McGlinchey’s is not closing this week, but it is on the way out

A ripple shot through Philly’s drinking community on Sunday night when Philadelphia Magazine columnist Victor Fiorillo broke the news that McGlinchey’s — Center City’s cheapest, smokiest bar — was closing in five days’ time, according to an anonymous inside source and an unnamed bartender. Past employees and patrons took to social media to lament the impending loss of one of a shrinking handful of downtown dives and the implications for Philadelphia’s bar scene.

On Monday afternoon, as a couple dozen mournful McGlinchey’s customers threw back Miller High Lifes and Twisted Teas in a haze of American Spirits smoke, more news broke: Owner Sheldon Sokol refuted the Philly Mag story, telling the Philadelphia Business Journal that he merely intends to sell the bar and that, barring a rapid change of hands, it will take a planned weeklong vacation on Aug. 29 and reopen in September.

So is McGlinchey’s closing imminently or not? Either way, it’s on its way out.

“It might close for good [in August] if I can find a buyer,” Sokol told The Inquirer on Monday afternoon. “I am trying to sell. When I’ll sell? I hope it’s going to be soon, but I don’t know when.”

Sokol has been working in the bar since the early ’70s and still goes in every day. He said he reached the decision to sell McGlinchey’s recently. “I’m gettin’ old. I’m 76. It’s time,” he said. He plans to sell the business and the building at 259 S. 15th Street. (There is no apparent listing for the bar online; the property was recently assessed at just north of $1 million.)

“I’ll sell everything, I’ll sell you a cash register,” Sokol said. “You wanna buy some glassware?”

Sokol said employees have known for over a month about the planned weeklong vacation at the end of August, but that he hadn’t yet informed them of his decision to sell. He expressed frustration at the process thus far. “Brokers don’t always tell you the truth,” he said. “They all claim they have buyers lined up, but so far, they have no one who comes up with a pen, ready to sign.”

Unless a unicorn of a buyer comes through, McGlinchey’s is almost certainly in for big changes. At the very least, a sale would mean its exemption from Pennsylvania’s Clean Indoor Air Act would go out the window, and with it, the cigarettes. (Sokol speculated on whether the right person might be able to finesse that: “Lawyers can do anything,” he said. “Nothing like a fancy lawyer.”)

The writing has been on the walls for smoking bars for years following the passage of the smoking ban in 2008. The greater concern from patrons is what this means for Philadelphia’s dive bars.

On Sunday night and Monday morning, after the yet-to-be-refuted Philly Mag story had been widely circulated, Facebook and Reddit were teeming with remembrances of McGlinchey’s. “Always felt like the last remaining piece of a different era of Center City,” one Redditor wrote. “I’m not going to miss McGlinchey’s as much as I miss the version of Center City nightlife it represents,” wrote another.

Longtime Philly bar industry vet Paul Dellevigne took to Facebook after hearing the news. “I will always hate that that kind of bar, an affordable, nonjudgmental bar, will be gone, probably to be replaced by some god-awful chain or NY-based sports bar,” he wrote.

“A couple of years ago, at Second District [in South Philadelphia], I listened to some newbie complain about how disgusting McGlinchey’s was and how they couldn’t wait until it was replaced by something nicer. I lost it,” Dellevigne wrote. “I told her, ‘you have a ton of fancy places to go to in Center City. Go to them. Leave McGlinchey’s alone.’”

If — when — McGlinchey’s closes, it will narrow the field of true downtown dives, leaving just Oscar’s Tavern, Dirty Frank’s, Locust Bar, Bob & Barbara’s, and Brownie’s Irish Pub, at least by Dellevigne’s count. There’s further reason to worry: Logan Square’s Cherry Street Tavern is also for sale, while Doobies in Grad Hospital is indefinitely closed.

Back at McGlinchey’s, Sokol was unaware of — and unconcerned with — the discourse. “I don’t know about any of that stuff,” he said. “I hope it’s gonna close. I hope this broker can find somebody tomorrow. They told me they have people waiting in line.”