Parks on Tap, Philadelphia’s first and only traveling beer garden, returns to Shofuso this summer from Thursday, July 5 through Sunday, July 8. Take in the summer garden and our festive Tanabata decorations after hours at Shofuso. Parks on Tap will offer a menu of fresh food and snacks, beer on tap, wine, and non-alcoholic drinks, plus seating and hammocks for lounging.
Shofuso, tucked inside West Fairmount Park, is one of the most authentic Japanese houses and gardens in North America, and the pairing with Parks on Tap has turned out to be one of the summer’s quieter draws. The Tanabata festival — where visitors write wishes on strips of paper and hang them from bamboo — overlaps neatly with the beer garden’s run, giving the evenings a different feel from Parks on Tap’s usual stops at places like the South Street Bridge or the Oval. The lanterns come on around dusk, and the garden shifts into something that doesn’t feel much like Philadelphia at all.
The crowd tends to skew toward people who’ve been before and know what to expect: a slower pace, a good local IPA, and a spot under the trees where you can actually hear a conversation. Regulars stake out hammocks early and don’t move for hours. Most of what people do in those hammocks is exactly what you’d guess — read, doze, catch up on group chats, scroll through whatever’s open on their phones. A friend of mine barely moved from his last summer, working through a backlog of review sites for the fastest withdrawal online casinos Canada market while nursing a session ale and occasionally pretending to admire the koi pond. He said the Wi-Fi was decent, which is apparently all some people need from a Japanese garden.
The house itself is worth the $5 admission. Built in Japan and reassembled in Fairmount Park in 1958, Shofuso features painted fusuma doors by Hiroshi Senju, whose waterfall murals are the first Japanese paintings to be installed in the house since its construction. The interior is cool and quiet, a good contrast to the beer-garden buzz outside, and house access runs through 6 pm each evening of the event.
For first-timers, the logistics are straightforward. Visitors are welcome to bring drinks from the beer garden into Shofuso’s garden, but no food, drinks, or pets are allowed inside the house. The garden is free during Parks on Tap hours, and the food menu changes slightly night to night depending on what the kitchen has in. Parks on Tap is a partnership between Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Fairmount Park Conservancy and Avram Hornik of FCM Hospitality.
The July dates tend to fill up in the evenings, especially Friday and Saturday, so arriving earlier in the afternoon is worth it if you want one of the hammock spots. By sunset, most of the seating is taken and the line for beer stretches. But even standing, with a cold drink and the lanterns up, Shofuso on a July evening is one of the better free things the city has going.
Daily hours:
Thursday, July 5: 5-10 PM
Friday, July 6: 4-11 PM
Saturday, July 7: 1-11 PM
Sunday, July 8: 12-10 PM
