PHLGuide
The One-Two Punch Guide: Summer Edition
photo credit: Tom McGovern
By now, you might be familiar with the One-Two Punch. It’s what we like to call any two-stop itinerary that has been expertly planned for maximum enjoyment. We’ve already given you our best one-two punch date nights, and now we’re back with another round.
What you’ll find here are two-step plans that are perfect for summer, whether you’re looking to just eat and drink or maybe get some activities going. Use these combinations for date nights, group hangs, and entertaining out-of-town visitors - or for when you just need an excuse to get the hell off the couch and do something with your weekend. We believe in you.
Cherry Street Pier / La Peg
It’s Cherry Street Pier’s first summer in the world, and in addition to lightening your hair and tailgating at a Phillies game, spending a few hours here should be on your nice-weather bucket list. Aside from the great views of the Delaware, there are a bunch of food vendors (like Little Baby’s and Hardena) and shipping containers made into pop-up art exhibits. They’re also doing flea markets every few weeks, and movie nights every Monday.
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The one thing Cherry Street Pier isn’t is a beer garden. So after you’ve successfully filled some bags with $100 worth of stuff you’ll “definitely” use from one of their flea markets, head across the street to La Peg and grab a seat on their huge outdoor patio for a beer and charcuterie plate.
Urban Axes / Tired Hands Biergarten
Outdoor activities in the summer are great, but sometimes it’s just too hot to fathom playing soccer with your friends on a Saturday during peak sun hours. Go to Urban Axes with them instead to learn how to (safely) throw sharp objects at a bullseye. You likely won’t be confused for Arya Stark by the end of your session, but you’ll probably be just as confident in your skills anyways.
Once the sun starts to go down and it’s pleasant enough outside again, head around the block to Tired Hands Biergarten. They have most of their beers on tap, as well as a bunch in cans to take home if your arms are too tired from throwing axes to lift anything repeatedly from a table to your mouth.
Manayunk Brewery / Chloe's Corner
The best way to deal with those days when you might get sun poisoning just by looking at the reflection off the sidewalk is to leave the entire city altogether. But when the shore is too far and the suburbs are too boring, spend the day eating and drinking at Manayunk Brewing Co. It has a huge outdoor patio that’s right next to the river, and it’s so peaceful you might even start to understand why anyone decides to live in Amish country.
photo credit: NICOLE GUGLIELMO
Before heading back home for the night, you should probably stop and get some ice cream - both because ice cream is objectively the best food item on the planet and because Manayunk happens to have one of those cute counter-service ice cream shacks that looks like it would be in a ’90s family sitcom. Chloe’s Corner is right down the street from Manayunk Brewing Co., and after a few beers you’ll be fully ready to appreciate the sobering powers of a chocolate fudge sundae.
Spruce Street Harbor Park / Zahav
Spruce Street Harbor Park is one of the nicest looking beer gardens in Philly. It’s covered in grass, with hammocks and Adirondack chairs scattered around, there are trees for shade (very important when August rolls around), and it has a floating beer garden barge for when you don’t have anything productive to do later that night.
While the food at Spruce Street Harbor Park is fine, you should really use your day there as a precursor to an early dinner at Zahav. It opens at 5pm officially, but if it’s a nice day out, it’s worth heading over at around 3:45 to be at the front of the line for their bar seats. That way you don’t have to fight a mom and her small children when she cuts the line five minutes before opening.
Garage / Barcelona Wine Bar
There are a lot of options for day drinking in the summer, but Garage in East Passyunk is one of the better ones you can choose. It’s a large, relatively empty space with garage doors that are opened as soon as the temperature hits 60, and it has one of the biggest canned beer selections in the city. It’s definitely more of a scene than a beer garden, but the beers are pretty cheap, and it’s usually less crowded than its counterpart in Fishtown.
If you can keep yourself from walking home at 6pm and napping, only to awake in the middle of the night ready for the day, take yourself and a few friends to a post-Garage dinner at Barcelona Wine Bar. They serve shareable tapas that will help soak up some of the drinks from Garage, and their outdoor patio is one of the best in the area.
Penn Museum / Ucity Square Beer Garden
This spot is Permanently Closed.
There are a lot of museums in Philly, from ones that house really old art to ones that house really old jars containing medically-interesting body parts, but the Penn Museum is the nicest one to hang out at in the summertime. In addition to the galleries full of statues and other artifacts, there’s a garden out front with a reflecting pool and some umbrella-covered tables that you can bring your own lunch to from Han Dynasty down the street.
Once you feel like you’ve gotten sufficiently cultured for the day, head to the pop-up beer garden at UCity Square. It’s a vacant lot for most of the year, but during the summer, the Philadelphia Horticultural Society turns it into a full-on forest, with big trees, wood-chip floors, and string lights. Even if you saw the word “museum” and skipped the first part of this one-two punch altogether, it’s worth taking a trip to West Philly to drink some craft beers in this Narnia-esque garden.
