Phone: (215) 413-0455

What I’d Do To Improve the Place:

Change the outside façade to make it look more like a bar and less like a house.

The Druid’s Keep—it has a nice air to it.  It reminds me of a classic British pub name, or a name out of some fantasy novel—the Vulgar Unicorn or the Dragon’s Talon.  The dark ages style sign also provides the mystique of a pub out of a fantasy novel.  I was almost expecting to see Gandalf the Grey or Bilbo Baggins inside the bar. Unfortunately, the building’s façade makes it look like a house rather than a bar.  If it was not for the hand written sign on a chair outside the door stating that they were open, we would have just turned around and continued on our pub crawl.

Like bold adventurers of old, the Phillytown.com crew wearily approached the Druid’s Keep after a tiring journey from the 700 club, an entire 2 blocks away.  Our heroes paused outside the tavern wondering if evil befell the humble establishment--closing it, or if the tavern would just provide quiet sanctuary for our weary travelers.

With nods from the rest of the party the Celtic Rogue approached the door and slowly slid it open.  Our hero was met by 10 pairs of eyes as the room turned to survey the new arrivals.  The Rogue paused in the doorway, his large frame blocking out the rest of the party, as he judged the friendliness of the two dogs that eyed him suspiciously.  The black Labrador turned his attention back to his master and the German Shepherd promptly followed suit. 

The human folk seemed to have the same attention span and went back to their hushed conversations over their tankards of beers.  The Rogue moved to the center of the room to allow the rest of his party to enter the establishment.  He spied a table by a wall and took a seat with his back to the wall as to not leave his back exposed.  While the group’s wizard, the Mighty Dog ordered the drinks from the comely barmaid who exposed a fine length of leg, the Rogue eyed up the establishment.

The Druid’s Keep consisted of two rooms, the main room and a back room where a young blues band was playing.  The back room had a large beautiful painting of the sign that adorned the outside wall proclaiming the house as the Druid’s Keep.  The main room contained a beautiful bar that sported taps for Miller Lite, Yuengling, John Courage, Celis, Yards, and Guinness.  The bar also provided entertainment of darts, chess, and backgammon for its clientele which seemed to be mostly males in their early to late thirties.

Overall the Druid’s Keep is a nice bar to have a drink in, but it really is not a place to meet new people at. With the other Northern Liberties pubs of the 700 Club, the Standard Tap, and Liberties, adding the Druid’s Keep to the list gives you a very nice pub crawl—especially good for beginners.  The most difficult thing would be finding the Druid’s Keep because from the outside it looks like a house.  It does have some beer signs in the upper windows (which initially drew us there) but as we got closer we thought that it was a college kid’s house.  The give away was the sign for the Druid’s Keep, which as mentioned above looks like medieval artwork.

- As reviewed by The Nutty Irishman

His other reviews include: The Elephant and Castle, Oscar's Tavern, The Samson Street Oyster House, Erin Pub, Maggie O'Neal's, Barnaby's, Shampoo, Rio, The Great American Pub, The Boat House & Valley Forge Brewing Company.

Sign a little faded, eh?