Fishtown has a robust working class history, but that hasn’t stopped its march into the current moment, where industrial chic aesthetics offer unique homes to coffee shops and artists, both culinary and otherwise. However, unlike most communities where the working-class history gets papered over to make room for higher rents, many establishments in Fishtown and Northern Liberties continue to embrace their roots, even as they move up-market as the clients they serve become increasingly wealthy. Jerry’s Bar is no exception to this rule, and has a story that is perfectly suited to what Feel Good Fridays are supposed to be.
Operating as a gastropub with a menu that couples rustic-style and creative takes on traditional bar fare, Jerry’s Bar can be frequently found on lists of top happy hours in the area because it works to keep its prices affordable. This might be because it’s a family business, or its history as a go-to place for workers who were employed on I-95 during the mid to late twentieth century. These historical facts aside, it’s still worth meeting friends there for a meal or a drink for a variety of reasons that don’t touch the casual customer.
So let’s get to what feels good about Jerry’s Bar.
The Feel Good Elements of Jerry’s Bar
My wife and I had found Jerry’s Bar during one Restaurant Week event where we were looking to try something different. Ultimately, we were surprised by the ability of Jerry’s Bar to combine culinary creativity with a working-class conscientiousness that makes good food feel accessible to someone who may not be wealthy enough to afford expensive date nights regularly.
However, the Jerry’s Bar team really stood out when planning my wife’s 30th birthday, because they offered the support you would expect from a friend through the planning process. At one point, they even introduced me to the chef in charge of the menu for the evening, during which we discussed a little about the restaurant and its history, including the name, which came from one of the owner’s siblings, who dreamed of opening a bar.
Roots of a Working-Class Gastropub
It’s possible to find a business that may have co-opted the aesthetic of working-class neighborhoods while having none of the cultural grounding to underpin the brand, but Jerry’s Bar isn’t one of them. Having started as a dive bar for Ukranian workers that eventually catered to I-95 workers — who, some stories claim, could lower their ladders directly into the restaurant for a quick, cheap lunch — Jerry’s Bar encapsulates the kind of business that people want when they’re living paycheck-to-paycheck: community-focused, not too expensive, and typically owned by a member of the community who enjoyed providing a space for people to hang out. Jerry’s Bar operated for decades like this, offering what the patrons wanted to keep them coming back, but in the early 2010s, it underwent a change in ownership that could have spelled the end of what people know and love about the place.
However, the family that bought the building refurbished it and opened it anew without tossing everything out that was working. The interior remains in-line with the metal-and-wood furnishings that characterized it before, and the food remains one of the more affordable options available, but they have worked to elevate the menu and experience so that it caters to a wider audience without alienating the core of the customer base that made the place successful.
The Growth Strategies of Jerry’s Bar
There are several things at Jerry’s Bar that you can point to as contributors to the organization’s growth: the level of hospitality offered by the team (something that The Inn at Grace Winery and Valley Green Inn have also offered examples of), the reliance on the working-class aesthetic, and a connection to its history that it doesn’t hide.
Any of these things would have been fairly effective on their own, but one reason Jerry’s Bar stands out is because it takes a slightly different approach to its event management and daily operations which can be summed up as being stakeholder-focused rather than shareholder-focused.
The Stakeholder Theory of a Family Business
Broadly speaking, shareholder theory versus stakeholder theory is a theoretical conversation about what the priorities of a business should be. Shareholder theory dictates that a business needs to maximize the value it delivers to the owners of the company, whereas stakeholder theory dictates that businesses should maximize value for the entire community the business is affecting.
There’s plenty to debate about the merits of each, but when you have a family business-style organization like Jerry’s Bar, stakeholder theory offers some explanation for why it’s grown the way it has. Historically, it’s been a place where working-class people go to socialize or on the lunch break, and while that isn’t exactly the direction the business has taken in recent years, there are still hints of that in the way they operate.
By treating everyone as a valued member of the community they serve, Jerry’s Bar and its team offer a sentiment most working-class neighborhoods are familiar with: it doesn’t matter what your circumstances are, we’ll work with you if we can. That’s a sentiment few businesses take, and many customers want in today’s economy.
The Bottom Line
Jerry’s Bar may not be a glamorous place to woo someone over a fine dining experience, but it offers the community and camaraderie that you would expect from a working-class bar. It has elevated its game a bit, offering gastropub fare and creative cocktails for anyone who visits, but it does so while respecting the history of the institution as a place where workers came and spent time, not people who had plenty of expendable income.
That stakeholder-focused approach is a rarity in most businesses in the U.S., but it offers an interesting lesson for organizations looking to grow. Rather than focusing so heavily on trying to extract the most amount of money from the fewest amount of customers.
Of course, if you’re more in the market for an event space rather than a business lesson, then Jerry’s Bar is worth including on any list of options you’re considering.
Before You Go…
This is part of a series of articles highlighting businesses operating in the food and beverage space as part of an initiative to share feel good stories coming from local businesses. There's a few things you can do to support this initiative:
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