Oh alcohol, would you please forgive me?

Lately, I've been thinking about bars. My opinion gets asked every now and again as to where people should go in the city for booze, and as I was pondering a location for a friend's birthday gathering (they asked my advice), I couldn't help but think about the types of bars I love and the types that, well, normal people love. Here are my critera for great bars.

1. Cheap alcohol- I am poor. If I am going to drink outside of my home, it will have to be something that I can afford. In some cases this standard is met in the form of a great happy hour (example: The Abbaey or Devil's Den), and in others this is met in the form of just cheap draft beer.

2. Unpretentious- Few things bother me more than feeling like i'm not the right "type" of person to go to a bar. I like being able to wear jeans and sneakers into a bar and not feeling like I should be wearing a skin tight top or have gauges in my ears.

3. Room to breathe- It's not that i'm clostrophobic, but when a bar is wall to wall people, I feel as though the whole night is an exercise in futility. I certainly don't want to go to an empty bar, but i like being able to talk to my friends without screaming, put my jacket somewhere (that doesn't ask me to pay or tip to do so), and be able to get to the bar for a drink.

Those are the big three. The rest are just silly things that I like about some of the bars i frequent.
-- Good jukebox
-- Personable bartenders
-- Good beers

So here are my top ten bars in Philly that fulfill these criterion (in no particular order)-
1. 12 Steps Down (9th and Christian)
2. The Capistrano (13th and Wharton)
3. Brownies (the irish pub on second street, not the crazy dance club in university city)
4. The Side Car (21 (22nd?) and Christian)
5. The Abbaey, The Devil's Den, Los Cabillitos happy hours only (3rd and Fairmount, 11th and Ellsworth, Morris and Passyunk respectively)
6. Las Vegas Lounge (7th and Chestnut)
7. Bob and Barbaras (15th and South)
8. Doobies (22nd and Lombard)
9. National Mechanics (3rd between market and chestnut)
10. Ray's Happy Birthday Bar (9th and Federal)

:)