Beloved Center City dive bar Dirty Franks has implemented a change in its requirement for entry to its establishment. A change that few bars, if any, in Philadelphia have introduced – a new age change. Since last week, the iconic corner dive bar is now requiring its patrons to be of age 25 years or older to enter the establishment.
“We tried to implement certain things, but they were not curtailing the amount of people in the young age demographic. Showing up in 20 Ubers, 50 people at a time, the volume was off the charts. The stuff that took place was disrespectful to us as a business. It was beyond anything I have ever experienced..” said Co-owner of Dirty Franks, Jody Sweitzer.
The co-owners of Dirty Franks are Brad Pierce and Jody Sweitzer. According to Jody and the bar’s security, since late spring of 2025 and throughout this past summer, Dirty Franks was seeing an increasing influx of young adults, specifically what they assumed to be between the ages of 21-23, of which they assumed were college students. Which, if you think about, isn’t abnormal or out of the ordinary, as Franks is perched on the busy corner of 13th and Pine streets, a block away from Broad Street. This allows the bar to get the most foot traffic it can get, while still abiding by city ordinances. More popularity, more traffic, more money right ? In an ideal scenario, sure, but that’s not how it had panned out for the longtime Philadelphia bar. They were being faced with an issue that was causing more harm than good.
“I mean I’m a regular at my own bar, and I couldn’t even come in. The liability alone I couldn’t even sleep at night, it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt,” Said Sweitzer
One problem after another, crowds of a younger age started to slowly turn Dirty Franks into their gathering place. Changing the bars look to a crowd of college aged drinkers, creating more of a headache for the owners and its staff. It seemed like word spread like wildfire. But they didn’t understand how it was happening so quickly. More and more kids of the younger but “legal” drinking age started showing up. With all this, the worst part, the loyal long-time regulars, little by little stopped showing up.
“Once this started happening, all of our regulars just stopped coming, I mean who wants to sit in a meat locker of what presumably are college kids…I don’t even know, I’m gonna guesstimate that some of the ages of these kids were ranges of 17-21,” Said Sweitzer
Jody continued to talk about how there was a Dirty Franks reddit page. In the thread on the page users would talk about the incidents, most people were supportive of Dirty Franks and the measures they took in the interim to stop this influx from happening. But, there were many people who would criticize the bar for how they were handling this issue, suggesting it was their fault, but it wasn’t as simple as that. The IDs were advanced. Made of seemingly real quality , every ID is scannable and passes the UV test with the hologram. The bar size also is not big, thus only having one security guard at all times.
There were multiple incidents in which the establishment attempted to turn away, kick out or reject underage kids attempting to pose as the legal drinking age. And, adding fuel to the fire, multiple instances in which the younger demographic, that were of the legal drinking age, attempted to sneak in their own alcoholic beverages into the bar. With the combination of the stress from the troublesome events that would take place combined with complaints from the bar’s regular customer base, it was clear something had to be done for the foreseeable future.
“We don’t need that clientele, even for the kids that were legal drinking age that were coming, the behavior 21 to 23 , we’re done! The way they’d treat the staff was unacceptable and unforgivable. 25, seems to be the honest choice.” Said Sweitzer
This all led to the unanimous decision of the establishment’s owners, along with staff to implement the age change of 25 years and over. There’s no specific time frame at this moment for how long this will last, but until the correct measures and updated securities are in place to restore the balance that the bar brings to the neighborhood, and its loyal and longtime customers, this rule will remain in place.
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