Varga Bar

rdrummer

New Jersey

4.72/5  rDev +13.7%
vibe: 4 | quality: 5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 5 | food: 4.5 | $$$

Visited on a weekday for lunch, and most tables were full. The bar was empty, which was cool for me. The bartender and one service person that I interacted with were friendly, knowledgeable, and seemed to be real beer lovers. The place was smaller than I expected but not really cramped.

Everything that I ate and drank was top rate. The Kobe burger wasn't priced as high as many places so I gave it a try. They had a tomato bisque for soup of the day that was unusual and delicious. My wife had a very thick grilled cheese. They also make their own ketchup and mustard--very unusual and tasty.

The beer selection was way above the norm with Yard's Old Bart on cask, and taps representing 21st Amendment, Stone, Terrapin, Avery, Great Lakes, Ithaca, North Coast, Port Brewing, Rogue, and all the local brewers. I especially enjoyed the Old Bart and 21st Amendment Monk's Blood.

I recommend Varga Bar highly.

01-08-2010 14:12:11 | More by rdrummer

tpd975

Florida

3.7/5  rDev -10.8%
vibe: 4 | quality: 3.5 | service: 4 | selection: 3.5 | $$$

Stopped in during my stay in Philly. Cool place with a pin up girl type motif. Pretty contemporary in feel with a nice selection of beers on draft. They have nothing really earth shattering to offer but they hit most popular, with a quality beer to offer.

The service was good but I was the only person in the place as they had just opened for the day.

I had no food, though the menu looked as though they had some quality offerings. Not your standard pub fare here.

The price is a bit high overall, but in line with the prices you will find in Philly.

12-03-2009 00:39:40 | More by tpd975

sbw138

Pennsylvania

2.65/5  rDev -36.1%
vibe: 2.5 | quality: 3 | service: 2 | selection: 3 | food: 2.5 | $$$

A new beer bar in the Washington Sqaure West neighborhood of Center City Philadelphia. Not too large of a place. As other advocates have said, some nice large windows that open up. Great for a nice day. The sidewalk tables are OK. Horribly unbalanced, and it is just plain dirty and smelly out there.

They do have a pretty good beer selection, although, throughout some visits, I have found it to be somewhat repetitive. But, overall they do a pretty good job. Nice competitor to Tria just up the block.

The bartenders are good. Very knowledgable, and pretty friendly for the most part. They do tend to rush a selection, even if the place is not busy. The waitstaff, however, is awful. I can ignore rude, and unfriendly, but they have to be able to do their job. The waitstaff has almost no knowledge of the beers they are selling, or beer in general. Seriously, why work at this type of place if you can't somewhat describe a beer? Hey Owner, you should think about that when you hire these people!

They do have an OK food selection, although very over priced for the quality. But, when you have had a few too many beers, you really can't be too picky about what you are eating.

10-02-2009 18:10:46 | More by sbw138

Gavage

New Jersey

4.7/5  rDev +13.3%
vibe: 5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 5 | selection: 4.5 | $$

I read about this new beer bar on several internet sites, so we decided to make this a must stop on my latest Philly visit. The bar has a great clean and modern interior and has windows that open up to the street creating a nice airy feel. The bar can seat about 15 people, there are several sidewalk tables, but on a few tables inside. There are some cool paintings of pin-up girls on the ceiling over the bar.

There were 20 taps, and on this day they were featuring 6 Terrapin beers. Add to that Port Hop-15, Victory Helois, Green Flash West Coast IPA, and other offerings from Stone, Left Hand, Heavy Seas, Flying Fish, Stoudts, and Ithaca. The tap list was so good I did not even check out the bottle selection.

The bartender clearly knew the beers as we had a nice conversation about them over the course of a few pints. Extremely prompt and friendly services here compared to some other places in Philly.

There are so many good places in Philly, but this one is now one of my favorites.

09-16-2009 12:18:49 | More by Gavage

corby112

Pennsylvania

4.5/5  rDev +8.4%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4.5 | service: 4.5 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4.5 | $$

My wife and I stopped by for dinner this past Friday and were very impressed with this new addition to the ever growing Philly beer scene.

There is a small bar when you walk in with a huge chalk board listing whats on offer. There is very limited seating but thankfully they have outdoor seating for the warmer months.

The service was excellent as well as the food and beer selection. We shared a three cheese plate which was very good with a perfect portion. For my main course I ordered a rack of ribs that were cooked in a bourbon barbecue sauce. They were incredibly tender and literally fell off the bone when touched with the fork. My wife had pot belly sandwich that had fried green tomatoes in it. There were other interesting offerings that we didn't get to try that sounded amazing including tempura asparagus and lump crab meat cheese fries.

On to the beer. They had a very nice selection of draft beer including Pliny the Elder, Allagash Curieux, Ballas Point Piper Down Scotch Ale, Bear Republic Wine Country Wheat and Great Lakes Burning River. All of the beers on tap are available for growler fills at reasonable prices but you have to buy their growler which cost $20. This is the only downside of this place. It is a really nice german style growler with their logo on it and you can bring it back for refills but $20 is way too much. Other than that everything else was excellent and I can't wait to go back. Highly recommended.

08-17-2009 18:50:53 | More by corby112

Deuane

Pennsylvania

4.43/5  rDev +6.7%
vibe: 4.5 | quality: 4 | service: 5 | selection: 4.5 | food: 4 | $$

I often do not rate a place that I know I will go back to on the first visit but this deserves to be an exception.

Stopped in during a busy Friday evening and received proper service in moments. Four of us got outside seating along the street. The whole place is opened up wide during nice weather and gives the place a very nice vibe.

Twenty taps total with NO crap and two beer engines offer a most impressive selection. They even update the menu online with regularity, another plus. I enjoyed the cask Yard's Oaked IPA and a Long Trail DIPA.

Having been nibbling all night I wasnt overly hungry but the pickle pot of assorted pickled vegetables piqued my interest enough to try it....a very nice and reasonably priced appetizer. I must go back more hungry as the menu looks great, to include the lumpy cheese fries....cheese fries with lump crabmeat....genius!

Service from our server was fine....it was busy so waiting here and there was ok. The high mark is due to the following. We asked for our bill and when it came I noticed a HUGE discount. I mean we had 6 beers and the app. so it should have been around $35. Well, our first round, four beers, had been perked! What?! Upon inquiring we were told that Rich, the bar manager, had comped us! Reason, he heard us talking about BA and saw me taking notes and wanted to treat us and give an obvious good first impression....well, it worked!

Regardless of the impressive service I would have gone back to Varga again. With the treatment we received though I will MOST certainly return!

07-13-2009 17:54:09 | More by Deuane

iDrool

Pennsylvania

4.7/5  rDev +13.3%
vibe: 5 | quality: 4 | service: 5 | selection: 5 | food: 5 | $$

First, let me start by saying that the beer list may be the best in the city. Beers are priced around $6, but many of them are a very healthy ABV. Amazing range of beers. A lot of things I've never seen and that aren't bottled (Rogue Mogul and Love and Hoppiness, as well as Victory Rauch Porter) and a lot of rarely seen handles (Founders Double Trouble and Backwoods Bastard as well as Dogfish 120 minute, as well as Russian River Damnation). The bar manager, Ian, is an absolute beer freak. Tell him your favorite beer, and he'll throw a frosty treat in front of you that you won't be able to deny. The beers change A LOT. Ian told me that they change, on average, 10 kegs per week... impressive considering they fit way less than 100 in the restaurant. The food was great as well. The wings were amazing and the Rigatoni was incredible. DO NOT MISS OUT ON THIS BAR!!!. They are also listed on beermenus.com and on Twitter which is nice, because you can see the beers updated as they change. I will be back soon and often. Bravo Varga Bar!!

07-01-2009 09:00:40 | More by iDrool