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Froggy Bottom Pub
This popular GWU hangout attracts students with its grub-and-pub specials, like Saturday's around US$10 all-you-can-eat-&-drink. Happy-hour specials run to . It's also a good place to try local brews and shoot a few games of pool.
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Front Page
Making Thursday night happy hour at the Front Page is mandatory for many downtown office types. The mixed, often boisterous crowd flocks in after on this night for a free taco bar along with cheap beer and plenty of pick-up options amid heavy wood and brick environs. Other nights, happy hour offers half-price appetizers and around US$2 beer, wine and well drinks.
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Garrett's
An old standby, Garrett's is one of Georgetown's most established (and popular) watering holes. Packed with suity types and college kids any night of the week, the mood at this English-style pub always feels welcoming, and there's an outdoor patio. It also serves decent, and quite cheap, grub.
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Green Lantern & Tool Shed
The gay Green Lantern is downstairs, with leather-lovers' Tool Shed on the 2nd floor. This bi-level place attracts a slightly older crowd. Shirtless men get free beer on Thursday night.
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Habana Village
DC's best Latin club is in an old townhouse with a cosmopolitan bar and romantic back room where you can sip mojitos and nibble tapas in front of the fireplace. After the scene on the upstairs dance floor explodes as DJs spin salsa, meringue, mambo, tango and bossa nova for a mixed Latin and white crowd.
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Hawk & Dove
Reputed to be a Republican hangout, the Hawk & Dove has been a Capitol Hill institution since the 1960s. It's not really a partisan place, though. Everybody eventually finds their way here, including congressional staffers and even some of the younger representatives of all parties. Friday nights are particularly lively: pick up a date or just a game of pool and enjoy the happy-hour specials.
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Heaven & Hell
A perennial favorite with the college crowd, this hot spot hosts Heaven (upstairs) with thematic dance parties to flashing disco lights and Hell (downstairs), which is grittier and attracts hard drinkers. The large outdoor patio in Heaven overlooks the 18th St strip and is popular on steamy nights.
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Home
Smaller, more intimate and, as clichéd as it sounds, a lot like home, this plush place is a must-go when doing the DC club circuit. It features armless couches for lounging, multiple dance floors and the requisite VIP rooms, but the whole atmosphere just feels more casual than other velvet-rope nightclubs. Sweeping 30ft carved plaster ceilings and decorative marble panels up the swank appeal.
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Improv
This is comedy in the more traditional sense, featuring stand-up by comics from Comedy Central, Mad TV and HBO, among others. The Improv also offers workshops for those of us who think we're pretty funny. Six two-hour weekly workshop sessions costs around US$180 .
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Iota
With shows nearly every night of the week, Iota is the best spot for live music in Clarendon's music strip. Tickets are available at the door only (no advance sales) and this place packs 'em in. Iota also hosts poetry readings every second Sunday and open-mic nights each Wednesday.
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Ireland's Four Courts
Buckets of Guinness lubricate the O'Connors and McDonoughs at Arlington's favorite Irish pub. The sidewalk seating draws a lunchtime crowd for shepherd's pie and fish-and-chips, while the verdant Irish grass-green interior attracts an evening crowd for cold drafts and live tunes.
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Ireland's Four Provinces
This landmark Irish bar offers live Celtic and folk music, 21 beers on tap, relentless emerald-shamrock decor and a friendly scene of late-20s neighborhood professionals cruising and schmoozing. Come on a hot summer night to sit on the street-side patio or during weekday happy hour, when you can get a 20oz Guinness for around US$4 .
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JR's
At JR's weekday happy hour you might think you've stepped into a living Banana Republic ad: chinos and button-downs are de rigueur at this popular gay hang-out frequented by the 20- and 30-something, work-hard, play-hard set. Some DC residents claim that the crowd here epitomizes the conservative nature of the capital's gay scene; but even if you love to hate it, as many do, JR's is the happy-hour spot in town and is packed more often than not.
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Kathleen Ewing Gallery
Photography is the focus at this gallery, renowned for its collection of 19th- and 20th-century photos. It also offers more contemporary pictures and multi-media works. Openings are held the first Friday of the month.
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Kelly's Irish Times
Kelly's implores: 'Give me your tired, your hungry, your befuddled masses,' and the masses respond. Fans of the on-tap Guinness and Wednesday to Saturday live music tend to be younger than the patrons next door at the Dubliner - students and staffers and other suds-drinkers.
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Kennedy Center
DC's main cultural jewel is credited with transforming DC from a cultural backwater to an artistic contender in the late 20th century. The white-marble building on the Potomac holds two big theaters, a "theater lab," cinema, opera house and concert hall (and the fine Roof Terrace Restaurant to boot). It's home to the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington Chamber Symphony. Roughly 3000 performances are held here annually. Tours daily.
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Left Bank
This recent edition to Adams-Morgan is a hip, modern lounge with stark white walls and orange chairs and booths. It's the perfect dark cave in which to escape a hot summer afternoon's mounting heat. The prime location, smack in the middle of 18th St, is perfect for people-watching from open windows if the place is quiet. The sophisticated, international crowd comes to sip martinis and listen to DJs spin mellow vibes. The food is just okay.
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Local 16
Voted best pick-up spot by Washington Post readers in 2006, this trendy restaurant-bar is filled with the young and beautiful on the prowl. The rooftop bar is brilliant in summer; when its cold the scene moves to the upstairs lounge. It also serves food.
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Loews Cineplex
Housed in a refurbished old industrial building on the waterfront, this modern, comfortable cinema has 10 theaters offering Hollywood's finest.
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Lounge 201
Decidedly retro decor and brightly colored martinis go hand-in-hand at this swanky, new cocktail lounge. The menu claims that 'To drink is human, to lounge is divine' and you will certainly believe it after spending an evening here sipping martinis and munching on gourmet finger-food.
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Love
Beyonce and the Roots have both played Love (formerly known as Dream), Washington's biggest and most popular spot. It has four beautifully designed floors, each with its own theme and style of music. Be sure to check out the tropical-themed deck. Friday nights are hip-hop-heavy and draw an African American crowd; Saturdays feature international electronica and a mixed one; Thursdays are 18-plus. Dress code is strick and lines form out the door.
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Lucky Bar
Catering to the city's young and poor, this rambling three-story dive-like place runs its happy hour from to weekdays and has a rotating list of specials - half price burgers on Wednesdays, 25¢ wings on Tuesdays - along with around US$3 pints and around US$4 well drinks.
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Mackey's Public House
The fireplace and easy chairs recall an Irish country pub - one where the whole town puts on suits and comes to drink around each day. Mackey's is welcoming and comfortable, especially when the bartenders are drawing you pints of Guinness, Harp and Caffrey.
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Madam's Organ
'Where the beautiful people go to get ugly,' so the T-shirt goes. It's not far off the mark: This is the kind of perfect dive where you'll see a beautiful girl shaking her ass on the bar one minute and puking in front of the bathroom the next.
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Mary Pickford Theater
The Mary Pickford Theater at the Library of Congress screens films with historical and cultural themes relevant to current events. Seating is limited to 64 people, but reservations can be made by telephone up to a week in advance.
