1524 Sansom Street, Philadelphia, 19102

Phone: (215) 972-9938

Get rid of all the red. It makes the place look like a strip joint.

Oscar’s Tavern is similar to your standard corner bar. Oscar’s gets a lot of business from the center city lunch crowd, but unlike the Sansom Street Oyster House, or other upper scale places, Oscar’s niche is blue collar. Many of Oscar’s customers are construction workers, delivery people, and other people who do not sport the corporate look for lunch. 

Because Oscar’s is blue collar, I found it very refreshing. It gets very onerous being around a bunch of pretentious corporate types. Just because they have a piece of paper from a college they think they are better than their common man—bullshit! To all you paper-toting college-graduates, having a piece of paper does not mean your intelligent. Here is the test—if a college degree was not required for your job 20 years ago (e.g.: bookkeepers did not have accounting degrees) then get off of your high horse. 

So anyway, it was very refreshing to have lunch without all those corporate types. Oscar’s is definitely a place where you can have a beer with your lunch because the bar fly whose drunk at 11:30 will not be giving you that: “I can not believe they're drinking look.” They have some descent taps, sporting Harp, Molsen, and others. You can get two different sizes, the standard mug, or the large Weiss Bier glass.

What did put me off about the place was that the menu was quite pricey. You naturally assume to pay higher prices in Center City, but in a place like Oscars you would hope that they give the common man a reach-around. A hot sandwich is on the order of $5.00 and you would expect that to include fries, but it does not. Those prices are just a bit high for a place that looks like a cheap strip joint.

- As reviewed by The Nutty Irishman

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