Surf is Down but the Gig is Up at Mako’s

Mako's Bar (original D. Jacob Miller photo. Copyright, all rights reserved)

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[OnlyinPhiladelphia.com] Located at the corner of 3^rd and South Streets, Mako’s bar is an homage to surfing culture. It is the bar I accidently wandered into over ten years ago for my first legal drink in Philadelphia (although my actual first legal drink took place the night before in Amherst, MA).

If you’ve passed by Mako’s recently you may have noticed the amateur signage boasting “.49 Beers” (Miller Genuine Draft bottles).

It’s the kind of place where you can’t really get a feel for what type of crowd you’re mingling in; a spot to just be yourself and let loose…

Just keep your shirt on.

Along with the gigantic surfer painted on the side of the building, the .49 cent beer signs, and the surf-boards and fake sharks inside, Mako’s now has a new decoration: a slip of paper from the L&I Board that they’ve been shut down.

I was curious about this so I spoke with several people in the neighborhood and word on the street is that they were allegedly running an illegal strip club on their third floor.

I checked out Mako’s Facebook page (yes, they are one of my “friends”) and found an entire album dedicated to their 3^rd floor “video lounge”. And what is that nestled around the seating, pool tables, video screens, and lights? Could it be…stripper poles?

It is unclear how long this alleged 3^rd floor topless activity as been going on but one person I spoke to in the neighborhood told me it had been going on for at least the last 9 months. For now it looks like area bar-stool surfers will have to look for somewhere else to catch a .49 cent MGD wave.