Last Saturday afternoon found a friend and I waiting in Dupont Circle for our buddy to show up so we could go together to an early evening party. As such summer appointments go, our friend was running rather late. Luckily, we were seated at the sleek-if-too-small bar at Dupont Grille, which is one of the few establishments in town in which the parched and parsimonious can hold a 5 O’Clock Meeting on a Saturday: happy…

“Before there was Harlem, there was U Street,” and before there was national Prohibition, there was the Sheppard Act. Passed by a Congress intent on making the District of Columbia a beacon of temperance for the saloon-soaked nation, the Sheppard Act closed Washington’s four breweries and nearly three hundred licensed liquor establishments on November 1, 1917—two years before it outlawed the sale of alcohol in the rest of the country. Congressman Morris Sheppard successfully had…

In the summer of 2003, Chef Ed Hanson opened a pizzeria on the western edge of a neighborhood that had just renamed itself Penn Quarter. Four years later, Ella’s Wood Fired Pizza, named for Hanson’s young daughter, remains a rarity in downtown Washington: it is an independently owned–and not the least bit pretentious–place to enjoy a drink and a bite to eat. Located at 901 F Street, Ella’s features neither a unifying decorative theme (Matchbox)…

Moments after I settled into my patio seat during my first visit to Jack’s Restaurant and Bar, which opened in January at 1527 17th Street, NW (the old Peppers/Le Pigalle Space) a cameraman from the local NBC station began to set up his wares on the sidewalk, just a few feet in front of me. Immediately I commiserated with Brad and Angelina. Can’t a man enjoy a heavily-poured whiskey in the evening sun without being…

The park in downtown Washington, D.C. named for John “Black Jack” Pershing tends not to do justice to the man who achieved the highest rank of any person ever to serve in the United States military. In 1919, in recognition of his remarkable career and service in the Great War, Congress elected to promote General Pershing to the rank of General of the Armies—a position created especially for him. These days his namesake park, located…

By now it is Chamber of Commerce cliché to write of “U Street’s revitalization.” Most residents have read the historical postings along U Street NW and know, by way of slogan at least, that “before Harlem, there was U Street.” At the height of Washington’s segregated past, a few decades after segregation was imposed by Congress against the will of a vocal many white and black District residents, U Street NW was the city’s celebrated…

The most comprehensive, reliable, and eclectic farmers’ market in the Washington metro area is the Takoma Park Farmers’ Market. Located just across the D.C.-Maryland border, where Carroll Street NW meets Laurel Avenue, the market surpasses all other local farmers’ markets in quality, variety accessibility, and endurance. Last week my wife and I bought apples, free range pork loin and a beef marrow bone while 20 mph winds and 35 degree temperatures whipped furiously at both…

There are two kinds of happy hours in the nation’s capital: Those hosted by Creationists and those hosted by Darwinists. At the Creationists’ happy hours, food, drink and space thrive in abundance, not unlike God’s Earth before the Fall of Man. Two strangers might strike up conversation over a half-priced draft and an early ball game on the flat screen; parties of six arrive in twos with little fanfare. The Creationist host skimps on neither…

In the 2001 film Not Another Teen Movie, Chyler Leigh plays Janey Briggs, a misfit high school artist-girl who wears a ponytail, paint-stained overalls and horn-rimmed glasses. When the popular starting quarterback Jake Wyler bets that he can turn nerdy Janey into a prom queen, hilarity (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) ensues for the duration of the flick’s twisted Cinderella storyline. Near the end of the movie, Janey takes off her Woody Allen style spectacles,…