History & local legend
Standard Tap in Philadelphia’s Northern Liberties occupies a building with a long tavern history. Staff have associated one of its reported ghosts with a former upstairs tenant they called Mr. Smeigelski. In 2011, Philadelphia Magazine collected employees’ accounts of his apparent activity.
One employee described a man-shaped shadow and blamed it for water turning on and towel dispensers emptying. Her most dramatic experience came while setting up the kitchen with a new coworker: a rack of utensils flew about four feet, narrowly missed him and hit the opposite wall.
Bartender Jeff Familetti later told PhillyVoice that he had never personally seen a ghost, although the upstairs dining room once made him uneasy. People sometimes heard a soft call for attention there. By his 2022 interview, he felt the presence had diminished.
