Philly Surf Club opens tonight at 699 N. Broad Street, in the lower level of the Divine Lorraine, as a tropical cocktail bar from Managing Partner and Bar Director Nico Diaz and co-owner Cody Davis. The bar runs Thursday through Sunday, 7 PM to 2 AM, walk-in only. It is Diaz’s first bar under his own name after years building the city’s cocktail culture from behind other people’s bars.
Diaz’s work at the Ranstead Room and The Franklin Mortgage & Investment Co. helped define what Philadelphia’s modern cocktail scene looked like in the years when it was still being assembled. He brings that technical foundation to Philly Surf Club in a deliberately different register — tropical inspiration, fresh ingredients, approachable execution.
Bar Team Lead Billy Barbone joins him on the program. The stated objective is technique-driven cocktails without the formality that typically follows that level of craft in this city. For North Broad, that distinction matters — the corridor has not had a bar in this category before.
The food program was developed by Natalie Maronski, Culinary Director of Underground Concepts. Maronski’s background combines Vietnamese heritage, a global upbringing, and deep kitchen experience working alongside José Garces — whose name still carries weight in Philadelphia’s food community. Her menu at Philly Surf Club covers tropical street food designed to pair with the cocktail program: shareable, casual, and built around the same approachable quality the bar side is after.
That balance is the consistent thread across both programs. Diaz put it plainly: Philly Surf Club is “a neighborhood bar that takes cocktails seriously without taking itself too seriously.” The tropical framework is the concept. The Ranstead Room and Franklin Mortgage pedigree is what gives it credibility past the aesthetic.
The menu specifics have not been released ahead of opening. What the presser outlines is a tropical street food program designed around pairing with the cocktail list — shareable, casual, and built for a room where people are drinking. Whether that means a short menu of four or five plates or something more expansive will be visible when the bar opens tonight.
The cocktail list follows the same logic: familiar reference points as the baseline, fresh ingredients throughout, and accessible entry points alongside more considered options for anyone who wants to go deeper.
Philly Surf Club and the Divine Lorraine
North Broad has been in a sustained state of transition for the better part of fifteen years, and the Divine Lorraine’s conversion from a long-vacant former hotel to luxury residences stands as the most visible signal of the corridor’s direction.
The stretch between Fairmount and Girard has added venues and institutions incrementally since — the Metropolitan Opera House, ongoing residential development, institutional anchors on both sides of the street. A cocktail bar of this pedigree arriving in 2026 reflects where that stretch actually is.
The Philly Surf Club address is specific in that context. The lower level of the Divine Lorraine is not a neutral space — it carries the building’s weight and its location at the visual center of that part of North Broad. An opening here by operators with Ranstead Room credentials and Garces-adjacent culinary experience is a different kind of arrival than another neighborhood bar finding a basement on a side street.
Philly Surf Club Hours and How to Go
Philly Surf Club is at 699 N. Broad Street, below the Divine Lorraine. Thursday through Sunday, 7 PM to 2 AM. No reservations. Menu pricing has not been announced. The full version of what Diaz and Maronski have built will be the more useful measure of whether this bar delivers on its pedigree.
Images: Rey Lopez
About Post Author
Discover more from dosage MAGAZINE
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.