Cheers! The 'birthday bar' celebrates its own big year

Birthdays are a big deal at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar in South Philadelphia. Every day, the sign outside advertises the birthday of somebody, whether it's one of the '60s singers who once hung out at the bar or a Passyunk Avenue neighbor who stops in for a weekly drink.

Visitors who come on their birthdays receive a free shot of cake-flavored vodka with a candle in it, and have their picture taken wearing the bar's special birthday hat.

On Sunday, the watering hole that has been the site of so many birthday celebrations toasted its own big day. Ray's turns 75 this year, and the owners know how to put on a birthday party.

Owner Lou Capozzoli and many of his friends and relatives dressed in 1930s clothing that harked back to the bar's early days, and two musicians played old-time tunes like Hoagy Carmichael's "Heart and Soul" and the Ella Fitzgerald hit "It's Only a Paper Moon."

Drinks came at 1938 prices - 10 cents for a beer, 25 cents for shots of Old Crow and Lord Calvert. Memories came free.

Capozzoli, whose father bought the bar in 1938, showed off photographs and mementos of the bar's many noteworthy patrons. Everyone from '60s teen idol Bobby Rydell to current-day Comedy Central personality Jeffrey Ross to Mayor Frank Rizzo has a spot on the wall at Ray's. Even Joe Lorenzo, frequently credited with inventing the cheesesteak, found himself, 26 years after his culinary innovation, working as a bartender for a decade at Ray's.

Regulars tell differing stories about why Anthony Capozzoli named his bar Ray's. Maybe it was because Ray was his alias when he was up to no good. Maybe it was because he already had friends nicknamed Do and Me, so he filled in the missing spot on the musical scale.

No one argues, though, about the origin of the "Happy Birthday" part of the name: Whenever anyone set foot in his bar, the man known as Ray always greeted each customer with, "Happy birthday!"

Capozzoli, 74, recalls sitting on the oak bar as a toddler, eating cornflakes and milk while his mother poured drinks. She ran the bar single-handed when Ray was drafted to fight in World War II. Capozzoli's son Anthony, 44, now works part-time behind that very bar, refurbished but still intact, with the original drain for patrons to spit in still running along the floor in front.

Tony Coccerino, 75, lives half a block from Ray's and has tended bar for years in the morning hours. (The place starts serving drinks at 7 a.m., with the rationale that it must be somebody's birthday.) He grew up playing with Lou and still recalls the lengths Ray would go to just to make a customer feel at home.

"He was the type of man, if you drank Scotch and you offered him a drink, he'd drink Scotch," Coccerino said. "Whatever the customer was drinking, he'd drink only that."

The Sunday afternoon birthday party was filled with Capozzoli relatives and longtime Ray's devotees, but the bar also welcomes tourists from around the world who stop by for a drink after trying a cheesesteak at Pat's or Geno's around the corner. Newcomers still find a warm welcome at Ray's.

"I found this bar right after I moved here, and it's the best bar ever," gushed Jeri Draper, who came to Philadelphia from Maryland two years ago. She has become such a part of the Ray's family that on Sunday, she was decked out in '30s attire to hand out candy cigarettes to guests.

The spot has found itself on several lists of the city's - and even the country's - best dive bars, though Capozzoli disputes the label. "I just keep putting money in this place every year. They keep calling it a dive bar," he said. Then he smiled. "I say, call it what you want."