Phone: (215) 625-6066

Their huge neon sign is obscured by the hotel's corner support column and a subway stop. They need to place their sign high on both sides of the Champions building. The sports memorabilia was mediocre.    

Champions has the TV angle covered. Their advertising pitch is that they have a whopping 22 TV's to catch all of your sporting events. But in reality it's two big screen TV's & twenty 19" TV's. The two Big Screens are up high on the rear wall and side by side for Pete's sake. They're great to watch if you're sitting directly under them, but if not, you'd better bring your binoculars. Wouldn't it make more sense that if you've got two big screen TV's available, throw one in each corner of the room, not side by side; what a waste. Ach (grumpy moan), I suppose I'm just spoiled by places like Jillian's that has a sports bar that is wall-to-wall 60" TV's - I guarantee that everyone in that place is not missing any of the action with that set-up.

The names of the food selections bordered on the absurd with the sports references like: Slapshot Chicken Cheese Steak, Big League Bar-B-Cued Pulled Pork, Rocky's Turkey Ruben, Knock-Out Nacho's and Slam Dunk Dip. I sampled the Rocky's Turkey Ruben, the Nutty Irishman had the pulled pork and Swankdaddy had his usual Chicken Wings. After the meal we all had the look about us that said: "It was good, but I've had better." When we first sat down at the table, we had a hell of a time flagging down a waiter/waitress. As I recall, Nutty had to perform a Salt & Pepper Rain dance on our table just to get someone's attention...Oh, but there is "all-your-digestive-tract-can-handle" free popcorn available to placate you while the kitchen performs its "magic."

The sports memorabilia at Champions is mediocre at best. Here we are in the 4th largest city in America and they're putting college basketball jersey's behind glass! C'mon! Show me something like the losing ball thrown by Mitch Williams in the 1993 World Series or see if you can get a football from the 1980 Superbowl where the Eagles were trounced by the Oakland Raiders. It would be nice to see more professional Philly ball clubs represented behind glass.

Champions provides two video games as entertainment for the sports fan: video golf and fishing - SNOOZERS! These are the sorts of games that you find in the "Game Room" of the No-Tell Motel down on the Admiral Wilson Boulevard. C'mon Champions there are games available with better effects and even something called Virtual Reality - Welcome to the year 2000.

Champions carries the following on tap: Bud, Bud Light, Sam Adams, Guinness. Embedded in countertop of the bar are baseball cards (old and new) encased in what appears to be a thick layer of polyurethane. I'm sure someday they'll be worth something, but you'll have to pull a Jurassic Park-type extraction to remove them at this point.

What was interesting about Champions was their pint glasses. On the bottom of the glasses are carvings of various sports balls: baseball, football & basketball & golfball. I've never seen that before, but then again I'm not much of a fan of the "sports bar" theme so this peculiarity may becoming standard issue at other such bars.  

Finding Champions can be a bit difficult. Their huge neon sign is obscured by the Marriott's corner support column and the subway/bus stop shown in the picture on the right. They need to place their sign high on both sides of the Champions building. There is a subway entrance that adds to the clutter of their front façade which doesn't help matters either. Just look for the Hard Rock Cafe, Champions is directly across 12th Street.

Champions is hidden behind a subway/bus stop. They need to move the Champions Sign higher and brighter.