Update 12/06: Beloved neighborhood bar Looking Glass Lounge will stay open after reaching a “really good deal” with the landlord, the owner tells DCist/WAMU.

The bar on Georgia Avenue NW announced over the summer that it would close at the end of the year because the landlord wanted to significantly increase the rent. Many locals were devastated by the news because the longtime bar held so many memories.

Then, on Wednesday, the owners announced on Instagram that Looking Glass will remain after all. Co-owner Jeff Gero says the landlord came around and offered a 5-year lease (with an option for another five) with a lower rent deal. Gero says the price is actually less than what they are paying now. He suspects the landlord made the offer because the space would be hard to fill.

Gero says he appreciates all the support Looking Glass had received over the past few months as it neared closing time. He says the bar has many good times ahead of it, including a holiday party Dec. 17.

Original: There are not many neighborhood bars in D.C. — the kind where you can comfortably sit at the bar alone, get an affordable drink to suit whatever mood you’re in, and be greeted by name by the bartender (or another regular). Petworth’s Looking Glass Lounge is that for a lot of locals.

So when the owners announced on social media Wednesday night that their gem of a bar was set to close at the end of the year, the news gutted many residents.

“I’m honestly pretty upset about it,” says Matthew Stafford, a regular of the bar since it opened in 2008. “That place has been a cornerstone of my time in D.C.”

Nearly 15 years ago, the owners of Wonderland Ballroom, Matthew McGovern and Rose Donna, opened Looking Glass Lounge on Georgia Avenue NW, replacing another local haunt called Temperance Hall. In 2009, then-barback Jeff Gero and a handful of other staff members were asked to become owners of the easy-going bar that’s now beloved for their welcoming staff, quirky decor, and chill outdoor patio.

Fast forward to present day: Gero and his co-owner, Tamika Willis, who used to be the cook, have to close Looking Glass Lounge because they weren’t able to come to an agreement on a long-term lease with the landlord.

🥺#LookingGlassForever pic.twitter.com/E9FNw3yPQd

— Looking Glass Lounge (@LookingGlassLng) June 29, 2023

Gero tells DCist/WAMU that they couldn’t afford the landlord’s asking price in their proposed long-term lease, which would have included reoccurring 3% annual increases.

“We just reached our ceiling of what we could afford,” he says. “We would be losing money if we paid any more. And we’re already paying well above the standard rate around in the neighborhood.”

The owner’s original lease expired in June 2020, and their landlord had been willing to work with them during the height of the pandemic, agreeing to short-term leases and half-priced rent until they opened at full capacity, according to Gero. When the bar fully opened, he says the landlord returned the rent to the original price plus 3% more. The owners couldn’t really afford that, so they tried to negotiate something more doable before their one-year lease expires at the end of 2023.

No deal was made, Gero says. The neighborhood bar had been priced out of their neighborhood.

The landlord could not be reached for comment.

“We’d be there forever if we could,” says Gero. “It’ll become, probably, a ten-unit plywood condo building with vacant ground floor retail. And that really sucks.”

“We still have a few months left to drink some more booze, eat some more wings and make some more memories,” Gero and Willis said in a joint post shared on Twitter and Instagram. “Let’s get it in while we can.”

Looking Glass Lounge already holds a lot of memories. It’s the site of countless first dates, milestone birthdays, and electrifying conversations. It’s become a sentimental spot for that reason for people like Rebecca Pred-Sosa, who held her wedding after party at the bar.

Pred-Sosa and her husband, Patrick Caldwell, had their first date at Looking Glass Lounge over a decade ago. So she says it made sense to walk the mile from the church to the bar in their wedding clothes to celebrate alongside family, friends, and strangers.

“I obviously associate it a lot with our relationship. We both do,” Pred-Sosa tells DCist/WAMU. “But also just because it was such a go-to spot for our group of friends in those formative years in our early twenties. It was like a safe space, a comfort zone.”

She recalls the bartenders handing her a bottle of champagne, eating heaps of fried food at the bar from Manny and Olga’s nextdoor, and dancing to a DJ set until the Glass closed. She even has a stain on her wedding dress that she’s now hesitant to remove because it serves as a reminder of the best night of her life, she says.

Matthew Stafford is at Looking Glass Lounge every week, at least. He associates the bar with so many memories, both good and bad, from the Eagles winning the Superbowl to Donald Trump becoming President.

“It’s been where I’ve made some of the most important decisions in my life,” he says.

Looking Glass Lounge became Stafford’s second office after colleagues grew to love the bar during happy hours. Because he and his former colleagues at BlueLabs, a progressive campaigns company, worked so much leading up to elections, he says many of them worked out of the bar. Tough conversations and deals were made in that dim establishment with twinkling lights, eccentric artwork, and curious chandeliers –  it had been fertile ground for a second office with its charming atmosphere harboring casual conversation. Stafford also recalled working at the bar during another chaotic time, during an open enrollment period for Obamacare.

“Be there at brunch, be there late at night just trying to figure out how to keep the pipes moving and getting enrollment numbers up for for our boy Obama,” Stafford says. “It also became the place where we planned how we were going to handle the 2018 midterms and 2020. I would say actually some of the biggest changes in Democratic tech and data were born out of conversations that started at the Glass.”

Looking Glass Lounge is the first bar Diana Hussein went to in D.C. when she arrived in 2021. She remembers her night clearly because it was also the first bar she’d gone to after the pandemic shutdown. It was a temperate night in May, and the Caps were playing. At one point, there was a boisterous arm wrestling match at the bar. She met a lot of people that night too, union organizers like herself.

“There really was something special about the night,” Hussein says.

She says she continues to be a frequent patron of the bar because of its chill staff, diverse crowds, and overall good vibes. She and her now boyfriend made it official at the bar too.

Looking Glass Lounge is still the best place Chris Jones says he ever worked. He was a bartender/server there from 2014 to 2018. Following what he calls an awful work experience at his previous bar, a friend took him to Looking Glass Lounge after a day of complaining. Jones says that friend introduced him to the owners, who offered him a job on the spot.

“It completely changed my life,” Jones tells DCist/WAMU.

It was almost impossible for Jones to pick a memory that appropriately summed up his relationship to Looking Glass Lounge. It’s more like a haze of lazy Sunday afternoons, a shift he often worked that wasn’t especially lucrative, but was a good time with regulars nevertheless. He now patronizes the bar that same day of the week. He suspects the owners were able to foster a sense of community because of their lived experience as front and back of house staff.

“It sounds a little cliche but you really did feel a connection and camaraderie with your coworkers and then also with the patrons,” he says. “It really is a bar that is connected in the community and does work for the community and drives a value for the community.” 

Some of the patrons are still in disbelief of the impending closure of Looking Glass Lounge, holding out hope that the landlord will reason with the bar owners.

“The two worst things that’ve ever happened to me in D.C. have been Trump beating Hillary and now the closing of Looking Glass,” says James Booth, who has frequently patronized the bar since moving to D.C. in 2014. “But the closure is at the end of the year, right, so maybe there’s still hope.”

Is there a chance? The owner, Gero, says: “If we were to sign a lease with our current rate and it stayed that way, we would totally stay there.”

The next several months will be rough, admits Gero, for him and the other 19 people who work at the bar. He hopes the runway gives workers enough time to land on their feet, calling them a talented bunch. But in the meantime, the Looking Glass Lounge team is planning some epic parties, hoping to create new memories for staff and patrons alike, so be sure to check the bar’s social media accounts.

“We’ll get some bodies in there, to spend some money and tip well, is the plan over the next six months,” Gero says.

This post has been updated to clarify that Matthew Stafford worked out of the bar not during the first Obamacare open enrollment period but subsequent ones. And to clarify that Diana Hussein and her boyfriend did not meet at the bar but became official there.