This is a subterranean scene. A rather wholesome dive bar. There's a young, good-natured crowd, given to shooting pool and glancing at Phillies games on the TVs, a far cry from the day when "underworld" could have been applied to the older, less-good-natured figures on the stools.
It is windowless, and yes, smoky, because its food sales account for less than 20 percent of its revenue (a comment on the quantity of drinking rather than the surprising quality of the food), permitting it to obtain an exemption from the city's no-smoking rules: If smoking offends, this is not - I repeat not - the place for you.
I never felt inclined to drop down myself. But I'd heard something that intrigued me. Charlotte Calmels, who with her husband Pierre has opened the estimable French bistro Bibou a few blocks south on Eighth Street, told me they'd been popping in for a late-night bite and beer after closing.
"At 12 Steps Down?" I asked. "Do they even have food?" Well, yes, again, they do - and as bar food goes - that's bar food, not gastropub food - it is astonishingly better than your standard bar fare.
The chicken fingers? Exquisitely tender, juicy (they're marinated overnight in lime and garlic), lightly crusted in beer batter hinting of Pabst Blue Ribbon, served with smoky ketchup and a lemony aioli. Asian-style chicken and cashews, tangy-sweet, served with iceberg lettuce leaves for wrapping. Good, crisp, hand-cut-daily fries; not limp, not mealy. And so on.
What gives? I asked the bartender who'd handed me the menu scrawled on a grease-stained paper bag. A real chef had helped out with the food, he said. He'd lived somewhere nearby: For 12 Steps' kitchen, geography would soon become destiny.
