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
Brynn I actually had a comment on your graph. Now that you are adding more bars, I was wondering if there was some way to make the last bar your adding stand out, either by underlining it for the post’s sake or circling it. For example, I was interested where you put Fado’s and McGlinchey since I’ve been to both and thought on the graph where I would have put them, and wanted to quickly see your location, but had to search through it to find where it was. That was fine with a couple , but now with all the fun spots its getting harder to find.
Seriously, you two are idiots.
you weren’t at mcglinchey’s, based on the pool table and background of the picture. you were at topp’s, which is above mcglinchey’s and a different bar.
penn chick slumming fail.
HA! Something about Irish bars, I think. (further proof Fado isn’t Irish) I mean, we’re trying! Which is more than you can say of most Penn kids. I suppose that would explain the tone of “LongtimePhillyBarGoer.” Thanks for alerting us. One day we’ll make it an Irish bar on the first try. One day.
Also just noticed the sign that says “Tops” in the corner of our first picture. We’re observant, really.
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