It's easy to get caught up in weighty issues like war, economic recovery and Joe Biden's hair. But since this will go down as the year UD stormed DC, we thought we'd remind you of a few other noteworthy DC debuts from the last year of the aughts. Bring on 2010...
A lot of hype surrounded this modern British gastropub. But eclipsing the bangers and mash (and the array of rare ales on tap) were the walls of Scotch lockers, to be emblazoned with your name and filled with your hooch. Makes you wonder how safe your other booze really is...
After helming the bars at two of 14th Street's top boozy escapes (The Gibson and Cork, respectively), Derek and Tom Brown developed a delightfully dingy watering hole in Mt. Vernon Square. On the menu: beef jerky, half-smokes, cans of beer and custom cocktails. This would have qualified as divey in '79.
This Baltimore import, the brainchild of a guitar-slinging rockabilly hipster, took its place along H Street's music row, turning out an array of pies and pie-like dessert structures, including savory pies like BBQ pork and crab quiche—just in time for bowl games and playoff Sundays…
Good real estate—overlooking the White House, for instance—isn't to be trifled with. Thus, the W's rooftop became your favorite summer cocktailing (and scene-surveying) spot. Not letting a good space go to waste, they prepped for winter with storm flaps, heat lamps and—here's where it gets inspired—faux-fur blankets.
This game-intensive Atlas District watering hole set up fall skee-ball leagues to stoke your competitive fires between now and the start of softball season. But unlike at your local park, margarita consumption is encouraged.
Wine bars are still popping up on every corner, but you still prefer malty, caramel notes to violets and currants. Which is why you've joined the lines up to this second-floor hop house to take a crack at a beer list that's 500 selections strong, amid décor that somehow blends Parisian hotel and Oregonian treehouse.
Just like China's finest tea, this dim sum palace had to earn its stripes in London before decamping to America. The result is an enviable Asian hangout, delivering dumpling bars, tea stations, wasabi-flecked amaretto sours and Earl Grey juleps. Now that's tea, American style—spiked with bourbon.
