Every Bar in DC
…a quest to drink in every bar in DC.
Bar #17 Gazuza
Time: Friday 6-9
Cost (happy hour prices):
$4 beer
$6 martinis
$9 Cuba Libre
Clientele: Hookah enthusiasts; people who like red interiors
It was Cupcakes’ birthday, and we were preparing to go out balls-to-the-wall that night. Our night would begin at Gazuza, a hookah-sushi-martini bar located in Dupont Circle. After assisting the birthday girl with the careful and diligent application of around 35 or 40 fake tattoos (we were going to give her two full sleeves of skulls, guitars, and glittery unicorns, but we got bored after doing just one upper-arm), we embarked to meet our friends at Gazuza.
When we arrived at the second-story martini bar, the place was dead, save for a small group of interns from Cupcakes’ office who were celebrating the end of their semester. This was okay, though, because it gave me a chance to scope out the place. It’s very pretty inside, with crimson painted walls and intimate seating areas with low-sitting chairs and tables. The patio is the bar’s best feature. It’s a huge second-level space with a roof and plenty of seating, separated from the rest of the bar by a glass wall.
I drank Heinekens all evening, and when happy hour was over Miller Lites, and Cupcakes and I ordered some sushi. The food was decent but not notable, but at 50% off for happy hour, I’m not complaining. Once our other friends started to arrive, the pace of the evening picked up. The space upstairs is wide open and is great for rolling from one conversation to another amidst a large group. And hookah! I don’t know how many hookah bars DC has, but the only other one I’ve been to in the area was attached to an Indian restaurant of questionable cleanliness where Indian pop music blasted from the speakers straight into my central nervous system. Sharing hookah with friends in Gazuza felt like luxury by comparison.
I should note that many of our friends were not digging this joint (Samedi included). One buddy of ours even refused to come meet us until we had moved on to the next venue (he eventually showed up after a verbal smackdown courtesy of yours truly, though he still wouldn’t quit bitching). But once the party got rolling, people were sufficiently boozed up to not much care where they were anymore. Despite their complaints, the crowd hung around for 2-3 hours before heading off towards Public Bar.
A few things that didn’t sit well with me: you can smoke a hookah indoors, but not cigarettes. I wonder if they would allow cloves, or other nicotine products that smelled sufficiently like muffins and kittens and rainbows and all the happy stuff that delicious smokeable treats and ladies’ farts are made up of. Also, the staff will not close out your tab if you have a specific waitress, you have to wait for her, no matter how busy or inattentive she may be. Every place that does this pisses me the fuck off. I’m a paying customer, how dare any business owner inconvenience me while taking my money. My waitress was busy serving while two other waitresses just stood by the register dicking around, not even acknowledging me. Customer Service rule #1: never, EVER pretend not to see a customer. These same waitresses were also nudging and jostling their patrons around on their way to and from the kitchen, instead of just saying “excuse me” like normal people.
Final thoughts: nicely designed, great patio with a nice view of the street, hookah, overpriced, service started out alright but quickly fell to “meh” and then “blows.”
Bar #16 Irish Channel
Time: Thursday 9-11 (post glorious softball win)
cost:
- $4 Miller
- $6 beer
- $? rail
Clientele: Tourists & locals
After our glorious victory in softball we decided to have a beer while continuing our quest to visit every bar in DC. Tonight we hit up the Irish Channel Pub. What is there to say about this place? It is both an Irish bar and a hotel bar. As one walks up you will notice that there is some outside seating, which is always nice. As you step in you will see a fairly large bar, a small stage, a few pub tables and some wooden booths. There is also a dining area but a sit down dinner is not the reason that one comes here. After a few hours of drinking and playing softball we were not looking for a hard night out; just a bite to eat and a few drinks. We sat at the bar and ordered a few beers and a few of us got some grub. As time wore on we lost one of our group to a group of guys outside. I’m not sure what these guys did for a living but they sure reminded me of pirates. In their effort to make time with our friend they provided her with a seemingly endless supply of drinks (Must be nice to be an attractive woman in a bar).
We left her to her fate and finished up our food and drinks. After a few minutes we decided to head outside and relax in the patio. We briefly engaged the pirates in conversation before abandoning our friend and grabbing a table. At this point we were approached by some dude who could have passed for homeless if he were just a little dirtier. I think he wanted a smoke or something. Anyway, after finding out that we worked for various think tanks he decided to engage us in conversation. Although he was prone to idiocracy, like stating that we need to fund NASA cause we are going to kill this planet, he seemed to be fairly intelligent. The conversation segued from politics to history, a subject that I love. After a lively discussion of the factors that contributed to the end of WW2 the skies opened up, we were forced to seek shelter inside and the drifter stepped off into the darkness. Our friend returned to join us while the pirates prepared to head out. Of course being what they were, pirates, they couldn’t leave without making a scene. The first mate had a little scuffle with a staff member and for his troubles he was promptly kicked out. The captain and a few deck hands ushered their friend out the door ( but not before one of them propositioned our friend). Good times.
Although hotel bars generally cater to tourists there is a more of a local feel to this place. This is the type of place where the bartenders know the regulars and if they are off duty they will have a drink with you. Friendly bartenders are a huge plus. Depending on the night that you are here you might experience someone singing, people doing karaoke or just a chill night of drinking. The problem with having the guy performing is that sometimes the music is deafening and it can be a little sing song. I don’t think that I need to state that this is not always a pleasant experience. Like with most Irish places the beer selection leaves something to be desired. They do have a good single malt scotch and Irish whiskey selection. Their prices aren’t bad and won’t destroy your bank account. A beer will run you from $4-6. There is a pretty good list of what one would consider Irish food (After a night of hard drinking the shepard’s pie hits the spot). As you know I’m not a fan of Irish bars but I like this place for the fact that it feels like a local watering hole. Be warned, because of its proximity to the Phone Booth on any day that there is some event being held there this bar will be taken over by whatever hooligans are attending said event. So if you don’t like drinking with large groups of rowdy hockey fans who are rocking the red I’d suggest you check your calendar before heading to the Channel.
One last thing that separates the Channel from other Irish places that I’ve been to is that there are real Irish people working here.
Bar #15: The Raven Grill
time: Saturday 1:30-close
cost (cash-only):
$3- $4.50 beers (PBR, Miller, Yuengling, Magic Hat, Stella, Guinness, etc.)
$4.50 – $5.50 shots, rails, and mixed drinks.
clientele: ironic hipsters, scenesters and libertarians; local degenerates; Mount Pleasant townies.
(disclosure: Gin Kitten occasionally bartends at the Raven).
What is there to say about The Raven Grill? Beloved by many, this Mount Pleasant neighborhood bar is one of the oldest establishments in the District. Rumor has it that they’re operating with liquor license #001, granted shortly after prohibition ended. However, this place is so old-school that they don’t even have a freakin’ website to link to, so I don’t think this rumor has ever been confirmed (here’s a neglected facebook fan page).
Truly, the Raven Grill is the divey-est of dive bars. The interior is dark, the space itself is narrow, tiny, and poorly-ventilated, and their drink selection is abysmal. And don’t be fooled by the name – there’s no grill and no food. What the Raven lacks in… well, everything… it makes up for in character. It is the scrappy, mangy underdog to the more conventionally-attractive establishments like Tonic or Marx Cafe.
The Raven is the kind of bar that you either absolutely love (Cupcakes and I), you absolutely hate (Samedi), or you pretend to absolutely love to impress your cooler-than-thou friends. Seriously. Most of the people who claim to love the Raven are full of shit. Stop kidding yourself – you’re a hipster who fancies himself a hep cat because he drinks PBR at one of DCs most-beloved dive bars. On some weekends, bearded boys donning fedoras and women’s jeans, along with their anorexic, bespectacled girlfriends descend upon the place like vultures, crowding the place so that getting a drink without getting sandwiched by hipster musk is nearly impossible, all of them competing in that age-old scenester pissing contest of who can get the most “indie-cred” or whatever conceptual bullshit they use for social currency. Listen: if you take a bus to get to the Raven, you’ve already lost that contest. But I digress. If you can secure yourself a booth or a spot at the bar among the scenester circus, the Raven can still be an enjoyable experience.
Hipsters aside, the Raven is an ideal lazy, cheap location to drink just for the sake of going to a bar where everyone knows your name (I’ve been christened by a regular as the bar’s version of Shelly Long). Weeknights are the best time to visit. The staff are all interesting, friendly people, and the owner emmigrated from Ethiopia after a fascist government seized all of his property, so you’ve gotta give him some entrepreneurial kudos. The old-school jukebox has a lot of really great, eclectic music, though sometimes it gets dominated by some jackass playing the same six songs. The only thing that the Raven is missing is the thick haze of a smoking bar – thankyouveryMUCH DC city council.
The clientele is really what makes this place such a good time. It’s definitely a mixed bag of degeneracy: the hispanic ADHD guy sporting an Ed Hardy t-shirt and a fauxhawk; the tattooed barback who was once pronounced clinically dead for seven minutes and somehow was spontaneously revived; the long-haired bartender with a savant-like understanding of congressional districts and elections; the rag-tag crew of overeducated libertarian think-tankers; the slew of cokeheads who sometimes steal people’s drinks off the bar; the employees from the bar up the street who know that the Raven is the superior watering hole… it’s all part of the package called The Raven Grill. Indeed, the Raven is a microcosm of an ideal world, a world where people from all walks of life come together to drink in peace and harmony. What unites all these people? Well, if I had to guess, I’d say it’s their unquenchable thirst for human interaction and the enduring wisdom that alcohol is not only the cause of, but is also the solution to, all of life’s problems.
Bar #14: Solly’s Tavern
Time: Saturday 9-11
Cost:
- $4 miller (tall boy)
- $6 decent beer
- $4 rail
Clientele: locals with a very Cheers flavor
We arrived at Solly’s Tavern, The Dive of U Street, following 4 hours of day-drinking at a bbq, all of us still damp from the afternoon’s light drizzle. We immediately booked it upstairs to find our people and some space. Because we were wet, it felt over-air-conditioned, but as the crowd poured in and the liquor flowed I warmed up. A man who could be best described as a caveman bought me a PBR, and I noticed they were watching Star Wars at the bar. Gin Kitten entertained herself with the caveman, while I went off to regale myself in stories among friends I hadn’t seen in years.
Solly’s has the ability to be great when it is empty, but when it’s packed (like any weekend night) it becomes hard to get a beer and difficult to jockey for a position among the floor of tables upstairs. These nights are only ever recommended with a group of people and this particular night we were rolling at least 30 deep (yes, we helped pack the place).
The downstairs area is small, but the bartender is great and it won’t take you long to get a drink from him. I pretty much love this bartender if for nothing else but his long hair and rock t-shirts which remind me of home. The windows in this bar are a particularly great feature. downstairs has two separate window nooks that you can chill in, and the upstairs windows provide a great view of U-St. Also of note are the juke-box and Safari Buck Hunter.
But I must say, the best part about this bar is the patio. Even though it was still drizzling on and off this evening, much of our time was spent out there. The patio is also a nice stop on the way home after work, but make sure to get there early.