Oddly placed between a bustling bar and a sweaty gym, Cavanaugh’s at Rittenhouse is pretty easy to miss, solely heralded by a modest green sign. Despite its discrete exterior, Cavanaugh’s instantly opens up into a cornucopia of TV screens and sports memorabilia, with tables jammed end to end and packed with hungry sports fans just dying to see Bryce Harper hit a home run.
To me, this type of environment has felt like home for as long as I remember. In the first days after my family moved to America, we went to a sports bar in Georgia called Taco Mac. Despite the name, Taco Mac’s standard fare was the timeless combo of beer, buffalo wings, and ball sports. Tangy buffalo sauce replaced the sweet and spicy yangnyeom of my Korean origins and the baseball on TV proved an appropriate lingua franca between me and any other patrons. I could join in with the roar of the hometown fans at Craig Kimbrel strikeouts (formerly of the Braves), which provided me a brief respite from the alienation of being a FOB. At Taco Mac, for the first time since I had immigrated, I felt like I was home.
This returns us to present, where I am now a hungry college student hundreds of miles away from the Taco Mac. Naturally, I’ve been on the lookout for a place that could satisfy my need for chicken wings and sports. Just five minutes on r/PhiladelphiaEats brought me to Cavanaugh’s Rittenhouse.
Food–wise, Cavanaugh's doesn’t blow their competition out of the water. If you like gorging on chicken wings with your football, you might be out of luck. On my first bite of the “award winning” meat, I was confronted with a hard outer shell that I recognized as overcooked chicken skin. This crust shielded a chicken that barely fell off the bone. Despite ordering the “hot” flavor, I also got more sweetness than spice.
The Cav’s Burger however, proved to be a lot more “award winning” than the wings. It features their signature Cav’s Sauce, a sweet and spicy combo accented by mustard seeds. The tang of the mustard cuts through the buttery rich umami of the burger patty, a combination that stood out as the clear cut winner of the meal.
While the quality of the food was somewhat of a mixed bag, the environment at Cavanaugh’s was undeniably electric. Even though the Eagles’ first game was the day before, the place was fully packed and buzzing with energy as if the game was happening at that very moment. The atmosphere is carefully curated to attract only the most enthusiastic of fans. Besides dim lamps hanging from the ceiling, the only sources of light in the entire establishment came from neon beer signs and flat–screen TVs that cast a cool spotlight on the anxious faces of game–watchers. The walls are plastered with the sports jerseys of every major Philadelphia sports team.
Located in the heart of Philadelphia, the bar had a surprising number of Buffalo Bills fans cheering alongside the usual crowd of Phillies supporters. There’s unexpected camaraderie here. Even games that have nothing to do with Philly, like football between the University of South Carolina and Kentucky, managed to elicit enthusiastic cheers and melodramatic groans from patrons. In that moment, surrounded by the fervent energy of fans from all walks of life, I was reminded of what first drew me to places like this years ago. Philly sports fans are notorious for being overzealous assholes, but here I witnessed easygoing banter between a city native and someone from Miami over a Phillies–Marlins game. Everyone seemed at ease, from the loners at the bar quietly sipping their Guinness to the larger groups spitting bits of nachos everywhere from laughter. It was obvious to me that for these immediate patrons, Cavanaugh’s was a place they’d proudly call home.
Although Cavanaugh’s isn’t anything to go crazy about on the culinary scene, it has captured the spirit of sports bars that made the scene so attractive to me all those years ago. If you find yourself in the area, come for the welcoming and exhilarating atmosphere that makes you feel like you’ve found a second home—even if it’s just for nine innings.
