The Byrds
Oysters, Crab Legs and Live Jazz on 14th

You’ve gotten pretty savvy when it comes to seeing live bands. Always finding the best sight lines. Always calling the right number of encores. Always catching the drumstick.

But one thing you’re not doing at a show: ordering from the raw bar.

Which brings us to Blackbyrd Warehouse, opening next Friday at 14th and U to finally provide the mashup of music and mollusks your nights out deserve.

If you guessed that ESL, the nightlife kingpins behind Marvin, American Ice Co., etc., are behind this, you guessed correctly. The industrial touches may feel familiar—metal pipes holding up the bar shelves, cages separating the wooden booths, the Obama poster left over from when the place was nothing but a bare wall exposed to the elements.

You’ll enter this narrow space (right next to Marvin, as it happens), take a seat under an old-school mechanic’s work light and get to work on a bowl of lobster bisque. Actually, maybe you should hold off on the lobster bisque until November and just stick to lobster rolls, six kinds of oysters and crab legs.

And then... you’ll give up your seat.

No, it’s okay. There’s more upstairs. Namely local R&B, blues and jazz bands playing under a soaring ceiling while you belly up to a marble bar overlooking 14th and have at their list of mostly American, artisanal spirits.

You can use the drumstick to stir.