Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Prinzinger.
Hi Mark, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Happy Hour Philly started with the pandemic. I was working as a marketing director at the time and when the pandemic hit I was immediately laid off. Like most Americans I was stuck at home, unemployed and waiting out the lock downs.
During that time I had a friend who was an Anesthesiologist at Temple hospital. He was very much in the middle of fighting COVID as he was intubating stick patients daily.
One day he came to me and said, “Hey I’m super stressed out at work and need to I need to start a hobby to get my mind off of work.” He was like I have this idea but I need your help because I don’t know how to do it. He goes, “Well you like cocktails and I like cocktails, and you like happy hour and I like happy hour. I think we should go around to places and take pictures of their happy hour and put them online.”
Of course I was like, “Yes! Absolutely we should do that!”
So that’s what we started to do. We would go around and take pictures of cocktails and post them on Instagram. After about just a month we had a restaurant reach out to us to do a giveaway. That’s when it hit me that we could actually grow this thing.
Unfortunately my friend moved away but Happy Hour Philly continued.
Over the years we’ve worked with pretty much every major restaurant group in Philadelphia as well as many independently owned restaurants. One restaurant that Happy Hour Philly worked with was a traditional Chinese restaurant in Chinatown. They were struggling to get customers in so they hired us.
Very much thinking outside the box we started doing Philadelphia Eagles Open Bar and Buffet watch parties there. One price and everything included for Eagles games. This worked like crazy and we were packed every single game day.
It also just so happened this was the season that the Eagles made it to the Super Bowl. With our popularity of the open bar and buffet combined with the Eagles success this promotions was absolutely gangbusters.
After the Eagles won the Super Bowl and the football season was over the owners of the restaurant saw how popular sports could be so they approached me with an idea. The idea was that the Chinese restaurant would be converted into a sports bar and they asked me to come on as an owner and handle all the marketing and promotions.
In March of 2025 Lion Sports Bar opened. Today Lion Sports Bar is recognized as one of the top sports bars in all of Pennsylvania being listed as the top sports bar in the state by several national publications. We have received wide acclaim with articles being written about the bar in The Times of London, The Washington Times, Africa News, The Irish Times, BBC, Associated Press, LA Times, Chicago Times, Korea Times, Japan Today, US News and World Report as well as many other internationally recognized publications.
Happy Hour Philly still operates today and works with restaurants around Philadelphia doing marketing, events, social media and public relations. I still manage the day to day operations and we also have 4 employees.
What started as a pandemic passion project is now a full fledged marketing company along with a very popular sports bar.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Building anything worthwhile, there will always be struggles along the way. The biggest is probably the constant moving target that is marketing. Things change, peoples tastes and behaviors change. Social media algorhythms are always changing and you have to adapt. When we started we used a Cannon 5D Mark III and took very pretty pictures of drinks. Today we spend inordinate amounts of time video editing about 10 to 20 different videos clips into a 12 to 15 second video.
We’ve also seen cultural shifts. When we started college kids were the ones who really engaged with our content as they always wanted something to go out and do. Today while we still have college kids engage with us, the demographics skew a little older, relatively speaking, as people in their 30’s are the ones going out and spending money.
Being a good marketer isn’t getting it right 100% of the time but understanding the shifting landscape to get it right most of the time.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Happy Hour Philly specializes in marketing, social media, events and PR. The restaurant industry is hard. You are working with such slim margins and increasing costs of everything these days. What I’m most proud of is actually making a difference for restaurants. When we do marketing and promotions for restaurants and it makes a difference for them to be able to keep the lights on and keep their staff employed, there’s nothing more satisfying than that.
Happy Hour Philly is known for our events, while we do many events every month, we do our Summer Social every year that give discounted happy hour at bars and restaurants all across Philadelphia for the whole summer.
While the food influencer scene may be crowed, I do TV appearances several times a month promoting some of the top places in Philadelphia.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
The thing I like most about Philadelphia is the authenticity. You can go to any restaurant or bar in the city and post up during happy hour at the bar and start a conversation with someone. You might get along really well and make plans to go to a Phillies game or meet up for happy hour again and guess what, they’ll actually do it. Philadelphia unfairly gets a bad rap as being rude and unfriendly. In my experience Philadelphians are more genuine and authentic than people in other cities.
The thing I like least about our city is people tend to stay isolated to one or two neighborhoods. Someone that lives in Fishtown most likely will frequent the restaurants in that neighborhood but will rarely check out places in Point Breeze or Brewerytown. The city has so many top notch restaurants and bars to experience. I would challenge Philadelphians to set outside of their comfort zones and explore different neighborhoods more.
Contact Info:
- Website: happyhourphilly.com, lionsportsbar.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/happyhour.philly, https://www.instagram.com/lionbarphilly
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/happyhourphilly1, https://www.facebook.com/lionsportsbar
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@happyhourphilly
