Center City Sips

Each summer Philadelphia holds Center City Sips on Wednesday nights from 5-7pm. Since I work Wednesday nights until 8pm, I scheduled a day off this week so I could go. They call themselves the city's "happiest hour", and since I never had the kind of schedule that allowed me to go to happy hour, I wanted to be there! So this is how it works, select restaurants have a special happy hour menu with discounted drinks and appetizers. I instantly saw this as an opportunity to taste a variety of restaurants within just a few hours. Last summer I checked out Chifa and Tweed so this year I wanted to go to some different spots. Bf and I made a plan to hit up Union Trust, Opa, The Corner, and Raw. We chose places that were close to each other, keeping in mind that we didn't want to lose precious minutes on walking. Read on to see what we sipped and snacked that night.

We chose Union Trust as our first stop and showed up at 4:59pm - yes, we were on time. This gave us just enough time for a quick snapshot of the outside. Upon entering we were directed to the upstairs bar, which meant we weren't sitting at the very cool downstairs bar :( In order to have the special menu we were seated with our backs to the entire restaurant. But I took a picture to show where I would have liked to have been sipping my drink.

 

Union Trust is a renovated bank (hence its name) with 65 foot ceilings and is covered in marble and leather. Some of the old safes have been turned into modern decor, including the kitchen on the first floor. I wish the managers would have thought again before tucking their poor happy hour crowd away upstairs!

We both ordered the pinapple cockstail but I overheard they were subbing Prosecco for their Chardonnay that night. Lucky!

Even though we were the first ones there, the seats around us quickly filled up with thirty and forty something professionals. Not exactly a rowdy crowd, we were looking for a little excitement. Union Trust was cool but quiet and a little too uptight for this "happy hour". I would never dine here normally, one reason I'm taking advantage of this event, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when we didn't feel too comfy even at the bar. We downed our drinks, not wanting to waste time and looked forward to our second place. We walked a few blocks to Midtown Village, where our next three stops were. First up, the new restaurant Opa.

I think we looked at each other and smiled when we walked through their door. It was loud, fun, and trendy. The friendly bartender recited their Sips menu and we chose two more pineapple cocktails. It was a drink called Koukla, it was made up of pineapple vodka, lemon, and lavender and garnished with a piece of dried pineapple. One sip and it was confirmed, I loved Opa!

We snagged two stools as soon as we could and ordered a snack - Kalamari. It was great, lots of flavor and the dipping sauce had just enough spice for us. The scene at Opa was just what we were looking for; young professionals, some casual some still dressed from work, and all smiles. Even though we loved Opa so much, we wanted to make a few other stops so we peeled ourselves off our stools and walked over to The Corner. I had been here when it was Apothecary to have a drink on the rooftop deck. But tonight the bar was so thick with people we decided to try our luck somewhere else. 

We rounded the corner of Sansom and ran into the restaurant/jazz bar side of Time.  We took Little Sis here to the Bohemian bar for her birthday in May. But we had never been to the restaurant downstairs. We walked in to a jazz band playing and an uber crowded room. We both got some wine and enjoyed the atmosphere. Another old room with oversize decorations and hanging mirrors lining one wall. Of course as the night went on our conversation got sillier and sillier, so we decided not to finish these drinks before we left. And since we were standing we passed on a snack and left just in time to hit up one more place less than a block away.

Our last stop was at Raw Sushi House. I was looking forward to relaxing in their cool outdoor space but of course, another crowded place.

So we found a space at the bar inside, which happened to also be pretty cool. We both chose a pink cocktail called Pink Bubbly. I have no idea what was in it, besides champagne, but it was good! We ordered some pot stickers and chicken bites while we sipped. Our location at the bar gave us front row seats to the sushi counter and they were making some pretty delicious looking rolls! We enjoyed our food and drink, and  could tell everyone around us did as well, so I would definitely go back for dinner. Even though they seemed to be extending the sips 7:00 limit, we needed to get some real food in our bellies so we settled our bill and hit the sidewalk again.

So our last stop ended up being Zavino where we split a brick oven pizza to soak up all the alcohol. We compared notes on each bar and had the same favorite - Opa! Looks like we'll be getting back there soon...