A Matthew Ryan, “not the carpetbagging former councilman” as he put it, sent us a little history about what is believed to have been Conshy’s oldest and longest running bar crawl that ended its run in 2016. Below is what Ryan shared with us:

It started in 2006 after I graduated college I spent a full summer down (Sea Isle). When life guarding had run its course I moved back in with the folks. I was freshly 21 and wanted to see what my hometown had to offer. What better than a bar crawl? After all pretty much any Saturday night down the shore was a bar crawl in and of itself bouncing around between la Costa lounge, the Ocean Drive and Shennanigans.

The original bar crawl was on Friday 13 in October 2006 and included 7 establishments and was a handful of people at best. After that we gained moment, drew a larger crowd and did one in early 2007 on St Patty’s day. That one stuck. We did a wider range of places in 2008 and even started incorporating West Conshohocken.

In 2009 a larger contingent of us were now living in Conshy and the pub crawl became an “annual” event. Something to look forward to each year. We were hitting are stride seeing new bars pop up and some of the older ones close, keeping our fingers on the pulse of all things Conshohocken.

As the years grew on people got married, split up, had kids, and moved to the farther reaching suburbs, it became harder to form a full gang. The morning parade became more of a staple than the late night revelry for some. Often you’d here I’ll meet you guys at ‘the pub’ or I can stop by for a drink. The last couple years we stopped printing shirts. At this point the crawl “lifers” had half a dozen shirts already and also the head count became unreliable for the order.

Heading into this “final” year I was fretting the possibility that at the first bar could it be me and just one other friend riding this last year out? Turns out we managed to get the core crew back together and hang on for one more.

Looking back on it now each years crawl seem to mesh together. Crossing the west Conshy bridge after an ice storm, stumbling upon the TK club for a evening long guest membership, being asked to leave some of the fancier bars for having too large of a party. Bullying the juke box to play Ke$ha in some less known establishments. It’s sad to see old traditions die, but sometimes it better to burn out then fade away.