A Main Line Developer Is Making a Movie About an Upper Darby Bar

Greg Lingo

Filming wraps up next week for the indie feature, whose cast includes Bruce Dern, Orange Is the New Black’s Taryn Manning and controversial actor Jeremy Piven.

Many, many movies have been based on, inspired by, or set in Philadelphia. Upper Darby? Not so much. But Main Line real estate developer Greg Lingo has set out to change that with Crabs in a Bucketa comedy that’s due to finish shooting next week.

Crabs in a Bucket is set in the fictional Delco town of Darby Heights, mostly at a bar called Callahan’s Tavern.

If this sounds familiar to you, that’s because the Callahan’s Tavern in the movie is based on the actual Callahan’s Tavern on West Chester Pike in the actual Delco town of Upper Darby. And because this is bar-happy Delco, there’s a second bar in the movie — Cawley’s — which is based on the bar of the same name just down the pike from Callahan’s.

In the story, a wealthy Delco-bred real estate developer comes home and must decide whether he wants to raze Callahan’s Tavern in favor of a more profitable real estate venture or keep the watering hole and the character of the neighborhood intact. And, naturally, the movie is filled with Delco characters.

“About twelve years ago, I decided to start writing about all these funny people that I grew up around and met in Delco and all of the crazy Delco stories,” says Lingo, a Wayne resident who is president of Rockwell Custom in Media. “I solicited stories from family and friends, and eventually, this turned into a script.”

Read more.