Center City bar Jose Pistola’s has closed after 19 years

A distinctive stretch of 15th Street in Center City has lost both of its longtime bars within a year.

Jose Pistola’s, the Mexican-inspired craft beer bar at 263 S. 15th St., has closed after 19 years, following last August’s closing of its next-door neighbor, McGlinchey’s.

The closing of Jose Pistola’s came abruptly Tuesday amid a number of factors, including the Philadelphia Gas Works’ cutoff of its gas service. Although co-owner Joe Gunn said the business had made payments and was trying to resolve the issue, he said PGW would not restore service until today. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Gunn said.

The closing does not affect Sancho Pistola’s on Girard Avenue in Fishtown, which opened in 2014, or Pistola’s Del Sur on East Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia, which opened in 2017. They are doing well, Gunn said. “They’re in no danger of going anywhere.”

In 2009, court records show, the City of Philadelphia, which owns PGW, obtained a judgment of nearly $48,000 against Jose Pistola’s. According to a 2025 court docket entry, the judgment was never satisfied. A PGW spokesperson on Friday declined to comment, saying it does not share information about individual accounts.

Gunn, saying that he did not want to blame PGW, said the interruption forced a decision that he and business partner Casey Parker had already been contemplating.

Gunn said they had about a year remaining on their lease and had been discussing a five-year renewal with their landlord. But with both Gunn and Parker now 51 and their children getting older, he said another long commitment seemed increasingly daunting. “It takes a lot of energy to play that game,” Gunn said.

The numbers were difficult, too. As other bar and restaurant owners have lamented, higher food and operating costs had squeezed the business, while the late-night trade that once helped sustain bars like Pistola’s has diminished.

“Frankly, [the bar] just never fully recovered from COVID,” Gunn said. “Coming out of COVID, the world was a different place — the price of goods, the cost of everything, and people don’t go out as much late. These younger generations are too smart to drink their life away.”

“It’s always been tight, but everything changed,” Gunn said. “And then people just don’t drink as much.”

About 25 people worked at Jose Pistola’s. Gunn said they had little warning because the owners themselves had not decided to close until the last minute. He said he and Parker are trying to place employees at their other restaurants or with friends in the industry.

“We’ll absorb what we can, obviously, in the other two places,” Gunn said. “We have a lot of friends in the business, so we’re aggressively trying to help them.”

Jose Pistola’s — its name a loosely licensed Spanish rendering of Gunn’s first and last names — opened Aug. 29, 2007, taking over the longtime Copa, Too! space. Gunn and Parker were both veterans of Fergie’s Pub; Gunn had worked there for about seven years before leaving to open Pistola’s, while Parker had moved on by then.

The bar quickly established itself through its combination of craft beer, Mexican-inspired food, and an irreverent neighborhood-bar atmosphere. It became particularly associated with Philadelphia’s burgeoning craft beer movement and the early years of Philly Beer Week.

Its food grew more ambitious after Puebla-born chef Adán Trinidad joined the operation and eventually became a partner. Trinidad, whose résumé included El Vez and Alma de Cuba, brought to the menu such dishes as tortilla soup, goat sopes, carnitas-filled steamed buns, and Brussels sprout tacos that caught the attention of Inquirer critic Craig LaBan.

The partners later expanded the Pistola’s name to Fishtown and East Passyunk. Trinidad died after a fall in October 2021 at age 39.

For most of Jose Pistola’s run, its next-door neighbor offered a study in contrasts.

McGlinchey’s — now on the market — was a cash-only dive bar known for low prices, dim lighting, smoke in the air, and an eclectic clientele. It endured by barely changing, while Jose Pistola’s brought craft beer and more ambitious food to an equally unpretentious neighborhood-bar sensibility.

The two businesses were nevertheless close.

“We had a great relationship with them,” Gunn said. “We loved them because of how funny they were. They were just kind of cranky, and they put up with us.”

Gunn said the McGlinchey’s closure was part of a broader change he has watched on this stretch of 15th Street between Locust and Spruce Streets.

“The whole corridor used to be more vibrant,” he said. “I think COVID wiped out a lot of those places. It changed everything for us.” The block is also home to Cellar Dog and Garage Rittenhouse.

As recently as Thursday, Gunn said, he and Parker were “still fighting to figure out a way to [save] it. But it just, I think, ran out of steam.”