Dive bars in D.C.
Quick note: I love dive bars. The nastier, more disgusting, the more sawdust on the floor and lunatic penny pinchers ordering Brubaker's, the better. I love all the following places, and hang out there all the time.
Let's start with The Common Share. This isn't so much a dive bar as it is a nice bar with a dive bar theme. It's got $2 Guinness (well-poured, might I add), a stand-up hit-on-people downstairs, and a cool, more mellow upstairs with furniture that looks like it was picked up off the side of the road. The crowd is mostly young people and a few locals. Located at 18th and U NW, across the street from the diner.
Further up 18th street, into Adams Morgan, we have Dan's Cafe. Ah, Dan's. Dan's has some kind of fucked-up liquor license, and they can only serve alcohol in bottles. So you can get bottled beer, or mixed drinks; but if you order a mixed drink, you get a glass, a mixer, and either a fifth of alcohol or one of those little shot bottles you get on airplanes. There are cute little wooden holders on the bar to secure your drink for when barfights break out. There is also a pool table and a fantastic jukebox. Although it does not have Hurricane by Bob Dylan, an important song for dive bar jukeboxes.
The bathroom really deserves its own paragraph. Don't be surprised to see Ewan McGregor swim up out of the bowl with a heroin suppository in his hand. This toilet is straight out of Trainspotting.
Even further up the street, almost to Columbia, is Millie and Al's. This place isn't as nasty as Dan's, and they have lots of tvs, and they always show Red Sox games. There are dollar drafts on Wednesday nights.
At the top of 18th, swing a right onto ... i think it's Columbia. Anyhow, take a right at the McDonald's, and pass the KFC and the Popeyes. A place called Chief Ike's Mambo Room will be on your left. To truly get the feeling, go to Chief Ike's when a band called Liquid Lobster is playing. They serve quality beer, and it's relatively inexpensive. There are spraypaint murals of all sorts of people, famous, infamous, and otherwise, across the walls, and the scene is completely locals.
The Fox and Hounds, at 17th and R. Oh boy. I'd recommend heading to Fox and Hounds during the warm weather months, so you at least have the alternative of sitting outside, as the inside is completely polluted with cigarette smoke and that rotting socks sort of odor that just lingers around dive bars and tells me that I have come home. Order at least one mixed drink here, as they are very strong. This is a great place.
Finally, we have the Vienna Inn. No, it's not in DC, it's in Vienna, Virginia, about thirty minutes away, but this place completely deserves mention. Cheap swill flows like blood in Braveheart, hot dogs and french fries are served amusement park style, in paper cups. Don't piss off the owner's wife, 'cause she'll throw you out and never let you back in.
Again, I'll add more later. Other DC'ers, please append to what I have written.