Why Prohibition? Well, says Michael Pasquarello, who owns the joint with his wife Jeniphur Whitleigh, there were things found in the basement that led him to believe it might have been a speakeasy once, which would have been between 1920, when Prohibition came to town, and 1933, when it was sent packing. (By the way, should you feel moved to toast, the 75th anniversary of the repeal is fast approaching. It's Dec. 5 - 20 drinking days left till Christmas.)
Precisely what might those items in the arched-brick basement have been? Pasquarello says there were menus for 25-cent burgers. And old saloon ads for lagers. There were paraphernalia from the Pen and Quill, when the place lubricated Inquirer hacks and pressmen. (In the '70s, the Press Bar, a splendidly dreary hole on Broad Street, fulfilled those same needs. It was succeeded by Westy's, 15th and Callowhill, but I digress.)
I suggest to Pasquarello that none of those items implies in any particular way that the Prohibition Taproom was in fact a speakeasy, to which he responded that, well, there was hearsay, "but no concrete evidence." Oh.
But moving on. What is encouraging is that, unlike its immediate predecessors, the Prohibition (whose owners also own Cafe Lift down the block) seems seriously interested in (1) looking presentable; (2) offering quality craft beer - five rotating drafts, including a hand-pumped Yards ESA, and about 35 bottles, several of local origin (Stoudt's Oktoberfest, Dogfish Head Raison d'Etre, Philadelphia Brewing's Walt Wit, and so on).
And (3) offering far better American bistro fare than you might expect in this on-the-fringe neighborhood - a good burger, an honest pulled-pork sandwich on a Metropolitan roll, good slaw, great fries, and a hearty, rustic Lancaster County roast chicken with a soulful orange-rosemary sauce and local root vegetables.
