And just like Chuck E Cheese as a kid, there are perks for the birthday boys and girls, in this case a free Birthday Cake shot in a custom contraption complete with lit candle. Ray sadly passed away in 1997, son Lou the new owner of the bar, today operating it with daughter Lou (not a typo). Photos of past regulars can be found on the walls throughout the space and maybe best of all, Ray’s opens at 7 AM most days (9 AM Sundays), making for an easy selection when the urge for a morning dive bar beer hits.
Cut into the corner of the building, the Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar front door sits under a pale green awning and one of a number of sings attached to the structure proclaiming the name of the Philadelphia dive bar. Appropriately, the aged sign directly above the door features the name of the bar, a beer mug, a shot glass and a birthday cake, as literal a piece of symbolism as can be found in the city. One symptom of operating in a post-pandemic world is the small, latticed patio area that juts into the sidewalk, a handful of folding chairs distributed around the building for informal outdoor seating.
Contrary to some dive bar layouts, Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar shuns an over abundance of beer signs and neon to rather almost entirely cover the bar’s interior walls with pictures of regulars and music acts that at one time stopped into the bar. Handmade photo collages provide the most specific view of the decades of drinkers who have called Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar home, the use of these posters a bit like dive bar yearbook pages displayed for posterity.
