Big Charlie’s Saloon, Philly’s Kansas City Chiefs bar, to close on Super Bowl Sunday
The South Philly bar also closed during Super Bowl 2023, the first time the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs faced off in the big game.
Kansas City Chiefs fans looking for a friendly space in Philly to watch Super Bowl 2025 are out of luck: The city’s only Chiefs bar is closing for the big game.
Big Charlie’s Saloon, located at 1953 S. 11th St. in South Philly, will be closed all day Sunday, the bar posted on X earlier this week.
“We looked into several options, but we feel closing is our best option,” the statement on X said. “Go Chiefs!”
A spokesperson for Big Charlie’s told Axios that the decision was in the best interest of Chiefs fans who might need to make their way home from the bar amid Birds fans celebrating on Broad Street should the Philadelphia Eagles win the big game.
“It’s just not in the best interest for our patrons who travel here to us,” the spokesperson said. “On this corner, people matter more than money.”
Dubbed Arrowhead East, the bar has been a red-and-gold oasis in Eagles country since owner Paul Stacio — who defected to the Chiefs after his father won big betting on the team in the 1970 Super Bowl — opened Big Charlie’s in the 1980s. It aired its first Chiefs game in 1986 and the rest is history, with Big Charlie’s attracting a mix of Missouri transplants and former Eagles fans that jockey for space in the small bar during game days.
» READ MORE: At Big Charlie’s Saloon, South Philly’s mecca of Kansas City Chiefs fandom, Super Bowl dreams live on
The bar has been profiled twice by NFL Films, though owner Stacio isn’t a fan of the Eagles-Chiefs rivalry that has brewed since the Eagles — well — became good. Birds fans are welcome, regulars say — so long as they don’t show up in green.
“Last time around, a couple of different TV stations kind of made us look like the bad guy,” Stacio recently told the Los Angeles Times. “I felt like we’ve been here so long they shouldn’t have put a spin like that on it.”
This isn’t the first time Big Charlie’s has shut its doors for the big game: The neighborhood bar closed to the public ahead of the first Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl in 2023, instead inviting a mix of family and cherished regulars to watch in private.
Kansas City’s only Eagles bar is also being forced to pick sides. The city’s Chickie’s and Pete’s outpost — located inside a Bally’s Casino — has pledged its allegiance to the Chiefs ahead of this year’s Super Bowl.
The location’s general manager, Alex Briones, told local television station KSHB that the bar will fly the Chiefs flag Sunday despite being listed as an official Eagles bar.
Briones estimates the crowd will be about “60/40 Chiefs.” What a bunch of cowards.