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…

This post by DCist contributor Rawn James, Jr. This week’s Five O’Clock Meeting takes us to a happy hour that runs Mondays through Fridays from 5-7pm, but on Tuesdays, lasts until 11pm. The spotlight this week shines on Viridian, located north on 14th Street, NW just north of the Studio Theatre in Logan Circle. Viridian’s space is a unique combination of polished concrete and unobtrusive modernity. On this early evening, large paintings catch angled sunlight…

This post from DCist contributor, Rawn James, Jr. We’ve all been there. You’ve been working hard all day, eaten a quick lunch at your desk, and just want to get out of work as soon as possible. So leave! No, we’re not encouraging sloth, we’re encouraging you to treat yourself to the District’s best happy hours—many of which strategically end at 6:00 or 6:30 p.m. By the time most of us can get out of…