Philly Plain Dealer

Can’t we just have something nice for once?

On May 9th the concrete Di Brunos Brothers Lot in the Italian Market  transformed into another overpriced Beer Garden. Aren’t there enough of these in this city?

The Di Bruno lot sits in between Christian Street and Washington Ave, on the corner of Montrose in South Philly. The Di Bruno lot, or the “Lot” as I call it, before May 9th, had picnic tables and benches. Open basically 24 hours of the day, people from all walks of life can just sit down, breathe and relax with whatever outside food or beverages. Overall it was just a good spot to just take a second and collect one’s thoughts, take in all of the surroundings in the market, while maybe enjoying it with strangers,friends, pets and everything of the sort. But while the business has claimed that the space is still available for that, it’s going to be different now, nothing just ever stays the “same” and that’s not me being biased. 

The city has its designated parks and community gardens, but to me, personally, there are few spaces that I know of that are available for folks to sit down and congregate from basically morning til evening at all hours of the day, that aren’t already designated for a business. 

Specifically in the vacant lot category in the city, in the South Street to Christian street corridor in South Philly, where there aren’t really spaces that aren’t already designated to a restaurant, bar, coffee shop or some other type of establishment. And even though technically, DiBruno does own the lot and has the right to do whatever they want to do with it, this kind of came out of nowhere, they had a chance to keep a space exclusively for the community, no frills.The community already purchases hundreds, even thousands of products from the Di Bruno Bottle Shop which is right next door, and the Di Bruno cheese and meat shop up a block on 9th street as well. Maybe I’m just naive for thinking that we could have something good and free for once. 

Around the time the signs went up advertising this beer garden, maybe 2 or 3 weeks ago, I sat in front of gleaners cafe, just across from the lot and was just thinking, “why.” Day by day the advertising became more aggressive. But obviously at that moment I didn’t have a clear answer. 

A couple days passed by and I spoke to a cashier at the Di Bruno bottle shop, she relayed to me that a beer garden was in fact coming, she had no idea why either, and wasn’t really sure what the point of it was; I took myself down to the cheese and meat shop and actually got to speak with the manager who oversees all of the operations at the South Philly Di Bruno locations. 

The manager relayed to me that the main reason for the beer garden was to better oversee garbage, and to have employees pick up trash and monitor trash more closely. 

I’m sorry, but what? Give me a less corporate answer than that, I’m not saying the answer is off, but space does not get disrespected like that, to the point where it now has to be curated, and has an eyesore of a Liberty Bell sitting in it, begging for tourists to stop by this Summer. 

The lot has four garbage cans, and there has never been a ban on individuals using the space because of issues with garbage, nor have I once ever witnessed an overflow of garbage, besides an event being hosted by Di Bruno themselves or a large group of people using the space, in which patrons are purchasing stuff from DI BRUNO! There was nothing else cited besides this, and trust me I am for not putting extra work on employees, but this isn’t that situation. 

The Beer garden operation hours, which stretch from Thursday to Sunday. No beverages out of Di Bruno bros will be allowed in the lot during those operations hours. I guess food from outside may still be allowed but who knows what’s going to happen. I just don’t understand the purpose of adding this tacky beer garden, when people come to your shop to buy beer, wine and other things already and it’s 5 feet away from the lot. The hours stretch from 3-10pm, making it so if you do want to be there in your free time, you’re a part of the beer garden. 

Not trying to be a negative nancy, but it was an unnecessary move in my point of view, rarely do I publish these rants, but someone has to say something. It’s bad business, it takes away from the community, and I’m sick of companies trying to squeeze out every dollar they can get.