Even The Bar Napkins at The Prime Rib Are Bougie AF

Yowzer.

As dogged explorers of the urban milieu, we occasionally find ourselves in an environment where we feel we don’t quite fit, like maybe our vibe isn’t quite vibing with the overall, you know, vibe, and maybe we’re sticking out a little bit.

The other night, the venue was The Prime Rib, on the ground floor of the Warwick Hotel at 17th and Locust. As the name suggests, The Prime Rib is a steakhouse. We weren’t there to eat, but rather to have a drink and take in the piano tunes.

The bar area has a lot of mirrors, but it’s oddly claustrophobic. The restaurant, split into a couple of private-ish areas demarcated by little grade changes, is outfitted with white table cloths, black-leather booths and dim lighting, sort of like what we imagine a classic upscale steakhouse is supposed to look like. You might learn a lot about Philadelphia’s better sorts if you could manage to spend some real time there.

Our cocktail was delivered cold and strong, as we had hoped it would be. But then we looked down at the bar napkin it was placed on.

Good god. This thing starts out like a pastel-colored, cursive-written phrase you might see tacked to a wall in a beach bungalow, but then it dives straight down into the staunchest sort of self-regard. It’s not at all clear that there is even a correlation between the consumption of expensive wine and cultural awareness, let alone a causal relationship. And is “severe happiness” even compatible with the current set of worldly concerns?

One wants to mix with all types, of course. But instinct pushes us to the places where the vibes are in harmony, and so we busted out and headed for McGlinchey’s.