Phoenixville, Pennsylvania

Roasted Jun 2, 202692 views92 pts

We're sorry. Actually, no we're not.

HISTORY

Phoenix iron works called, they want their relevance back

For much of its history, Phoenixville was known for being home to the Phoenix Iron Works. Following the closure of Phoenix Steel in the 1980s and the resulting economic downturn, the town has been noted in recent years for the economic revitalization that has since taken place. Nothing says "we've moved on" like having an entire festival where you literally burn a giant wooden phoenix every year because apparently one symbolic death wasn't enough.

CULTURE

Hipster heaven with trust fund artists and craft beer math

Downtown Phoenixville has packed in breweries, distilleries and craft beer bars like a town that discovered hops and never looked back. It's the family-friendly, East Coast mini-version of Burning Man. When your biggest cultural achievement is being discount Burning Man with more parking and fewer drugs, you've really found your lane.

FOOD

Bridge street: where ambition goes to sip overpriced mules

Downtown Phoenixville is more or less synonymous with Bridge Street, where most of the bars, restaurants and shops are located. You can get a mule, old fashioned, orange crush or glass of wine without leaving the block. Paying cocktail prices for a mule in a town that peaked when it was forging iron columns and Civil War cannon - at least the gentrification comes with happy hour specials.

WEATHER

Weather so brutal it holds the state heat record

Phoenixville is home to the highest recorded temperature in Pennsylvania history, 111 °F (44 °C), set on July 10, 1936. Even Mother Nature looked at Phoenixville and said "let me really cook these people." The town literally broke Pennsylvania's thermometer and somehow that's still not the hottest take you'll hear about living there.