Best pub trivia in Philadelphia?

November 21, 2011 1:42 PM

Best pub trivia in Philadelphia?

A group of grad school friends and I are reuniting at a conference in Philadelphia in a couple of weeks. Since our days together were filled with excellent pub trivia, we would like to get together for at least one night of glory. The conference is at the downtown Marriott, and most of us will be staying in that area. None of us are terribly familiar with the layout and mass transit of the city, so something relatively near will be better.

Our favorite pub trivia place at school had 5-6 rounds of 15 questions each week and had a $5 buy-in. In other words, we aren't afraid to pony up a little time and money for a challenging game with competitive nerdos. Bonus points for good beer selection.

We will be in the city from Saturday night to Wednesday night.

posted by palindromic to travel & transportation around Philadelphia, PA (4 answers total)

I like Johnny Goodtimes' Quizzos. (Generic name for pub trivia here.) Used to go weekly to Black Sheep on Wednesday nights. He does a good job of corralling players, embarrassing cheaters, etc. Here's his schedule and his Twitter for questions of the week, updates, etc.

Irish John is also good, but you have a better-than-even chance of being berated for something innocuous. Sometimes more fun, sometimes less. I don't know his regular haunts these days; sorry.

I would say that JGT is more polished and has generally better questions.
posted by supercres at 2:25 PM on November 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh-- logistics and beer. Locust Rendezvous is closest to the hotel, followed by Black Sheep. Bards and O'Neals are marginal walking distance. North Star and Ugly American would be annoying to get to on public transportation and not great walks. City Tap House is probably best for beer of the bunch, and can be reached by any number of buses going due west on Market or Walnut, or the MFL subway.
posted by supercres at 2:31 PM on November 21, 2011

I used to enjoy Irish John's quizzes when I lived in Philly. According to his Facebook:

Tuesday - Cavanaugh's Rittenhouse 8pm
Wednesday -O'Reilly's (frankfort Ave) 8:30pm
Thursday - Atlantis 8:30pm (The Lost Bar)
Sunday - Nodding Head 9pm.

Not sure how recently that was updated.
posted by banwa at 4:19 PM on November 21, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really like Fergies (Tues/Thurs) at 12th and Sansom. It's upstairs. There's no buy-in. Top prize is 50 bucks off your tab. Second prize is 25 off your tab. The questions are hard but not too hard, and most of the crowd is grad-student-ish.
posted by melodykramer at 7:25 PM on November 21, 2011 [1 favorite]