Last year, Philadelphia Magazine deemed Chickie's & Pete's the Best Sports Bar in town saying: ESPN rated Chickie’s & Pete’s the third best sports bar in the country, and who are we to disagree? You can’t go wrong with throngs of bloodthirsty jerseyed fans, gigantic plasma TVs, cheap beer (plus more esoteric selections), fantastic mussels in red sauce (we may have heard something about the crabs, too), and, at the South Philly location, plenty of Dalembert and Donovan sightings.
Scoreboard Gourmet will hit the actual restaurant (one of them) later this summer. So far we've only experienced Chickie's & Pete's at Citizens Bank Park, where the line for the famous Crab Fries was crazy long - longer than any other line in the ballpark, including all the cheesesteak stands.
And since we actually wanted to watch some of the game we did not stand in line. Food concessions lines are pretty painful at Citizens Bank Park. Maybe it's because we attended a sellout (a legitimate sellout, meaning seats were full not just tickets were sold). Or maybe it's because many fans seemed way more interested in eating than watching.
One SG contributer was surprised to see the game was in progress - on an overhead TV - while he stood one of many lines. "It's so quiet," he said. "It's like there's no game at all."
Guess the aforementioned bloodthirsty fans are part of another season.
Chickie's & Pete's
1526 Packer Avenue (walking distance from the Philly Sports Complex)
11000 Roosevelt Blvd (gigantic TV's)
4010 Robbins Ave (orig location, also has TV's)
Philadelphia, PA
183 US Highway 130
Bordentown, NJ (near Trenton)
6055 Blackhorse Pike
Egg Harbor Twp, NJ (near Atlantic City)