Photo by Joe Flood.

Photo by Joe Flood.

Dive bar, thrive bar, who cares if you’re the best bar? Congratulations to Showtime Lounge, Bloomingdale’s neighborhood watering hole, for getting named one of the top 18 bars in America.

Every year, the men’s magazine Esquire compiles a list of what it considers the country’s best watering holes. Last year, no D.C. bars made the cut.

But in 2016, the cash-only establishment came in for some high praise, mainly thanks to its excellent jukebox (which also earned it a spot on our Best Hook Up Bars list earlier this year).

Esquire recommends that patrons order the $5 combo of a whiskey shot and a canned beer, though warns that if “the thought of drinking five-dollar shot-and-beer specials in the company of soul fanatics exerts no magnetic pull on you, go elsewhere.”

Here was Showtime’s response:

In perhaps the most important scorekeeping, Showtime got a +1 from our erstwhile bathroom column Dear John.

Filed Under: bars, bloomingdale, esquire, showtime, showtime lounge,