Friendly Lounge

Philadelphia is filled with great neighborhood bars that look like they haven’t changed at all over decades of operation. These are timeless, sometimes ancient dive bars fueled by a steady stream of regulars pulled from the local area. And then there is Friendly Lounge, a faded, tiny, absolute miracle of a dive bar wedged into a residential street corner that feels like it was ripped out of the hull of the Mayflower.

Opened in the 1950s, Friendly Lounge looks like it was opened in the 1850s, starting with the sign over the door that may be the most classic such sign in Philadelphia. The name of the bar is artfully depicted in black script on a white background with light bulbs dotting an arrow that wraps around the sign, pointing at the front door. The windows on the second floor are boarded up and the front door is bright red with an intricate, white wooden pattern.

The story of how Friendly Lounge came to be is as intriguing and mysterious as its exterior. We know that Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio opened the bar but there is less confirmation as to DiTullio’s occupation and “connections.” While some publications have pegged DiTullio as a loan shark and “Mafia underboss,” DiTullio’s son Marco counters that argument, saying the nickname stemmed from a slim physique and a penchant for sharp dressing.

Adding to the intrigue, a row of mostly black & white, framed photos can be found lining the small ridge in the interior wall that hangs over the area behind the bar. A signed photo of Louis Prima and a handful of other well-aged photos are accompanied by candid family shots depicting members of the DiTullio family. Hildegard, matriarch of the DiTullio family, performed with the Ice Capades are her sister was a juggler. Pictures of both can be found within this procession of photos.

Those with a keen eye for their surroundings may spot a pin-up girl or two as well in the visually stimulating display behind the bar. The bar counter itself is made of red laminate and the walls surrounding the space are covered in a very, very deeply brown shade of wood paneling. Pairing well with Friendly Lounge’s walls is the CD-based jukebox mounted to the wall opposite the bar, a fairly vintage piece that glows with the type of warmth that can only originate from a pre-digital jukebox.

Even the ceiling here runs toward the tan side of the spectrum, meaning everything here is rich, dark and pretty much absorbs any light that might dare to shine in its direction. Famously, all of this grandeur is recreated in Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman,” where a recreation of the bar is used as a meeting point for two characters, one of them the fictional depiction of “Skinny Razor” himself. Esquire Magazine named Friendly Lounge a “Best Bar in America” in 2007, describing the bar as “dirty and magical,” which is a hard description to argue.