Mealing and Dealing

Chef/owner David Katz's Monday-to-Friday deal might be the most food-centric of the lot — mainly because there's no actual bar at his corner restaurant. Ditch work and grab a $5 glass of wine (they've always got a red, a white and a rosé on offer) and peruse the rotating $5 menu — it's included hearty snacks like skewers (shrimp and chorizo, chicken and oyster) and a beet salad with walnuts, pickled shallots and aged goat cheese. Here's hoping you land at Mémé on a day when Katz's signature sizzling mussels — crispy, out of the shell, dusted in flour and served in a teeny cast-iron skillet — are on discount.

This is the toniest address on our little list, but don't let that freak you out — Bar 210, the more casual destination inside Lacroix's dining room, recently launched a happy hour for all of us. Weekdays, sommelier Eric Simonis handpicks a $6 cocktail (blood orange mojito this week), a $5 glass of wine and a $4 beer. And the eats, from chef Jason Cichonski? They're free, y'all. That's not expensive. And, as this is Lacroix, you actually place individual orders for these apps, too — they're not just tossed to the wolves in sticky chafing dishes. Eats rotate daily, but come through this week to preview some new items that'll soon find a permanent place on Cichonski's bar menu — sweet and sour boneless chicken wings, grilled shrimp with romesco sauce and a compartmentalized lineup of fried marconas, Spanish olives and spiced dehydrated apples, to name three.

Take Advantage: Weekdays, 5:30-7:30 p.m.

The long-running Rittenhouse bistro has been drawing ’em for dinner for the better part of three decades, but don’t sleep on its upstairs Tank Bar’s start-of-the-night appeal, either. All drinks are half-price during happy hour, and they recently launched a cheap bar menu with nothing over $5 — check out wasabi deviled eggs, Belgian endive dressed with blue cheese and walnuts, pastrami-wrapped breadsticks with Thousand Island dressing and more.

We've long loved SPTR for its more-than-fair draft prices, and happy hour is the perfect opportunity to establish your own infatuation with their staggering beer lineup — it's half off locals, and $1.50 Kenzingers. Food-wise, starters off the regular menu drop to half-price during happy hour, too — but you may not know about chef Scott Schroeder's separate bar-snacks menu, which becomes available at 5 p.m. With the exception of the $15 lobster roll, prices top out at $6 —think Peacock Cove oysters, corn on the cob, pickled eggs, crispy foie gras dumplings and head-cheese tacos ("If you don't order this, you're a sissy," the menu challenges).

The drink deal during Beneluxx's everyday happy hour is on point — $3.50 will get you a Hoegaarden, Stella or Leffe. But we're more interested in chef Nick Macri's eats. Recently, he's been doing dollar-a-pop Fin de la Bai oysters; $1 shucks will soon be a menu fixture. And the chef, who does all his meats in-house, says he'll soon roll out a happy-hour ploughman's plate special (cheese, pickles, salad, charcuterie, bread — and beer!) for about $10.