Yeah….soooo…as a blogger I am usually the one who is told I am a Fibber McGee (being polite) if I write about something that others don’t care to believe, even if true.
And then you have those who don’t like it if certain information has been obtained. They will do anything to deflect or CYA. I think this is exactly what happened at Victor Fiorillo’s expense and I don’t think that is right.
Victor wrote that the dive bar McGlinchey’s was closing last Sunday.
https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2025/08/17/mcglincheys-closing-philadelphia-dive-bar/
Now when I read his article, I kind of smiled and said to myself “I didn’t even know they were still open.”
I’m not a city dweller, I’m not even a particularly adjacent dweller at this point living in Chester County. And if I’m honest, I probably put it and several bars like it out of my head because I am someone who appreciated a good joint, but was not necessarily a lover of dive bars.
And they were also the places of my single girl days before I started commuting to NYC for work (yes I was one of those people along with the garmentos and big deal financial types who commuted. I was just more ordinary.)
A “joint” in my mind can be used colloquially for a bar but to me isn’t necessarily a dive bar. Take for example, The Rusty Nail in Havertown. To me that’s a joint. To some might be mostly dive bar, but to me it’s always been more than that because way back when I had friends who used to play music there so that’s what I associate it with. And my feet never quite stuck to the sticky floor the same way they did at McGlinchey’s back in the day.
I didn’t hate or particularly dislike McGlinchey’s, I was more ambivalent. And yes, what I didn’t like about most of these bars was sticking to the floor, and sometimes to the bar itself. But then again, maybe that was the trade-off for the quirky ambience of these places? The thing I liked best of all about these places was the people watching.
As far as dive bars go, the one a friend liked the best was Dirty Frank’s. We also checked out the Cherry Street Tavern once in a while. And if we wanted to go further down around Old City, it was always Kyber Pass. And then there was always The Shove, AKA The Irish Pub. There were two locations on Walnut Street back then, but I only liked the one at 20th St.
And then there were the pulsing annoying Delaware Avenue clubs a couple of my friends liked. I will admit I did not like those places at all. You couldn’t hear yourself think, most of the time. I didn’t like the music or the people. I will never be a disco biscuit.
I had a couple of friends back then who loved McGlinchey’s. So when I saw the name of that dive bar after so many years, I read the article with interest, remembering all the gritty places that existed late 80s and through the 90s.
But I didn’t really think about the article or McGlinchey’s closing after that. After all, the world changes, tastes change, and it seems that perhaps more people than not want more shall we say social media friendly places? Maybe McGlinchey’s doesn’t give the right optics? Can you imagine the Dîner en Blanc crowd taking over McGlinchey’s? Now the thing about that is funny to me, is the grittiness of these places is to me what makes them photo worthy… and why the people watching was always amusing.
Honestly I can’t imagine myself planting it on a barstool of one of those places now. Just not my jam.
Following Victor’s article, other articles came out. At first, one in the Inquirer and one in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
Victor Fiorello said in his article:
A source inside McGlinchey’s, who asked to remain anonymous, gave us the bad news late Sunday afternoon. And the bartender on duty on Sunday confirmed the closure, saying, “Our last day is this Friday, so tell everybody to come in when they still can.” The reason for the closing of McGlinchey’s is reportedly simple enough: There’s just not enough business to sustain it.
In 2013, Philly Mag named McGlinchey’s “the best dive bar of them all.” Back then, drinks were cheap, service sometimes leaned into the surly, the bathrooms were covered in graffiti and more than a little scary to newcomers both for their perceived filth and their claustrophobic nature….
The owner just sounded sketch in the articles where he was interviewed on this whole tempest in a beer mug and I can have that opinion. That opinion is no reflection on the writers, it was the feeling I got reading what the bar owner is quoted as saying. If that makes sense.
And while I found something on Loop Net, I didn’t actually find a listing for the property for sale. But maybe I’m just looking in the wrong place?
So anyway the other two articles were a bit different as if the owner was playing Captain Semantic with those publications. I read both of those articles, and I kind of thought that maybe the owner got caught with his proverbial pants down and was playing CYA?
Victor Fiorello has written about McGlinchey’s before. Always fondly. So I don’t quite understand why in those other two articles the owner couldn’t just own what was happening? I don’t see any shame in that so was it a matter of pride for this owner who is getting older? I mean who’s going to begrudge a bar owner closing a bar as they reach senior citizen category anyway? It’s hard work. Talk to anybody that’s ever owned a bar or a restaurant or a club and they will tell you.
My biggest thing with both of those articles was like the owner was saying that Victor wasn’t really telling the truth. So OK, maybe Victor got the news before the owner wanted the news out, but once the horse is out of the barn, why not just own it straight up?
I guess it’s simply more fun to be a dancing douche than to admit Victor got the scoop first just not from the owner directly?
Victor got it right this past Sunday and took a social media flogging for days over being right, and how is that right?
It’s not right and it’s that gaslighting mob mentality effect of social media that is just so endearing. What? Am I being sarcastic now? Yup.
Back to those two other articles, where we learned the bar owner wanted to sell the building. But he didn’t really allude to an immediate closing as in shuttering of the business, it was more like a dot dot dot…
So one other thing Victor did was he pointed out a Hidden City Philadelphia article from years ago about McGlinchey’s. I like that website and was a fun to read. I had never read it before.
In the first Inquirer article on McGlinchey’s, the owner of McGlinchey’s tried a soft shoe dance around what Victor said. (There were two articles and the second article is honestly fascinating and about people who spent time within the walls intertwined with the history.) In the first article the owner said he was interested in finding a buyer or hoping some unnamed broker would and was taking a vacation at the end of August, but he would reopen. It seemed like he then wanted to sell this reporter and writer a cash register and some glassware?
So then we go to the Philadelphia Business Journal article. Once again, the owner did the whole “nothing to see here” soft shoe routine and the Philadelphia Business Journal described it as him refuting what Victor Fiorillo had written in the Philadelphia Magazine article. The owner said he was “finalizing a broker.”
Oh, and the owner also said again that he was going away on vacation at the end of August and would be back in September.
Then Victor wrote a follow-up article about who is interested in buying the place. All these people say they wouldn’t change a thing…ummm okay but I would hazard a guess Philadelphia codes department might have thoughts, but then again L & I in Philadelphia is shall we say, different ?
https://www.phillymag.com/foobooz/2025/08/21/mcglincheys-closing-for-sale-fergie/
Meanwhile, the comments are flying around all over social media basically likening Victor to a Breitbart Barbie. So not fair. And he digs in to his pieces. He’s not fluffy and superficial and his writing is so good (and fun to read.) Maybe that’s the problem?
Then there were comments that interested me about other people talking about the bar.
Philly Voice also put out an article. They spoke with regulars and a former bartender.
https://www.phillyvoice.com/mcglincheys-regulars-changes-sale-smoking-dive-bar/
WMMR actually has something up on their website too:
https://wmmr.com/2025/08/19/mcglincheys-owners-to-put-bar-up-for-sale/
Then things like Victor’s post with the text showing he was right and the posts of others started to pop up.
Oh and then I found a last night of the bar thing on TikTok.
Mmmm so I guess last night was the last night? How about folks apologizing to Victor Fiorello? He did get it right. This whole tempest in a beer mug in my opinion was all generated by the owner of McGlinchey’s. That’s just pure jerky boy.
