It's hard to believe, but in the land of cheese steaks & hoagies, there are 2 southwestern bars along South Street: Abilene and Manny Brown's. I'm sure it has something to do with the Big Fajita cartel that operates out of the Southwestern US, getting young Gen X'ers addicted to their sizzling pans of steak and chicken strips back when Gen X was barely off of the children's menu.  

Manny Brown's goes one step beyond a Chili's and pushes the Southwestern motif with faux snake-skin booths, Texas  longhorns mounted on the walls and copper clad tabletops. Their menu offers southwestern staples such as burritos, BBQ Ribs, fried ice cream and flautas. Although Nachos are now more mainstream than Salma Hayek, we gave this southwestern specialty a try. Unfortunately Manny Brown's "Cheesy Nachos" were a fistful of chips with a stickle of cheese on top. C'mon they're called Cheesy Nachos - that name conjures up a mountain of chips with a pyroclastic flow of cheese oozing down a valley of jalapenos, salsa and guacamole. Bottom line - the nachos sucked and to make matters worse, they took 30 minutes to come out of the kitchen. 

We've all walked into establishments and seen a couple dollars framed behind the counter. Well, one of the peculiarities of Manny Browns is a tradition of mounting dollar bills to the walls, ceilings and even wrapped around a Texas Longhorn (sacrilege!). 

Manny Brown's has a lot of cool things going for it. The front opens up in the warmer weather (see above pict) to become a part of South Street. The back room of Manny Brown's is an open area with tables,  window shades in the pattern of a holstein (cow), holstein patterned walls and a humongous leafy chandelier.

In the center room is the bar, a few booths, an impeccable tin ceiling overhead and TV's all over the room. In one area they have 3 TV’s all in a row – 2 of them were showing the Phillies game. Maybe it's just a pet peeve, but most bars have cable TV with a million channels, just give the drinking public 3 different sports to look at and for God's sake turn on the "Closed Captioning" for the alcohol impaired.  

The scuffed up bar (probably from one too many Achy Breaky Line Dances) features 16 beers on tap. The highlights include: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Bass, Harp, Guinness, Boddingtons, Coors Light,  Sam Adams, Yuengling, Bud Light, Cider Jack & Fosters.

The Manny Brown's crowd is in their 20's. Most tables looked like they were grabbing a quick bite or drink before moving on to the next bar. Being centrally located, it's one of those bars that's great to meet up with friends or meet new ones. But with no live entertainment options, slow service and 50 other watering holes on South Street, there really isn't anything keeping you here.