5 Places to Watch Super Bowl XLVII in Bethlehem

Super Bowl Sunday arrives in two days with the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers playing for the NFL championship at the Superdome in New Orleans.

Sure, it’s the biggest football game of the year. But the day is also the halftime show and all those new commercials that are bound to spark as much water cooler discussion as the game come Monday morning.

As much as anything else, it’s a social day – a day to hang out with friends and have a good time. Here are five great places in Bethlehem to do just that:

• Starters Riverport: Boasting seven giant screens and more than 60 other televisions, you won’t miss a play – or a commercial – no matter where you are seated. The menu features a little more than your standard sports bar fare, including one burger named for all 32 teams in the NFL. If you get bored with the game on TV, go play in their two-story playroom with more than 40 arcade-type games.

• Big Woody’s: A family-friendly sports bar with plenty of televisions and your classic menu of pizza, wings, burgers and subs.

• Keystone Pub: This historic pub at Easton Avenue and Willow Park Road is 207 years old, but hardly stodgy. With big screen TVs, a jukebox and a pool table, the atmosphere is usually lively. The menu features a variety of appetizers, sandwiches, wings, eight different types of fries and 10 different types of burgers. Sunday drink specials include Labatt’s Blue pitchers for $7.

• Molly’s Irish Grille & Sports Pub: South Bethlehem’s other sports bar by the numbers -- 14 flat screen TVs, 19 beers on draught, 60 craft and imported brews by the bottle, $7 Miller Lite pitchers, $6 cheesesteaks and wings, $5 bloody Marys and $4 pints of Guinness, Harp, Magners, & Smithwicks.

• Roosevelt’s: This sports bar and pub had its FDR Challenge burger crowned the best tasting in the Lehigh Valley in the “Battle of the Burgers” fundraiser for the Allentown Rescue Mission in August. The FDR Challenge is a burger topped with pork roll, eggs, bacon, cheese, tomato and onion. Once you’re done chowing down on that monster, work it off at the pool table.

Do you have another favorite place to watch the big game? Tell us in the comments.