Photo by Alan Zilberman.
By DCist Contributor Alan Zilberman
Located beneath the 14th Street restaurant Doi Moi, 2 Birds 1 Stone is a high-end lounge with speakeasy aspirations. It has plenty of space and alcoves, but its white walls betray its attempt to recreate the days of prohibition. This isn’t Wisdom, The Columbia Room, or even The Gibson. This is a place for diners to grab a cocktail before they have dinner upstairs. And while 2 Birds doesn’t quite work as a speakeasy, its men’s room is unique for its, um, decor.
+5 for vintage boobs: The most striking thing about the men’s room is the wall opposite the entrance. It’s a collage of beautiful nude women, and the photos are all in black and white. There are ass shots and others where there are multiple women posing together. As a heterosexual male, I welcome the opportunity to view pornography without opening an incognito window in Chrome (note: my girlfriend took photos of the women’s room, and instead of pin-ups, there is pornographic wallpaper).
-4 for heteronormativity: Look, I love staring at photographs of tits, but it’s important to check my straight privilege. There are only women in this men’s room, which made me wonder why there aren’t any pin-ups of nude men. The New York Times recently said DC is supposedly the gayest place in America, and the article even references Logan Circle. It wouldn’t kill the owners to add some dicks into the mix.
+2 for an informative lock: When the bathroom locks, the door reads “vacant/occupied” on the outside. This is standard in bathrooms on an airplane — it’s a terrific feature—and I wonder why more restaurants don’t have them. So often we must pull on bathroom doors to determine whether someone is inside, and that’s the one time where I want to forget about the rest of humanity.
-3 for a black toilet: The sleek toilet in the men’s room is completely black, and it looks kinda cool until you stop to realize the implications. I don’t know about you guys, but I like to see what unholy monstrosity emerged inside me from when I have a sit-down. If the toilet is a literal black hole, it then shrouds human waste in darkness. There’s a reason white toilets are standard practically everywhere.
+2 for hand dryer: As I’ve noted in previous columns, I’m a fan of the XLERATOR hand dryer. It’s no Dyson Air Blade, but it gets the job done with an overabundance of power. You may have noticed that the hand dryer got 3 points at The Ugly Mug and only 2 point here. The reason, my friends, is context: I don’t expect quality hand-drying when I go to a Barracks Row dive bar, but I do expect cutting edge options when I visit a frou-frou “speakeasy” on the newly-developed 14 Street corridor. At an establishment such as this one, a modern hand-dryer is the status quo.
-3 for lack of options: There is one toilet in the men and women’s room, respectively, and that simply is not enough for a popular bar. You know how I know this? After waiting for a few minutes in the men’s room line, a women opened the door. I don’t begrudge her for crossing over to the men’s room—I don’t blame her at all, in fact—but it speaks to the fact that demand does not meet supply.
Overall score: -1. This is my first column where bathroom’s overall score goes negative. I guess I really care about male nudity, as well as the opportunity to admire and/or be repulsed by one’s own shit. Be honest: you know you feel the same way.
