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Clearing the air on McGlinchey’s, which closed last Friday after all

After one of the bar's owners told reporters it wasn't closing at the end of last week, McGlinchey's wound up closing — seemingly for good — after service on Friday night after all.

McGlinchey's at 259 South 15th Street has closed after all.
McGlinchey's at 259 South 15th Street has closed after all.Read moreMonica Herndon / Staff Photographer
    by Jenn Ladd
    Published 

For a no-frills dive bar, McGlinchey’s caused quite the fuss last week. First, Philadelphia Magazine columnist Victor Fiorillo reported it was set to close after service last Friday. Then, owner Sheldon Sokol told the Philadelphia Business Journal — and later, The Inquirer — that it was merely for sale and would close for a weeklong vacation on Aug. 29, after which, barring a lightning-fast sale, it would reopen in September.

Turns out, Center City’s last public smoking bar did exactly what employees told Fiorillo it would do: close for good after one last epic Friday night.

A sign taped to McGlinchey’s door on Monday reads: “Onwards to the next chapter! Thank you to all who contributed to the incredible memories over so many decades!”

Why the competing narratives on a closing date? The answer, it seems, is a case of shared ownership.

Sokol told The Inquirer on Monday afternoon that the information he shared with the Business Journal and The Inquirer was what he had been told. Asked who decided on the bar’s actual closing date, Sokol said it was his nephew, Douglas Sokol, and his late brother’s wife, Sandra. (Sheldon and his brother Ron inherited the bar from their father, Henry, who died in 1985. Ron died in 2022.)

A call last week to a number associated with Douglas Sokol was answered by a woman who said he was not available and had no comment. Douglas did not immediately respond to another request for comment this week.

Asked if the bar was any closer to being sold, Sheldon Sokol said the bar is still in the process of hiring a broker and hasn’t received any offers yet. “We’re talking to some and seeing who makes a good fit,” he said. “I think we will find someone who will continue, for the most part, the McGlinchey’s tradition.”