Doom: Where Metal Meets Corn Dogs and Cosmic Brownies
Philly's new metal bar is the chaotic good we need during these chaotic times.
Inside Doom / Photography by Courtney Apple
There is a part of me that always believed I would find myself alone at a metal bar drinking gin at the end of the world. There is, maybe, a part of all of us that believed that. Some piece of our collective consciousness, steeped in the opening montages of a hundred different post-apocalyptic films, that knew this moment was coming and was just waiting for it to arrive.
What’s surprising, though, is that the hot dogs are so good.
Holden opened this place a little while back because he loves doom metal (think heavy metal, but slower, angrier, and grimy as hell), and he loves bars. What started as a one-time pop-up is now two floors, black walls, black bar, black napkins, black and red upholstery on the chairs, local art for sale, and a massive chandelier hanging over it all. It is growling power chords, upside-down crosses, overflowing plates of hot chicken nachos, Sichuan chili wings, corn dogs on the happy hour menu with hot mustard, and movie nights every third Thursday.
The menu is simple — mostly bar snacks, plus bone marrow with garlic toast and a killer chili dog topped with mapo-style pork-and-tofu chili. The Gintonic was blood-red in its balloon glass and sprouted its own damp garden (lime, lemongrass, allspice); it was ridiculously good, made with Hayman’s London Dry. The Magic Missile (a nod to Dungeons & Dragons) was a Dark and Stormy with vodka in place of rum, and it hit just like its namesake. And there were Cosmic Brownie ice cream sandwiches for dessert.
A mapo chili dog and the Gintonic at Doom
If you’ve never known a metalhead (or married one, as in my case), you might not understand the underlying goofiness that powers the scene. The sense of outcast solidarity that drives it. But Holden does. And Doom pulses with it — this inherent sense of inclusion and welcome that says, Hey, you! Weirdo! Come over here and be weird with us. Because the pentagrams and the eye makeup? That’s just to keep the squares away. But come inside and everyone gets corn dogs.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to spend the end of the world anywhere else.
3 Stars — Come from anywhere in Philly
Rating Key
0 stars: stay away
★: come if you have no other options
★★: come if you’re in the neighborhood
★★★: come from anywhere in Philly
★★★★: come from anywhere in America
Published as “The Chaotic Good of Doom” in the April 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
