Pub on Passyunk East, known to everyone in the neighborhood as P.O.P.E., sits at 1501 East Passyunk Avenue with a deep craft beer board, a burger people argue is the best in the city, and the bar open until 2am.
East Passyunk turned into a food destination over the last decade, and P.O.P.E. is the corner where the avenue still feels like a neighborhood. It is a pub first, the kind of room where the bartender knows the regulars and the beer list does the talking. The East Passyunk business directory lists it among the avenue's anchor bars, and it earns the billing.
The room is narrow and dark in the right way, a long bar with stools that fill up early on a weekend. Screens sit above the bar for whoever wants the game, and the volume stays low enough to talk. It is a sports bar by neighborhood habit rather than by signage, the place you walk to for an Eagles game and stay at for a second round.
What to order is the POPE burger, full stop. It is the dish that built the reputation, a thick patty that regulars order without looking at the menu. Back it with whatever is interesting on the rotating draft list, which BeerMenus tracks as a steady mix of local and hard-to-find pours, and finish with a shot of whiskey if the night calls for it.
Who it is for: East Passyunk and Bella Vista locals after a real burger and a serious beer, couples ducking out of the avenue's pricier dinner spots, and anyone who wants a game on without a sports-bar crowd. It rewards a regular more than a tourist, which is the highest compliment a corner pub can earn.
Best time to go is a weeknight after 5pm, when the burger comes out fast and a stool at the bar is still yours for the taking. Sunday opens at 11am for the day-game crowd, and weekend nights run late and loud. For the wider city, see our guide to the best sports bars in Philadelphia and the round-up of the best bars on East Passyunk.
The whole appeal is balance. P.O.P.E. takes its beer and its burger seriously without taking itself seriously, and that is a hard line to walk on an avenue full of reservations-only rooms. It stays a pub, and the neighborhood loves it for that.
The burger reputation is not an accident. P.O.P.E. has shown up on more than one local best-burger list over the years, and the kitchen has kept the recipe steady while the avenue around it turned into a dining destination. Regulars order it the same way every time, and the kitchen rewards the loyalty.
The beer program keeps pace with the food. The taps turn over often, the bottle and can list runs deeper than the room suggests, and the bartenders will steer a curious drinker toward something they have not had. It is a beer bar that happens to grill a great burger, or the other way around, depending on why you came.
Above all it stays a corner of the neighborhood rather than a stop on a food tour. The lights are low, the stools fill with the same faces, and a game on the screens pulls a crowd without changing the room. That is the whole reason East Passyunk keeps walking to it.
A short walk away, South Philadelphia Tap Room covers the bigger gastropub menu and Lucky's Last Chance handles the burger-and-dive crowd up in Manayunk. The full city sits in our complete Philadelphia guide.
Sources: Visit East Passyunk · Yelp · BeerMenus
