Welcome back from the 1st planned Phoeniville Pub Crawl. I wanted to go over what worked and what didn’t and finally if this is worth doing again next year.
First I’ll give you a quick rundown of how this idea came
into being. 7 years ago my friend Sean suggested to some of us to try out the
food special called “Kegs ‘n’ Eggs” at Chap's Taproom. It’s a tiny breakfast
buffet and they also have “Irish” beer specials. This is the 7th year
that Chap’s has done this and Sean and I have been to most of them.
Last year instead of just the two of us going to the bar, we added a few other
friends and my wife. At some point during the morning meal the idea was
brought up to walk around on Bridge St. (the main road) in our town. We left the bar around
noon and we hit a cigar bar for some reason and then split up
for a few hours. After dinner we met up at my house and walked down to Bridge
St. to crawl. We all seemed to have a pretty good time and I knew I wanted to
repeat it.
Back to this year. I knew that if I write the plan down then I could invite more people to join us. This is what I came up with. This was very difficult since I just wrote down what we did last year and then added board games.
The 5 parts to the Phoenixville Pub Crawl.
1.
Tell people this event is happening.
2.
Kegs ‘N Eggs at Chap’s Taproom.
3.
Gather back at a house for games, movies or
rest.
4.
Get to Bridge St. and start walking.
5.
Head back to home base and close the night out.
In hindsight the first part of this process is the one that needs the
most work. I was about 6 months behind in adopting Facebook for event planning.
I have been using an invite email service for the last 4-5 years, first E-viteand then Anyvite recently. I saw the upswing in the use of the Facebook events,
but I didn’t want to make the switch because I know a few people who do not use
Facebook. This was a mistake. A few days before the event I sent out a few
texts to some of the core group and found out that they hadn’t even seen the
invite. I sent out the original Anyvite around a month ago, and noticed that 10
of the 40ish invitees looked at it. I was prompted by my wife and a few others
to create a Facebook event. Within a few hours I had several new notices with
people telling me whether they were coming along or not. This reaction has
prompted me to try a hybrid method of invitations for all of my events this
year.
Part 2 is the original portion of the event. The selection
of food may be small, but the potatoes and sausage are great, and unlimited
portions are a great way to start this type of day. Last year we hit Chap’s
around 10-10:30 and that was a huge mistake. This year we decided to get to Chap’s right
as they opened. Even so, the place was packed. Apparently, they will reserve
tables for larger groups and because of this there were very few free tables. Next year I will be looking into what’s involved for
reservations. Thankfully, our friend James beat everyone in our group to Chap’s and managed to snag us a
great table just a few feet from the buffet. There are two minor issues with
our going to Chap’s. 1, it is a
absolutely packed right from the opening bell, and 2, the food and beer
selection is a bit limited. However, the prices for the “Irish” drinks and the
buffet itself are still fairly low. The central location means
that everyone can find it easily and its never too far for anyone to get to. The
only way I can see us making any changes to this portion is if we find a new
place that offers more of everything.
The third section of the day is what I’ll call the rest
period. Last year we split up for a few hours. I understood why we separated, but I figured that if we want this to be
a regular event then we need to keep a core group together at all times to
provide continuity. This year we played a couple games, watched some TV and
chatted it up. We knew we were going to be at my house for an extended amount
of time and this allowed our group to swell. We had a few people stop by for
the games portion and a couple stop by to join us for the crawl.
Part 4, the crawl itself. In this entry I’m just going to
hit on the pros and cons. I’ll have a follow up entry where I review the
individual places that we went to. We left my house at just before 6. Since the
weather was so unpleasant we took a couple of cars down to Bridge St. and then
hopped out at the first stop. We hit 6 places over the next 5 hours.
1.Pickering Creek Inn, 2.Hacienda La Michoacana, 3.Iron Hill Brewery, 4.Fenix,
5.Bistro on Bridge and 6.Sand Castle Winery. I think everyone had a good time
and I know I'll be visiting a few of these places again. I was very impressed
with the craft beer selection in 4 of the places we went. The food that we got
was really good too. When the winery we went to was closing we decided to end
the walking portion of our night. We were all satisfied.
The finale. After 5 hours and many places visited, we headed
back to the house to socialize in a money free environment before we all went our
separate ways. One last meal was purchased and one last pair of guests arrived.
For the final hours of the night we
talked a bit and then quietly went to bed.
I particularly like the way this event is set-up because it
lets people float in and out as the different parts come up in the
schedule. Some people like games, some people like beer, It's a gathering for everyone.
Overall, I think Saturday’s event
went very well, and I am writing up next year’s invitation already.
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