On Thanksgiving night 2025, Big Charlie's Saloon stayed open at 11th and McKean because the Kansas City Chiefs had a game. A few days later its longtime owner, Paul Staico, died suddenly at 59, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The bar closed that December. This fall the two-room corner tavern is still dark, which makes the 2026 NFL season the first since the closing of the bar the whole country knew as "Arrowhead East."
A new name is on the way. Two South Philadelphia residents plan to reopen the building as Sweets. The plan takes out everything that made Big Charlie's a national curiosity and keeps what made it a neighborhood bar, and by the account of the people who filled it, the neighborhood bar was what kept it going.
A Chiefs bar that started with a bike bet
Big Charlie's sat at 1953 S. 11th St. Its team loyalty traces back to January 1970. Before Super Bowl IV, Charlie Staico bet on Kansas City to beat the Minnesota Vikings and promised his young son Paul a bicycle if the Chiefs won. They won, Paul got the bike, and he stayed a Chiefs fan for life.
The Inquirer's account of the years that followed reads like a short timeline:
- 1970: Big Charlie wins his Super Bowl bet, and his son gets a new bike and a new favorite team.
- 1983: Paul takes over the bar at 16 years old, after his father's death.
- 1986: Paul buys a satellite dish so he and his friends can watch Chiefs games, which rarely aired on Philadelphia television.
- The decades after: The wood-paneled walls fill up with signed helmets, pennants, bobbleheads and street signs, and the bar becomes "Arrowhead East."
- 2023 and 2025: The Chiefs meet the Eagles in two Super Bowls, which made life complicated at the city's best-known Chiefs bar.
- December 2025: The bar closes.
Along the way, NFL Films featured the bar, and Chiefs players and coaches came to visit. On big game days the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk. According to the Inquirer, Staico shut down 11th Street a few times so the crowd could watch the Chiefs outdoors on a projector screen.
The Inquirer called it "a fiercely loyal Chiefs bar deep in Eagles country." It sat just a few blocks from where the Eagles play.
The regulars came for the owner
The novelty made Big Charlie's famous, but by the account of the people who filled it, the novelty wasn't what kept it full. The Inquirer's obituary for Staico said many of the Sunday regulars weren't all that crazy about the Chiefs. City Councilman Jimmy Harrity, who didn't miss a game at 11th and McKean, told the paper:
"I get heat for being a Chiefs fan. But I wasn't a Chiefs fan. I'm a Paul Staico fan. If I could name three players, that's a lot. I was there cheering for him."
The same obituary says Staico slowly won over friends from the neighborhood, Anthony Mazzone among them, until they cheered for the red and gold instead of the Birds. In other words, the Chiefs crowd started as a South Philly crowd. Staico's loyalty brought the team in, but the people at the bar were neighbors first.
The room itself was small and plain: two rooms, wood paneling and a jukebox, with an invite-only back room on big game days. Everything that drew television crews hung on the walls. The new owners are building their plan around that split.
What Sweets keeps, and what comes off the walls
On Aug. 31, 2026, the Inquirer's Michael Klein reported that Drew DiTomo and Tim Jacobsen have an agreement to buy the bar and turn it into Sweets. DiTomo is the chef and a partner at Meetinghouse, a Kensington gastropub. He trained at the Culinary Institute of America and first made his name in Marc Vetri's organization at Amis. He told the Inquirer he will stay at Meetinghouse, and his partners there have no stake in Sweets. Jacobsen owns Stickball, an Old City shop for vintage clothing, art and objects that GQ named one of the 30 best vintage menswear stores in the country in 2024.
Both men live in South Philadelphia. The Inquirer reports that DiTomo wants to keep the building's neighborhood-bar side, not its sports identity. Sweets will have no Chiefs memorabilia and no sports theme of any kind.
"I'm not a big concept guy," DiTomo told the Inquirer. "I'm going to stay true to what that neighborhood deserves out of a neighborhood bar, and that's about it." He also said, "I grew up in neighborhood bars, so I want it to be true to form, just the classics, done well."
Here is what the owners have described so far:
- Drinks: Meetinghouse beer, plus a simple list of beer, wine and classic cocktails.
- Food: Kept simple, because the kitchen is tiny.
- Decor: No team, no theme. The partners started an Instagram account, @sweets.philly, to post photos that inspire them.
- The name: It comes from a running list DiTomo has kept over the years. Several of his uncles used "sweets" as a term of affection. "It sounds nice, and it's timeless," he said. "It feels good for the neighborhood, too."
The South Philly Review summed up the change as trading regional novelty for the kind of everyday use that keeps a corner bar running for decades. If Harrity's account is right, regulars were there for the bar and the man running it more than for the team.
Where the sale stands this fall
Sweets isn't open, and as of the latest reports the sale wasn't final either. In the Aug. 31 Inquirer story, DiTomo said the partners were still doing due diligence on the building, which had been listed at $1.1 million and has apartments upstairs. The liquor license transfer was also pending. Follow-up coverage from the South Philly Review on Sept. 10 and Philadelphia Today on Sept. 12 also described the sale and license transfer as unfinished.
The owners are aiming for winter, and they call that timing tentative. "If we could capture the holiday season, that would be beyond fantastic," DiTomo told the Inquirer. "But we're both realists. We'll see how it goes." The South Philly Review noted that this schedule means the corner could stay dark for the whole current NFL season. If you walk past 11th and McKean on a Sunday this fall, the windows are likely to look the same as they have since December.
The neighborhood bars South Philly added this year
Sweets will open into a South Philly that has already gained new places to drink in 2026, two in Point Breeze and one in Bella Vista:
- Lillian's, 1900 S. 19th St., Point Breeze. Owner Sam Ahern's cocktail bar opened in the week before a July 6 Inquirer report.
- Anh Em Bar & Kitchen, 1252 S. 21st St., Point Breeze. It has a full-service bar and was open by Aug. 17, according to Philly Grub.
- Carbon Copy, 613 S. 7th St., Bella Vista. City Cast Philly's Sept. 24 roundup of openings lists this taproom as a January 2026 expansion into South Philly.
None of them is a theme bar or a replacement for Arrowhead East, and none of them claims to be. The South Philly corner that drew NFL Films and visiting Chiefs players is getting the same thing these three blocks already have: a local bar run by people who live nearby, with a short drink list and no jerseys on the walls.
The sale at 1953 S. 11th St. involves a building with apartments upstairs and a pending liquor license transfer, so there's more going on than in a typical South Philly rowhome sale. Quandell Iglesia came up through the title side of the business, and he's always glad to talk with neighbors who are curious about the corner buildings on their own blocks. Quandell Iglesia is always happy to hear from neighbors. Let's Connect.
