Cavanaugh's

Ahh, Cavanaugh's - I knew ye well back when I did time at Drexel Penitentiary in the early 1990's. For five long years, Cavanaugh's was a welcomed respite from the day's classes of calculus and thermodynamics. When the budding P-town crew visited Cav's, as it was called, the crowd was primarily Drexel students. In the late 1980's Cav's was actually located on the Drexel Campus around 32nd and Market. When it was pushed off campus to the current location, there was still a contingent of DU students who frequented the place.

Of course a lot has changed since then: Drexel now has a Medical College, U of Penn has Michael Jordan playing on their basketball team and "I like Bush" bumper stickers are being printed again. Maybe not that much has changed.

Cav's is a pretty straightforward bar set-up. The main bar sits in the center of the room (seats around 40 drunken college students) and around the perimeter are tables/chairs and booths. On weekend nights the DJ sets up shop in the corner of the building behind the block glass pictured in the above photograph.

Cavanaugh's clears out a section of tables and chairs in front of the DJ on the weekends. This provides ample room for the college folk to kick up their heels, in spite of the fact that half of these lily white 20somethings can't do the Rob Base, Snoop Dogg and Puffy tunes justice. It's pretty funny to say, but the dancing crowd at Cavanaugh's is filled with newbies and amateurs. I really don't fault them since I remember being a college student and when you don't have much cash to spend, you're less likely to travel off campus to downtown dance clubs where the cover charge approaches double digits.

On tap, Cavanaugh's features Guinness, Bass, Labatt's Blue, Sam Adam's, Yuengling and Coors Light. Cav's also offers an extensive selection of 6-packs for take out. The food offered at Cav's is your average pub fare.

During our visit, a minor brawl broke out between an Indian patron and another bloke - both of which had a bit too much to drink. The crowd did seem to have a few different groups huddled together - the jocks over here, the Indian crowd there, the beautiful people in the back corner and dweebs held up in another part of the bar. For being an Irish themed bar, the Irish feeling of camaraderie was few and far between. Maybe management should import a few happy Irish, like the Plough and the Stars does. Even as we were wrapping up the night, the drunken Jocks were outside of Cavanaugh's acting drunk and obnoxious. Yeah, it's the college years all over again! As you have probably surmised, Cavanaugh's was a total sword fight to boot.

In this part of West Philly, parking will be a major pain in the ass. There are no parking lots nearby, so you'd better brush up on your parallel parking before coming down. If the Cav's scene becomes too much for you and you want to throw a few brews back in a more upbeat place (with more women too), roll 1/2 block west on Sansom to the Blarney Stone - it's the better bet - that is if you can peal yourself away from the latest Puffy re-mix.

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