Are Philly’s holiday bars magical, or maddening? We visited 7 to find out

Time was Philly’s bars and restaurants decorated themselves for the holidays to make things a little cozier than usual, just like regular people do their own homes. They hung up lights and garland, and that was that.

But a holiday arms race has been brewing in Philly’s bar scene in recent years.

The Christmas Smackdown Bar Crawl — a decorating throw-down between Jose Pistola’s, BAR, and rotating Center City contenders — might have touched off the trend. Conceived in 2015 as the “adult’s version of driving around and looking at Christmas lights,” the contest had bartenders cutting out paper snowflakes in the summer months. (The smackdown’s back again this year for the first time since the pandemic, Dec. 20 starting at Varga Bar at 6 p.m.)

Then came Tinsel, a bar solely intended for the holidays. When the popup debuted in 2017 in a former jewelry store, it was decorated head-to-toe with every dollar-store decoration the Crafts Concept Group team could find. It went gangbusters.

The turnout has only intensified since, as have the decorations, now custom-made by CCG’s creative team, which includes an in-house architect, artists, and a set designer. “You always have to one-up it,” said Tinsel owner Teddy Sourias.

That success has sparked competitors — and crowds. This year, Philly’s bar-goers have more than a dozen holiday-heavy venues to choose from, and yet, you may still get shut out of them if you’re not careful with your timing.

Which begs the question: Is it worth it to plan your day around a holiday bar-crawl? I took it upon myself to find out.

It’s bitter cold outside, sweltering inside, and only a little crowded at Tinsel (116 S. 12th St.) on a Wednesday in late November. That’s good because there are no seats, nor hooks for coats — nice things you can’t have when hundreds of people pass through on weekend days. No matter. You’re not here to settle in; you’re here to admire a reference-riddled shrine to pop-culture Christmas while listening to holiday music from the last three decades and drinking out of a snowglobe.

If you struggle to read the infinitesimal font on the drink menu, know this: They’re all sweet. The bar is equipped with fresh juices, schnapps, syrups, and standard booze. I try my friend’s caramel-rimmed Yippee-Ki-Yay (apple vodka, butterscotch, apple cider) and have to take a moment to recover from the sugar. I can tolerate a spicy Heat Miser margarita, but beer would have been the better choice.

Drinks aside and without a crowd, Tinsel is fairly charming. “The more I look, the more I really like this place,” my friend says, pointing out one Christmas movie nod after the next. Technicolor portraits of Tim Allen in The Santa Clause, Keith David in Christmas in Compton, Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, and Whoopi Goldberg in Call Me Claus hang above the bar. There’s a life-size Bumble the Abominable Snowmonster, a manger scene with Gritty and the Phanatic, and whole walls dedicated to Scrooged and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. The months of prep work that go into planning the decor here shows, and it makes sense that part of the draw is seeing what they come up with year to year.

“I am really full of joy right now,” my friend says as we bid goodbye to a Christmas sweater-clad bartender and head back into the cold.

How do you transform an otherwise humdrum downtown bar into an overnight sensation? Hang hundreds of ornaments, thousands of square feet of garland, and dozens of strands of icicle lights and let the world know. As far as I can tell, that’s the secret to Craftsman’s Row (112 S. 8th St.), which was utterly packed at 5:30 on a Wednesday afternoon — to the point where snagging even one bar seat seemed improbable. Prepare to hover.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t have the fortitude to wait long amid a sea of customers waiting for reservations or a seat to open up. Browsing the menu shows Craftsman’s holiday cocktail selection includes stereotypical sweet notes — a boozy chai with salted caramel whiskey, a milk-and-cookies cocktail, a candy cane-tini — but numbers like the Under the Mistletoe (gin, honey, rosemary, yam puree, lemon) and the Averna-spiked tequila mule indicate there’s a little more going on behind the bar. Another perk: There’s substantive food, including a gobbler sandwich, a Christmas dinner burger, and a holiday meatloaf.

I’m contemplating a return trip, but probably post-holidays — according to Craftsman’s Instagram, even lunch reservations are wall-to-wall booked this month and crowds have been so intense at points that even walk-ins have been turned away on occasion.

My first attempt to visit this “popup” — the bar at 1840 Benjamin Franklin Parkway is always there; the ski lodge theme is not — was a bust. The doors under the Assembly Rooftop Lounge sign were locked and even once we entered through the Logan’s doors and found the right elevators, turned out there was a private event.

But curiosity compelled me to come back the next day just after the bar opened at 4 p.m. You can’t pick a better time than that, not only for the relative ease of getting a seat without a reservation, but also for watching the gorgeous winter sunset over the Art Museum, the Franklin Institute, and the Parkway.

Visually, the Alpine Heights theme is a light touch. There’s some greenery and decorative accents around, but that’s mostly indoors and the views are on the balcony. Still, the overall vibe is warm and classy, which I imagine is how a ski lodge feels.

No blankets were necessary thanks to a very active heater and a complimentary mug of wassail (my drink was still warming up), but they’re on standby. After sunset, it’s hard to see what you’re eating, but the saucy short rib rosti was genuinely warming, filling, and surprisingly well-priced ($18) for a rooftop bar, and the hibiscus-tea twist on a rum-based hot toddy was a good one. Best of all, the music — all non-holiday — was not blaring.

If you’re after maximalist decorations and holiday spirit, look elsewhere, but otherwise Alpine Heights hits the cozy-winter mark.

I went into this reservation-only popup with a healthy dose of skepticism. Presented by Bucket Listers, a multi-city organization that traffics in experiences and ticket sales, it costs $35 a pop, plus a $10 fee and sales tax, for one cocktail, light snacks, and a 75-minute seating inside a former cigar lounge plastered floor-to-ceiling in pink tinsel. It’s designed for Instagram (no wonder it’s already waitlist-only), and I’m generally not a fan of things sparkling or pink, unless it’s good wine.

But my world-weariness melted away within the first 10 minutes of a 2:45 p.m. seating. Maybe I was softened up by the surprisingly decent and strong cocktails, or the velvet sofas and cushy swivel chairs, or the fur-clad mother-daughter duo celebrating a birthday by taking selfies all over the room, or the three hilarious 60-somethings from Delco, in town for a holiday bar crawl, who scaled the merry-go-round pony for a picture. Or maybe it was that everyone seemed to embrace the fact that this is absurd, and so what? Either way, Sparkling Pink (1400 S. Penn Square) was really fun.

The mother-daughter duo did have a quibble, though: The snacks — edible glitter-dusted doughnut holes, macarons, and trail mix — were not cutting it. “We were expecting steak tips,” they piped up.

Who says holiday bars are only downtown? Much of Manayunk’s Main Street is decked out for the season, and this former outpost of the La Calaca empire is the most festive of all.

Taqueria Amor (4410 Main St.) has the decorating intensity of Center City’s Christmas bars — the entryway is padded in cotton that lights up red and green, the tables are gift-wrapped — but it manages to be more laid-back. The bartenders are easy-going, patient even, and the service is efficient without rushing you. That also means bar spots open up on the regular, so if you can wait a bit, you’ll likely be rewarded.

The holiday menu is mostly drinks, with just two food offerings (crab rangoon dip, birria tacos) whose seasonality is tenuous at best. A tequila cider was tasty, but unless you’re into spiked YooHoo or really want the drink in the Santa tiki mug (Bad Santa’s blood orange crush), you may want to stick to the usual margaritas. But hey, nachos are joyful in and of themselves. Here, decor is enough.

I hadn’t planned to visit this new addition to the Craft Concepts Group Christmas empire (which also includes the open-air Uptown Express at 1500 JFK Blvd.), but Sourias mentioned it had the best cocktails of them all. That’s hard to judge from one or two drinks, but safe to say White Elephant’s drink list runs way less sweet than Tinsel’s. The Old Fashioned Christmas was boozy with just a touch of gingerbread syrup, and the Polar Espresso Martini, while not the most Instagrammable, packed an adequate cold-brew coffee punch.

But it’s not the cocktails that bring you to White Elephant (1500 Locust St.). It’s the pink-white-and-silver disco theme with a Christmas nod manifest in the glowing pink trees, streamers, tinsel, ornaments, sequined stockings, and more. It channels a similar vibe to Sparkling Pink (pure coincidence — blame Barbie), but here you don’t need reservations.

One note: Instagram says it opens at 2 p.m. on Fridays, but the doors were locked. When I circled back shortly after 4 (when Google says it opens), all bar stools were claimed. By 4:25, tables were well on their way to being full. I wasn’t the only one led astray. A couple at the bar had killed time at Walnut Garden before returning to White Elephant right at 4; they were wise to the madhouse each and every holiday bar becomes. “I’m too old for that,” one of them said, sipping on a Rum Rum Rudolph.

The last bar in my odyssey took me alllll the way down to Packer Avenue, where the Prime Rib relocated three years ago. Of all the holiday popups, this one has the most restricted hours — 4:30 to 11 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays — but I was intrigued by pictures that showed polished hardwood, velvet and leather chairs and sofas, and furry pillows.

Alas, when I snaked through Live! Casino’s floor to the Prime Rib’s entrance, Vintage Apres Ski (900 Packer Ave.) was closed for a private event until later in the evening. Thanks to a friendly manager, I got a peek and can confirm it’s as classy and cozy as it looks. I could have stuck around, but I’m not a gambler, so I hit the road with a little less merriment. It was a fitting end to a bar crawl that reflects the winter holidays: sometimes fun, sometimes frustrating, always crowded.