A beer garden in Philadelphia? Morty i think someone is finally listening to you (the illadelph)

Eating the Illadelph: Could an actual beer garden be coming to Philadelphia??

We were very excited to recently hear about a dude (or a bunch of dudes) bringing an authentic beer garden to Philadelphia. Mentioned on Foobooz and Food and Drinq thus far, the project right now is nothing more than allegations. Nevertheless, they provide reason enough to be optimistic.

We’re chiming in on this because it is an issue in which we have long been interested… Why aren’t there more opportunities to drink outside in Philadelphia?

We’ve talked about this before. And in time since, we may have missed an opportunity to do an amazing beer garden project in Bella Vista, but at least we recently found a potential replacement in another nabe that promises to be even better.

So it’s good to hear that someone wants to bring a German-style beer hall or garden to the city and have it open in time for the fall. They're currently looking for a location.

We hope that they pick a good one. (Like the Roman-forum styled former warehouse at 15th and Carpenter currently for sale (above).)

And that they incorporate best practices. (Like retractable roofs [right].)

Because Philadelphia has some damn fine weather much of the year. Might as well enable people to enjoy both it AND a large frosty pint of beer at the same time.

- Meanwhile, Alison Barshak and her crew were going to turn the outdoor patio and dining area at Alison at Blue Bell (above) into a beer garden for the upcoming Philadelphia Beer Week. But for reasons unknown, it has been postponed until spring and is not going to happen for Beer Week. For shame, Alison. For Shame.

- Last we heard, Mark Bee still wants to add a beer garden to the side parking lot at Silk City this spring. That would be good.

- Even the marketing folk at the Kixx realize the allure of a beer garden. They’ve got a new one. Too bad it, like the “beer garden” at Reading Terminal, is indoors.

* Note: while we are definitely proponents of the beer garden concept, we are not picky about how it manifests itself, i.e. we don’t care if it’s an authentic German beer hall with seven different kinds of wurst on its menu or an American mashup. We just really want there to be more places to go where you can drink a beer outside in the afternoon. It’s a quality that is simply inappropriately absent in Philadelphia.