Philadelphia: the Non-Running Stuff

While we wait for the next installment of #goofyinaday Holly and Dave share the non-running portion of their recent trip to Philadelphia. The purpose of the trip was so Holly could participate in the city's 20th running of their marathon. While there they met up with some friends and did some touring.

After landing at PHL and checking into our hotel we walked over to McGillin's Olde Ale House. This place has been a pub since 1860. The two floors of the pub are not too big, but were very crowded on a Friday night. Not really the best place for us to meet up with some friends and have a conversation, but the beer list looked good. Unfortunately, we chose to sit in the "quieter" upstairs area that had the limited beer menu. still good choices, just not as robust as downstairs. After eating we found the quieter Fergie's Pub more suitable for conversation. We're not sure how 1:30am came around so quickly.....

 

The next morning we drove with Eddie to Independence Hall and The Liberty Bell. Dave was upset to learn that the crack in the Liberty Bell was not a result of being shot. Yes he really thought that was how it happened. The guided portion of the tour was through Independence Hall while the Liberty Bell display area was self guided. We had a great tour guide that balanced humor with history. One of the funnier events was when the city tour bus wrapped in a Grand Theft Auto V ad drove right in front of the hall.

 

After that we headed to the Pennsylvania Convention Center for the Race Expo. After much shopping by Holly and Eddie we ran into more friends (Rich and Helen) and drove together to our lunch spot. Triumph Brewing Company was in the Old City area that had brick and stone streets surrounded by cool bars and restaurants. Matt and Joe met us for lunch and we had fun sampling the 8 beers on tap and enjoying some great food.

It's too early for dinner. Let's hit another brewery! We drove a few miles to Yards Brewing. Yards was a big brewery with a taproom and snack bar vs. Triumph being a brewpub/restaurant. Lots of communal tables filled with the younger crowd. Those of us still drinking had flights of four beers each and we tried their delicious root beer.

We needed to get Eddie to a sports bar so he could show us War Eagle Tourrette's and watch the Georgia/Auburn Game. He had tickets to this game and gave up going to spend the weekend with us and run with our friend Joe in his first marathon. We chose Smith's Bar since it was near our dinner location. If you are looking for this place, do not trust Yelp! or Apple Maps app to find it. thankfully we were meeting Sue and Anthony here and they messaged on Facebook how to find it. Smith's was nice and had some decent stuff on tap, but not too much local.

The game was still on while we were eating dinner at Pietro's on Walnut. Great food! Holly had the traditional pre-race spaghetti and meatballs and Dave had the coal oven pizza. Worth a repeat trip for both items.

From Google Images

Fast-forward to after the race Sunday. The plan was to do the Pat's/Gino's cheesesteak face-off but the traffic in the city was a mess. We chose to walk over to the Reading Terminal Market and get stuff there. The market is cool. It's an old train depot turned into a kicked-up food court. We could have explored all the food options here for days before we would feel we tried it all. Holly had a cheesesteak and Dave had the famous Tommy DiNic's pork sandwich. He didn't like what was once dubbed "the best sandwich in America". Afterwards he wanted a single scoop ice cream cone from Bassett's that ended up being what felt like an entire pint.

Our friends took off for home and we still had the rest of the evening in the city. We headed over to Nodding Head Brewing. It was on a second floor location in an older building. The bar was small and the entire room was kinda dank. Overall the beer wasn't anything great. We left Nodding Head to move a few doors over to Ladder 15. Quite a contrast. Nice and modern vs. old and dank. Good beer selection and tasty chicken wings. Our final stop of the evening was the hotel bar. We were pretty darn beat.

Out of the local beers we tried with liked Sly Fox's O'Reily's Stout and Yard's Washington Porter the best. Triumph's trippel was also pretty good.

We didn't get to do everything we wanted to do, but still got to visit a few decent places.