We imagine growing up with a treehouse must have been awesome. We read about them in books and saw them in movies. Being raised in this town, there wasn’t much space, let alone a tree worthy of construction within the branched webbing. Pops was too busy hanging out at his clubhouse to help us construct our own.
Dive Bars are not normally Neighborhood Bars. Dive Bars have a reputation to uphold in this city. They thrive on grime and become self-parody. Clever witticism is usually scrawled on the bathroom walls in the form of haiku and something about your mother. You won’t find any pretense or shitty poetry at Stoke’s Sports Bar in South Philly. They don’t have a website. Always refreshing.
Draft beer is $2, and mixed drinks a dollar more. Name brand mixers, folks: Stoli (flavored as well), Absolut, Gordon’s, Bombay. $4 Johnny Walker Black shots. Usually a double, they’re good like that. An empty Gatorade jug behind the bar is a sometimes home to Hurricanes or Jungle Juice, depending on the event. You can smoke here, they don’t sell food. But, you might walk into a last minute crab boil or rabbit roast, all done on the sidewalk in front of the establishment. Women in the neighborhood come by with tupperware bins full of homemade salads and sides for the festivities. Oh, did we mention it’s always ON THE HOUSE?
Bartenders are patrons here, and sometimes vice versa. Larry, a gunshop manager and Atkin’s disciple, took care of us all night. His lovely girlfriend Michelle stopped by for a drink and affection. In place of celebrity glossies autographed with cheesy one-liners and well-wishes are snapshots of family and regulars, good times and better times. The late John Marzano called Stoke’s his home, they miss him very much.
Earlier that day a fire leveled the home of a regular. She showed up during our stint on the stools, but didn’t come to wallow in a bath of vodka. She was here to let family and friends know that all were safe and sound. Everyone offered condolence and a place for the displaced to stay. They knew her by first name.
In our tireless search for the next secret spot or ultra-hip dive bar, we couldn’t have been happier to find Stoke’s. Just a few steps from the Broad Street Line on Oregon Avenue, and far from the pretentiousness of the city lies a place we can call the clubhouse we never had growing up. You don’t even need to know the password.
Down the street and around the corner, at 17th and Shunk is also the awesome McCusker’s Tavern – been in the family 40 years and is like drinking in some family’s cool wood-paneled basement den.
Yeah McCuskers is cool like that if you’re a regular. If you aren’t everyone stares at you like you don’t belong.
Yar thar be a lot of dive under all of the half-assed paneling at McCusker’s. Peal off the “why the fuck is this column here” thing and there is an old, steel, Dorick column. It was known in the day as the Local Tappy (Tap Room.)
Oh, and I’m flagged.