to us. (edit: please refer to the comments and our post on The Franklin for a summary of our inability to find Irish bars) In terms of sketchiness, McGlinchey’s Top’s did not disappoint! The place smelled thickly of cigarette smoke, the bar was grimy, and the bartender treated us with contempt (especially after we asked if they had any specialty drinks). We ended up ordering two shots of Jameson, and were shocked when the TOTAL came to $5. This made us think that maybe we could get used to this whole dive bar thing…
Wonderfully cheap shots of Jameson at McGlinchey's
Cheers!
Our night only got better from there, as we started up a conversation with an awesome group of people who had been hanging out drinking and playing pool. One of them, Kelly, decided that we were the Sex and the City girls (Emily and I were out with our two friends Marissa and Kristen), and then naturally we argued for awhile about who was who. Meanwhile, one of Kelly’s friends had an uncanny ability to guess random specific details about Emily’s past.
From left: Kristen, Marissa, Kelly, me, and Emily!
We left feeling generally optimistic about the human race. The service and décor were indeed pretty questionable, but the vibe and the genuinely cool people we met there completely made up for it. We are officially fans of dive bars!
McGlinchey's Ratings
The Bar Graph: McGlinchey's
And no, our night did NOT in fact end there. Stay tuned.
—Brynn
