Falls Taproom

Looking to expand my bicycling horizon, I decided to push a little further down the Schuyllkill River Trail and ended up in East Falls. Looks like a neat ‘hood, is there a bar around? Thanks BA for the listing!

On a weekday at lunchtime, the joint was pretty empty. I ordered at the bar and took my beer outside to the patio because it was a beautiful, sunny autumn day. The guy behind the bar looked thoroughly uninterested in working that day, but I still got my beer (after an initial scare thinking I had left my credit card at home and briefly cancelling my order).

The inside has got a small bar with no more than six seats and an ample dining area with lots of tables. Can’t comment on the food menu yet… but the drafts looked good when I visited: Lost Abbey Devotion, Browerij Mort, Terrapin Moo Hoo, Lost Abbey Gourd, Jolly Fuego de Otono, Crooked Tree…

They have a ten-dollar minimum, so I had to get a shot of bourbon. Oh well… did I love it here? I thought it was alright. But I know I will stop by again during my bike rides by the river (next time I need to get my ass to Manyunk), and if you live around here, this is a cool place.

 

 

 

Went here for dinner and drinks last night. It is a nice little place, I like the decor and it seems like it would be a good place to sit at the bar or at a table for dinner. They have a good selection, about 15 beers on tap with great variety and a fairly extensive bottle list with good variety for a small place.

I had a 2 Hearted and a Sculpin on tap, both were at average bar prices. Both were poured well and tasted fresh.

Service was good, although it got full towards the end of our visit and they maybe could use another server or bartender. But it was fine.

The food was excellent. We had 'steak pierogies', which were almost like cheesesteak inside a pierogie. They were made by hand to order (not frozen!) and were really tasty, a very large serving (enough for an entire meal) for $8. We also had the lamb burger, and I was VERY impressed. This has to be one of the best sandwiches I have had in a bar, ever. I really loved it. Cooked well, really interesting flavors that worked well together. Not your average bar burger. The only knock I have it that they charge another $3 to get fries or salad with the burgers, which are not cheap to start with, but I can look past this for this quality.

I will definitely be back to this place to try more, and I could see this becoming one of our regular spots. I hope they do well.

Went here for a Ballast Point event recently.

Up the street from the old Fork & Barrel, FTR has a few outside seating set up for laarge groups ans small. Inside there is a small bar with 15 or so taps, seating about 10 or less. To the left, a dining area with bottles on the wall, And buckets still on the wall. Not sure if thats in honor of the old joint 'buckets', or just lack of trying.

I sat towards the back dining area and noticed alot of crap on the kitchen floor. I ordered a Ballast Point Pescardo Pils and it tasted like fruity pebbles=GROSS. Obviously, a fruit beer proceeded it without proper cleaning. I went with a BP BBL Victory At Sea next and it was good though.

Something about this place made me not want to eat anything at all, from the trash on the floor and the mouse I saw running across the back wall like it was no thing. Well, gotta say, not going back here at all, dirty, overrun and dirty lines.

After the girlfriend destroyed us all at poker last night, she offered to take me out for lunch with the winnings. She's wanted to stop in here since the change in ownership, and the $5 burger special sold me. A friend of hers stopped in partway through to kill time before a graduation party.

Fairly small place, but the open plan makes it work. Nice architectural details, like the built-in shelves for the obligatory empty bottle collection and the little balcony cut into the (only open Thurs/Fri/Sat) second floor. A Phillies game was on two TVs right in front of us, and the three-second lag time between the HD and standard broadcasts was one of those things that a sane person probably wouldn't even notice. Credit awarded for not cranking the hipster trash faux post-punk up to an annoying level after the game.

Decent selection on about a dozen taps. Some interesting stuff from Bells, Hitachino, Southern Tier, Founders, and the usual local stuff from Yards, Yuengling, etc. $2 PBRs are a nod to the gentrification of the neighborhood, so I'm wiling to accept it. Nice bottle selection. We were able to get a Cantillon 100% Kriek and a Duchesse De Bourgogne. In my quest to fill in the gaps in my memory, I have discovered that the website's draft list hasn't been updated since the week of April 10th (six weeks at the time of this review).

The bartender was a nice enough guy, and game to keep my sodas coming, though he did have to be informed that yes, they did have Oberon on tap, and no, that was not actually Two Hearted that you sampled yourself. Food was out in a reasonable time, despite what our server said would happen. The chef took a cigarette break at one of the sidewalk tables out front, and the smoke blew back through the open window right into my face. Big no-no for me.

Huge portions of food, all fairly reasonable in price. Caesar salad was pretty standard. The batter on the onion rings was way too sweet for my taste, but the lady liked them. The sauce on the bacon fontina mac + cheese was tasty, but the noodles were practically crunchy and still needed a minute or two in the water. Our rosemary pierogies were still frozen in the middle when they came out (much better on the second try). I will say, that $5 burger was cooked exactly the way I ordered it, and tasted pretty bitchin'.

For my money, Falls Taproom doesn't hold a candle (pun very intended) to the late Fork and Barrel, which was located literally around the corner. But overall, you could do a lot worse, especially if you're just coming in to grab a few drinks and watch a game.