Philadelphia is My Home

15
Jun

It’s Friday! Do I Hear a Happy Hour Calling?

Author: Momish, Category: Nightlife

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It’s Friday! And you know what means? HAPPY HOUR!

Well, truth be told, Friday hasn’t meant Happy Hour to me in quite some time. Two years and 9 months, to be exact. But, today it does! I am heading out to meet friends I use to work with over in Jersey. {I know, I know, this is a Philly blog - but what can I do?}

Somehow I have finangled with my husband a Happy Hour night on the town. I am talking a bonafide Happy Hour night, as in leave directly from work. None of this running back home, feed the kid, run the dishwasher, give her a bath, then show up at 8 o’clock when everyone is half lit and heading home.

Back in the good old days when I worked in Center City and Happy Hour was a weekly event in my life, one of our favorite haunts was Oscar’s Tavern on Samson Street. Now, from the looks of that place, one would scratch their head as to why it would be an attractive prospect for such a young and hip professional crowd. But we never had a bad time there and the drinks are cheap, which is always a sure magnet.

If you’ve ever been in Oscar’s, you know how small it is. It is basically a row home with a bar, some old booths and beat up tables. Then there is the teeny eeny little aisle going down the middle. Each time we went there, we would marval at the folks already buzzed and dancing in the isle as if they were at Studio 54. We would stare, point, shake our heads in disbelief. We did this as if it was our first time there. We did this as if we weren’t aware of the fact that three drinks later we too would be bumping and grinding in that tight space, completely oblivious to the poor sod who was desperately trying to squeeze by so he could get to the bathrooms before he peed his pants.

Those were good times. Happy Hours in Center City were (and I guess still are) the best. Eating BBQ’d burgers on the roof of TGIF’s, licking the Tang off your Buzz Aldren at Continental, paying through the nose for a domestic beer at Davio’s…

<sigh>

I have been out of the loop for a while now though. So tell me, O’ wise and trendy hipsters, what is the latest happening place to be at 5:00 on a Friday night? Maybe I can squeeze out another night off from my husband soon and organize my own Happy Hour get together, fool myself into thinking I am still cool.