Philly spent more money buying beer for the Super Bowl than at any other time in the past two years

On Super Bowl weekend, beer sales helped Delaware County’s 320 Market Cafe record its best weekend of business in its three-decade history.

“If you could drink it, people were buying it,” said Drew Beahm, bar manager of 320 Market Cafe, which has locations in Swarthmore and Media.

That wasn’t the only place people were stocking up for the big game.

Super Bowl Sunday was the single biggest day for beer spending in the region in the last two years. People spent more than 3.6 times as much money buying beer from grocery stores in the city and suburbs than the average day, recent analysis shows.

There are usually spikes in beer sales around major holidays — notably July 4, Thanksgiving, and New Year’s Eve — but nothing can compare to the Feb. 12, 2023, Super Bowl Sunday spike when the Philadelphia Eagles played the Kansas City Chiefs, according to an Inquirer analysis of spending data.

The data was collected by Facteus, an Oregon-based company that tracks debit and credit card transactions. At The Inquirer’s request, Facteus cofounder Jonathan Chin pulled data on dollars spent on beer at national and regional grocery stores in Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties from Jan. 1, 2021, through Feb. 28, 2023. The data compare total day-to-day sales and don’t reflect actual dollars spent. Data on neighboring South Jersey counties weren’t available.

Facteus didn’t have comparable data for Kansas City — so we don’t know which city had the bigger Super Bowl beer-buying spike. You can make your own assumptions about which city is better at imbibing. (It’s probably, definitely Philly.)

The data showed beer sales in the five-county region climbing from Thursday through Saturday the weekend the Eagles took on the Chiefs. Sales peaked on Sunday, confirming what managers of local beer stores said they saw on the ground.

In Drexel Hill, Woodland Avenue Beverage made $11,000 in eight hours on Super Bowl Sunday. A week prior, the day the Eagles played in the NFC Championship game, the store made $3,500, said manager Dav Scott.

“It was nonstop busy,” he said. “That is a lot of transactions for an eight-hour period.”

On both Thanksgiving Eve and New Year’s Eve 2022, historically the two biggest money-making days for alcohol stores, the store made about $12,000, he said. But on each of those holidays, it was open for 12 hours, meaning per-hour sales on Super Bowl Sunday were the highest in at least the past year.

At Franklin Beverage in Fairmount, business started picking up on Wednesday, with people putting in preorders and stocking up for parties, said owner Joe Carroll. Light beers and White Claw in particular were flying off the shelves.

Any playoff game for a Philadelphia sports team brings a bump in business, Carroll said, but nothing can compare to the Eagles in the Super Bowl, with sales that weekend up 50% to 60%.

In fact, the data show there are large spikes in beer sales during the playoff games but little discernible effect from regular-season Eagles games. For example, the Jan. 8 game against the Giants — the last of the regular season — was essentially indistinguishable from the next weekend, when the Eagles didn’t play because they had a first-round bye.

In Brewerytown, several people were waiting for Stone’s Beer and Beverage Market to open at 11 a.m. on Super Bowl Sunday, said assistant general manager Edgar Herrera, and there were long lines all day long to check out.

In all, he said, the store did six times its normal business, and far more than it does on Super Bowl weekends when the Eagles are not playing.

“There was almost a feeling in the air, a buzz,” Herrera said. “In the past, [Super Bowl Sunday] has definitely been more tame.”

Of the five counties, Philadelphia saw the largest Super Bowl bump in beer sales, followed by Delaware County.