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Location: Center City, Phila, PA
Phone: (215) 567-5748 Overall Rating (1 to 10): 4 What I’d Do To Improve the Place: Add decent live music on a regular basis. Re-do the interior and lose the video games. Throw up a few dart boards (the real one's, not the plastic electronic darts.)
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| There is an old business saw that says: "The three most important aspects of a successful business are: Location, location, and location." Nowhere else is this more apropos than at Bonner's Irish Public. They're located at the
corner of 23rd and Sansom Streets, about one block east of the Schuylkill River. To put this in terms of an Irish Pub's location they're at the butt-ass of nowhere. Without going through a whole doctoral's thesis on How to Make A Successful Pub Work, the bottom line is that pubs need close
pub neighbors to work. This may not always apply in the 'burbs, but it is especially true in a city. The city has many clusters of eating and drinking establishments, which makes it relatively easy to do a walking pub crawl.
Granted, Bonner's Irish Pub is located about 3 blocks west and 1 block north of Bard's and The Irish Pub, but that distance might as well be as far as China. In the midst of a pub crawl, the ultimate goal is to hit as many places as possible in a short amount of time. Traveling 4 blocks for one bar is a tough call - you're going to encounter casualties ("My feet are killing me in these heels, I can't go on." "Need drink now, thirst killing me." "Too cold to go any further, I've lost sensation in my nether regions."). The exterior of Bonner's is great. The old style architecture is in-line with the Irish public theme. The outside color combo is mimicked on the inside as well. The interior is simply 2 rooms: the bar in one and about 12 tables and chairs scattered about in the other. There are three television sets, a dart board, a CD Juke Box and a couple of video games to provide the entertainment. The Two Leprechaun murals on opposing walls are a bit dated and tacky. The bar itself is a combination of wood and laminate (to provide the drinking surface). There are 6 brews on tap, one of which is Guinness, the rest are non-irish concoctions. I've tasted a better pour of Guinness elsewhere. The clientele is decidedly an older crowd, 30 plus. You're not likely to find many 20somethings here because the tunes aren't pumping and there is no chance of seeing a live act here. In another part of the city, Bonner's might bring in a larger crowd and as a result have more cash in the coffers to hire some live music and redecorate the inside. I'd take a lesson from either the Dicken's Inn or Bards on two extremes of decorating a pub that both work. Finnegan's Wake is by it's lonesome over on Spring Garden, but by adding some decent live acts and sprucing up the interior, the crowds flock there in droves. |
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