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Bars You Miss


dcs

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The Royal Lee Bar & Grill née Deli. It was a hole in the wall with an utter lack of pretension near Fort Myer. We have a friend whose band used to play there quite a bit. We always had a good time. The impending demise of the Quartedeck got me to thinking about this place, and Whitey's just up the road a piece (before the expansion that ultimately contributed to its ruin).

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Even though I've not set foot in there in years, I'm very sad to report that Garrett's in Georgetown has closed its doors for good.

I'm definitely going to miss it. I spent a lot of (too much) time there in the 90s and made some very good (and very bad B) ) friends at Garrett's over the years. It wasn't a temple of haute cuisine, but when Sam and Joe were cooking, the turkey avocado club, the reuben, the chicken tenders, and the seafood soup were damn good.

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Even though I've not set foot in there in years, I'm very sad to report that Garrett's in Georgetown has closed its doors for good.

That is sad. I spent a fair amount of time there during the 80s and early 90s. I do not recall ever eating anything, though. B)

This got me to remembering another long lost bar in the area - the Charing Cross Italian Restaurant, just down the road a piece on M Street. Italian restaurant by day that turned into a crummy bar after 10pm or so. It was the drink specials that started at midnight that really drew us in.

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This got me to remembering another long lost bar in the area - the Charing Cross Italian Restaurant, just down the road a piece on M Street. Italian restaurant by day that turned into a crummy bar after 10pm or so. It was the drink specials that started at midnight that really drew us in.

Someone I worked with in the early-mid 80s recommended Charing Cross to me. It didn't have spectacular food, but I found it a comfortable place. I liked it in a way that I never liked AV Pizza. I hadn't thought about that restaurant in a long time. I don't think I ever stayed late enough for the late night bar scene.

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This got me to remembering another long lost bar in the area - the Charing Cross Italian Restaurant, just down the road a piece on M Street. Italian restaurant by day that turned into a crummy bar after 10pm or so. It was the drink specials that started at midnight that really drew us in.

Ah, the Charring Cross, now we are talking scary highschool memories. Favorite watering hole for many a catholic school girl venturing across the Key Bridge with fake ids in the late 80s. Scary that I remember that the bartender's name was Manuch. I really don't remember much else after a night in that place B) Wasn't there also a place called The Company down at the other end of M Street?

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I'm 65, yesterday I was 24, so Poor Robert's next to the Roma owned by the Abbo family, accross from the Uptown theatre!

The Zebra Room on upper Wisconsin, approximately 7,800,000,000 000 000 beers were drunk there over the years, and maybe 1/2 that many fights!

Maggies, again upper Wisconsin Ave. great pizza, Redskins hangout, great looking women...all looking for Redskins, on par with Zebra Room beer consumption.

The Keg, Wisconsin Ave. a bit north of Georgetown, great place to drink many beers, watch fights, in the Keg, or perhaps start or finish one.

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On 2/10/2010 at 5:21 PM, The Hersch said:

The Benbow. The best neighborhood bar that ever was. Enjoy Life.

I was going through piles and piles of old papers and such the other day, and came upon this postcard. It shows an oil-on-canvas painting titled "Enjoy Life" by Mark D. Clark, dated 1978. The painting is a view of the bar at the Benbow, on Connecticut Avenue just south of R Street (next to the Janus movies theatre at the time), and a very evocative view it is. I don't recall how this postcard came into my possession, but I believe it was while the Benbow was still in operation, which it was until about 1981. (If anyone can furnish the date of its closure, I would greatly appreciate it. As I said above, the best neighborhood bar that ever was.) This is a pretty low-res scan, but the card itself is rather dingy.

Enjoy%20Life_zpsekbjulxw.jpg

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Hm.  Never saw this thread.  Uggghhh reading just this page (5th page of thread) and posts above-- this is a bit depressing:

Gandy Dancer (here and Baltimore), Man in the Green Hat (the Hill), Whitey's, Royal Lee Bar & Grill, Garrett's (also had good burgers), Charring Cross, Poor Roberts, Maggies, Zebra Room, (ugh besides the Zebra Room I used to go to crazy freaking parties at some short lived place across the side street from the Zebra Room)....I drank at every one of those places.   ....and I wonder where my brain cells went.   Favorite downtown bar in the 80's was the Beowulf.---and then there are more places in this region...and then all those other places in other cities.    Cripes I've left brain cells in bars up and down the East Coast and the Left Coast.  What a pity.

 

 

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After seeing the result of KN's research on the restaurant/bar that preceded Stan's, the Royal Warrant....

Quote

According to the response to Don's query on the Facebook site, Stan's Restaurant in its current incarnation opened in October 1982. Stan previously had a restaurant called Royal Warrant on Connecticut Ave NW in the 1970s. That should clear it up....

I thought I recalled the Royal Warrant and tried to search on it.   One result that came up was this Washington Post article from 1982 that describes Happy Hours all over DC circa 1982. 

Well....if you want to reminisce about bars you miss that were open in 1982 and in many cases for years and years after that...here is a pretty long list of bars and their Happy Hours from that far back......    

(hate to admit this...but I drank and lost brain cells way too many of them)

 

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11 hours ago, DaveO said:

After seeing the result of KN's research on the restaurant/bar that preceded Stan's, the Royal Warrant....

I thought I recalled the Royal Warrant and tried to search on it.   One result that came up was this Washington Post article from 1982 that describes Happy Hours all over DC circa 1982. 

Well....if you want to reminisce about bars you miss that were open in 1982 and in many cases for years and years after that...here is a pretty long list of bars and their Happy Hours from that far back......    

(hate to admit this...but I drank and lost brain cells way too many of them)

I think there were two years about that time when we ate most of our evening meals free at various happy hours around the city. I remember $0.25 oysters at the bar that was in the space where Kinkead's was near GW in addition to a free happy hour spread.   Bronco Billy's was in the rotation I seem to recall (and is mentioned in the article). 

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36 minutes ago, dcs said:

I think there were two years about that time when we ate most of our evening meals free at various happy hours around the city. I remember $0.25 oysters at the bar that was in the space where Kinkead's was near GW in addition to a free happy hour spread.   Bronco Billy's was in the rotation I seem to recall (and is mentioned in the article). 

That is funny....and I almost definitely did something like that.  But while I ate for free or way low cost, I have this terrible feeling I spent way more on liquor. Meanwhile my memory cells are weak on the specifics.   One other thing, (I regret now) I think I visited most of the bars mentioned in that article and regrettably way more than once.:blink:   But wow, that list of places is a trip down memory lane.  

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On 8/19/2016 at 0:46 PM, DaveO said:

Gandy Dancer (here and Baltimore), Man in the Green Hat (the Hill), Whitey's, Royal Lee Bar & Grill, Garrett's (also had good burgers), Charring Cross, Poor Roberts, Maggies, Zebra Room, ...

We were probably in the same bar many times.  I was the underage drunk guy.  I'm guessing that doesn't narrow it down. ;) 

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