Parks on Tap returns to Philly parks for the summer season

Parks on Tap, a series of pop-up beer gardens that go across the city, is back this summer. Part of the sales benefit city parks.

Local event management company FCM Hospitality started doing the pop-ups in 2013, which started the beer garden craze in the city. Back in 2016, Avram Hornik of FCM Hospitality told Billy Penn that it was a challenge to get the city to accept the idea, but it was a fun challenge.

“But it’s a new way of looking at parks — adding amenities so that people want to come. City parks shouldn’t be like a formal English garden, where you walk through and don’t touch anything,” he said back in 2016.

The first pop-up this year will be at the Fairmount Water Works on May 20th till August. The Fairmount Water Works is a national historic landmark that opened in 1815 as the sole water pumping station for Philadelphia.

The pop-ups will go to different Philadelphia parks for five weeks, starting in August.

In January 2021, Parks on Tap focused on indoor dining with reservations inside the Fairmount Horticulture Center’s arboretum, so visitors could enjoy food and drinks while staying distant from each other. There will be no reservations this year, and alcohol has to stay within a fenced-in area in the beer garden.

This year, there will also be special hours on June 18 and June 19 in honor of Philly Gay Pride Month and Juneteeth respectively.