Meetinghouse sits at the corner of Cumberland and Memphis Streets in Kensington, the neighbourhood beer bar that took over the room Memphis Taproom held for fifteen years and kept its barroom bones intact.
The address is 2331 East Cumberland Street, on the same Kensington corner generations of locals knew as Memphis Taproom. When that fifteen-year institution closed, Meetinghouse opened in the space in August 2023, a change the Philadelphia Inquirer covered at the time. The new owners stripped the room back without gutting it, so the bar still reads as the same corner tavern.
The format is a neighbourhood beer bar with a kitchen that cooks from scratch. Meetinghouse runs a rotating draft list heavy on regional and craft pours, and the menu runs past bar snacks into proper plates. That keeps the room working as both a place to drink and a place to eat, which is how Memphis Taproom held the corner for so long.
The room is the draw for anyone who knew the old bar. The owners kept the wood, the bar layout, and the corner-tavern feel, and added new decor rather than a full rebuild. The result is a room that feels lived-in from day one, which a new build on this block could not match.
What to order is whatever is fresh on the rotating taps, which turn over often enough that regulars check the board rather than order by habit. The kitchen backs the beer with scratch cooking, so a round here comes with food worth ordering rather than an afterthought.
Pricing sits at the neighbourhood level, fair for Kensington and in line with what the corner charged before. The value is the combination of a serious tap list and a real kitchen at a corner-bar price, without the markups the Center City beer bars carry.
Hours run evenings through the week, with the room closed Tuesdays and opening earlier on weekends for late breakfast and lunch. Best time to go is a weekend late-morning for the kitchen and a quiet board, or a weekday evening for the after-work tap crowd. Who it is for: a Kensington regular, a craft-beer drinker who wants rotating pours, and anyone who misses the old Memphis Taproom corner. Who should skip it: a cocktail crowd, since the bar leads with beer.
The official site at meetinghousebeer.com carries the current tap list, menu, and hours. The room takes walk-ins, with weekend evenings the busiest stretch.
For more in the category, see our guide to the best craft beer bars in Philadelphia, browse the full Philadelphia bar guide, or compare it against our worldwide best craft beer bars roundup.
