The Monkey Club

There’s something special about the city of Philadelphia and its unique relationship with dive bars. So many of the city’s great haunts feel very similar, unassuming spots with corner doors on the first floor of an apartment building, low on frills and heavy on locals. Even relatively new entrants to Philly’s bar culture somehow slot right in, feeling more like proper dives rather than overly-polished new-builds.

The Monkey Club fits the dynamic perfectly, opened during the mid-2010s but presenting itself like so many great spots in the grand tradition of Philadelphia dive bars. The paint looks a little fresher than usual, sure, and there are worthwhile upgrades like (gasp) working plumbing and electrical systems. But the dive bar bones shine through here, The Monkey Club thankfully making the most out of a space built during the 1920s that has housed more than one bar along the structure’s long history.

Even by dive bar standards, exterior signage here is minimal, though the large painted monkey on the front door is a suitable clue. No sign hangs over the door and no neon can be seen in the windows. In fact, there are no windows, only banks of opaque glass blocks, the only indication that anyone could even potentially inhabit this space, let alone find reasonably priced beer inside.

The Monkey Club is distributed across two floors, the main floor as straight forward as any Philadelphia dive bar and home to a long bar counter (shocker) and a small collection of tables and chairs. The little light let in by opaque glass blocks is apparently still deemed excessive here, requiring the use of curtains to do an even more thorough job of blocking out the Fishtown / East Kensington neighborhood that surrounds the bar.

The flooring on this main level consists of tiles arranged in a checkerboard design, always a classic look, and the ceiling overhead looks like stamped tin painted white. Underneath a wooden sign depicting the name of the bar in raised lettering, both the chalkboard beer menu and an ancient radiator can be found. As has been the case since The Monkey Club opened, drink pricing here is about as friendly as it gets in Philly, with a daily Happy Hour piled on top. Be warned, The Monkey Club is cash only and a number of signs inside will remind you should you forget.

The steps leading to the bar’s game room on the second floor are flanked by a monkey-themed mural and in fact the monkey motif is well represented here across decorations and framed posters. Upstairs, diversions include a pool table, foosball table and even honest-to-goodness bubble hockey, a welcome sight and an underrated dive bar addition. The checkerboard floor pattern is repeated here and a bricked-up fireplace at the end of the room features names and bits of dive bar wisdom scrawled in chalk.

Legend has it that an unofficial mascot in the form of a dive bar cat named Rufus may or may not roam The Monkey Club, though I was not lucky enough to cross his path. Beyond operating as a game room, the space upstairs is turned over to the occasional weekly event, including trivia nights, art shows, comedy and holiday celebrations.