‘Less happy hour, more night life’ has some Philly businesses seeing an increase in late-night spending

At 10 p.m. on a typical night at Good Dog Bar, Heather Gleason’s kitchen crew are restocking their stations, preparing for a fresh wave of hungry customers to come to the 15th Street restaurant. But it wasn’t always this way.

Good Dog, open daily until 2 a.m., used to earn between $1,500 to $2,500 a day between 10 p.m. and closing pre-pandemic. Then, pandemic restrictions temporarily shut down bars and restaurants throughout the city, decimating their business. Now, the late-night shift makes anywhere from $4,000 to $5,000 a night, said Gleason. When the Eagles played at home this month, they made $4,500 one evening.

“Dinner definitely is the busiest [from] like 7 to 9 — probably the most dense hours. But late-night has truly given it a run for its money,” she said.

Philadelphia has been trying to rebuild its nightlife since COVID-19 shut it down. In 2022, the city appointed Raheem Manning, cochair of City Council’s Arts and Culture Task Force, to be director of nighttime economy, a role that came with a broad mission to attract and retain businesses operating at night.

New data from Square, a financial service platform used by restaurants and bars, indicates that those efforts may be paying off and that Philly’s nightlife is beginning to bounce back from the effects of the pandemic.

Square examined hundreds of thousands of in-person transactions at cafés, food trucks, pop-ups, outdoor events, restaurants, and bars between April and June in Philadelphia, and found that the share of money spent at night on the payment app increased from 24% in 2022 to 30% this year between 7 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Manning points to the first full year post-COVID for concerts, with big-name performers coming to Philadelphia including Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Drake. Those kinds of large concerts benefit the nighttime economy as a whole, as concertgoers keep partying, getting food, or using gas stations, he said.

“I think that overall, since I’ve been in this role, there has been a positive trend for our nighttime economy,” he said.

At Concourse Dance Bar, a Market Street nightclub known for its ball pit, owner Avram Hornik attributes his uptick in sales to pandemic recovery and bad weather this summer driving customers indoors.

“Even last summer, there was still some post-COVID hesitancy. I think that is gone now,” he said.

Last October, Mark DeNinno, chef and owner of Chris’ Jazz Cafe, tried to bring back his lunch menu as workers returned to offices downtown, but customers weren’t coming in. So he pivoted, cutting lunch and instead focusing on drawing the late-night crowd with a new three-course dinner package that includes a live jazz performance.

The change paid off big-time: Now, they’re selling more food than they used to in the evenings, and the Friday and Saturday 11 p.m. shows are packed, he said. The profits have allowed him to increase wages for employees and provide health insurance.

“Quality of life is a lot better in the restaurant,” he said.

DeNinno has also noticed a change in who comes to Chris’ these days. In the past it was an older sophisticated crowd, but now he’s seeing younger people. He credits this new audience to the $150,000 he invested during the pandemic to livestream jazz performances.

As a result, now he’s booking younger musicians who are “a little funkier, a little loose, and really get the crowd going,” and most importantly, they know how to use social media to draw in a crowd.

“That’s been a real plus for the club and the people coming in late night. They’re really enjoying that type of energy,” he said.

McGillin’s Olde Ale House, the oldest continuously operating tavern in Philadelphia, has also seen growth in its late-night business since the pandemic.

Business is now fully back compared to pre-pandemic and doing even slightly better, co-owner Christopher Mullins Jr. says. But how that business is distributed throughout the day has slightly changed.

“Less food during the day, less happy hour, more nightlife, more evenings,” he said.

Operating a business that is open late at night has many challenges, including varying perspectives on the city’s safety.

“So much focus is on crime, violence, murders — all these things going on in Philadelphia. The reality is, it’s vibrant, it’s alive, it’s full of people enjoying the arts, the dining, and nightlife,” he said.

Less than half of Americans surveyed in a Gallup poll this year perceived Philadelphia to be a safe city. While Philadelphia experienced record levels of gun violence in 2022 for a third consecutive year, a report from the Brookings Institution concluded Center City was “remarkably safe,” compared to the rest of the city.

On Tuesday, dozens of people were arrested after groups broke into numerous stores around the city, including along Walnut Street, near many late-night venues.

Rising costs are also a concern. At Fergie’s Pub, a Sansom Street staple, co-owner Fergus Carey says he hasn’t yet seen profits bounce back from the pandemic, despite the steady return of thirsty customers.

“In this post-COVID world, business is back, costs are up,” he said.

Labor costs, ingredient prices, and delivery expenses make it more expensive to operate the business now than it did pre-pandemic — and then there are the loans that many businesses took out to make it through the pandemic that need to be paid off, he says.

NOTO Philadelphia, a nighttime entertainment venue, bounced back from the pandemic in 2021 and 2022, but this year will be worse than 2019, says James De Berardine, director and principal of No Ordinary Hospitality Group.

While customers came out in droves right when pandemic restrictions were lifted, he says they’re more selective now about how they spend their night.

“You have to be pretty careful about your programming. You have to know for sure what you’re putting on is going to work,” he said.

Now, he says the business is focusing on growing its private events revenue.

Running a late-night entertainment venue is risky and complicated, says Michael Fichman, a DJ and an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School. Many businesses have a “low survival rate,” he says, and a lot of the ones that have made it through the pandemic are still not fully recovered.

“A lot of these businesses are still in an extremely precarious position,” he said.

Expensive real estate prices and selling a “risky product” like live music are part of the issue these businesses face. While that’s not exclusive to Philadelphia, he says the city has a “uniquely complicated and highly regulated real estate process” that can add challenges for business owners.

What a healthy nightlife needs going forward is a transportation and safety environment that allows people to feel confident that they can “get to where they’re going after dark and feel secure,” he says.

The future of the nighttime economy also largely depends on what people want from it, he says.

Manning, the city’s “night mayor,” may soon have more insight on that. He plans to share a report with insight from his findings and observations gathered throughout a listening tour, with a strategic plan forward.

“The future of nightlife in many ways, depends on a new generation and how they want to experience social events in the city,” said Fichman.