Drink: The mai tai at The Yachtsman
As the son of Cecilia Updegrove, who tended bar here 30 years ago when this Fishtown tappie was a workingman's watering hole, Tommy Up is keenly aware of the goofball irony. He's turned the old pub once known as Rick Dyer's into a palm-fringed, tin-ceilin
As the son of Cecilia Updegrove, who tended bar here 30 years ago when this Fishtown tappie was a workingman's watering hole, Tommy Up is keenly aware of the goofball irony.
He's turned the old pub once known as Rick Dyer's into a palm-fringed, tin-ceilinged tiki bar called the Yachtsman that serves drinks in coconuts to Frankford Avenue, a blue-collar strip gentrifying faster now than you can say, "mai tai." ("It's super goofy, yeah, but I felt the area could use a little whimsy," says Up.)
His ace here, though, is master bartista "Trader Phoebe" Esmon, who brings legitimate finesse in her upgrades to the old tiki clichés.
In fact, consider her mai tai, layered with two kinds of rum (grassy Rhum Agricole and raisiny Smith & Cross from Jamaica), the juice of one lime, a citrusy dash of Curaçao, and an almondy house-made orgeat syrup that adds sweet, nutty balance and makes each sip taste like a vacation.
Don't let the parasol food you: this tiki has punch.
- Craig LaBan
Mai tai, $12, the Yachtsman, 1444 Frankford Ave., 267-251-3234.