TV Restaurants

What Happened to Venture Inn After Mystery Diners? (Philadelphia, PA)

Mystery Diners, Season 4 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Current status

Closed

As of October 2026, Venture Inn has closed — confirmed via epgn.com, November 27, 2015.

What the source shows: Philadelphia Gay News and a follow-up blog post document the Center City gay bar's closure in January 2016, a different Venture Inn from the one an initial Google Places match placed in Jersey Shore, PA. How we decide a status →

About this show's format: Described as staged/scripted by Wikipedia's article, citing a 2012 realityblurred.com report. Surface this note on every record.

What happened after Mystery Diners?

Mystery Diners' Oct. 2, 2013 episode "What a Drag" (Season 4, Episode 12) featured Venture Inn, a longtime LGBTQ bar and restaurant in Philadelphia's Gayborhood. According to an episode overview on TheTVDB, owner Bob asked Charles Stiles to investigate after both regular customers and the bar's cross-dressing clientele complained that its weekly quiz night was rigged; the sources reviewed for this entry did not include a full recap of the on-air investigation's findings. Separately, according to Philadelphia Gay News and a follow-up post on the Philly Bricks blog, the Camac Street bar — which the Philadelphia Inquirer reported was bought and revived by new owner Bob Berkowitz starting in 2007 — closed permanently, with its last night of business on January 17, 2016.

Wikipedia's article on the series, citing its sources, notes that the show carries a credits disclaimer stating that events may be re-enacted for dramatic purposes, and cites a television critic who described the show's scenarios as implausible and its resolutions as staged. The address Google Places matched to "Venture Inn" on file was a same-named business in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania, roughly 150 miles from Philadelphia; this entry instead uses the 255 S. Camac St. address of the Center City bar the episode actually featured, standardized through the Census Bureau's geocoder.

The episode Mystery Diners, Season 4

Episode 12
Aired
Title: What a Drag · What was featured: Regulars' and drag-night customers' complaints that trivia night was rigged
How Mystery Diners restaurants have fared: 55% closed →

Also in Season 4 Mystery Diners

Season 4: 3 of 13 still open

All 13 Season 4 episodes →

Nearest open restaurants By distance from 255 S Camac St

All 147 TV restaurants in Pennsylvania →

Before you go: Businesses change fast. Always confirm directly with the restaurant — call ahead, or check its own current website or social media — before making plans around anything on this page.

Sources we checked 6 references

  1. epgn.com https://epgn.com/2015/11/27/last-call-for-venture-inn/
  2. ilovebricks.blogspot.com http://ilovebricks.blogspot.com/2016/01/last-call-venture-inn.html
  3. inquirer.com https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/the-insider/Venture-Inn-closes.html
  4. philadelphiagaybars.com https://www.philadelphiagaybars.com/venture.html
  5. TheTVDB https://thetvdb.com/series/mystery-diners/allseasons/official
  6. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Diners
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Record md-046 · checked by Cal Marchetti.