You've lobbied your congresswoman, done the museums and the monuments--now it's time for the fancy clothes and the dancing shoes. DC's GLBT-flavored nightlife has been in a serious state of flux for the past few years, as downtown has come roaring back to life and gentrification catches up with the formerly fringe-y neighborhoods where some of our favorite haunts used to be.
Some the old destinations clubs are gone, displaced by Nationals Park in Southeast DC. But the club scene still pulses, just to a more idiosyncratic rhythm. Weekly and monthly events at otherwise straight clubs govern the regular migrations of the social homo herd, while occasional parties punctuate the club calendar like so many movable feasts.
After baseball, the biggest new game in town is Town, the chic and spacious two-floor “danceboutique” that opened November 2007 from the same people behind the city’s former dance party Velvet Nation. Located in the Shaw neighborhood, Town features drag and video shows downstairs; upstairs alternates between youngsters getting drunk on “electropoprock” on Downtown Fridays and professionals partying to some of the gay circuit’s most celebrated DJs on Uptown Saturdays.
If you feel lilke dancing, try Apex, west of Dupont, or perennial favorite Badlands. On 17th Street, Cobalt is open and gay every night, though Tuesdays, for the Flashback retro party, and Thursdays, for the Battle of the Bulge amateur underwear contest, are its most consistently popular nights.
You can also get your groove on at the nearly two-year-old Be Bar, near the Convention Center on 9th Street. Courtesy of the owner’s love of alliteration, basically any night of the week you can expect Britney, boys and big bar tabs at the bedecked bar. You can’t really dance at Halo, in the bustling Logan Circle neighborhood, but that upscale lounge plays hip, high-energy club music that’ll make you wiggle anyway.
If you’d rather two-step in a cowboy hat and tight, light blue jeans, then sally over to Remington’s in Southeast. This country-pop venue draws a friendly mixed crowd, and not everyone’s there to dance – some just want to play pool or sing karaoke upstairs, others aim to wrangle a wannabe cowhand or even a real-life soldier. (The Marine barracks are just around the corner.)
If salsa and merengue are more your speed of dance, get caliente at 17th Street’s Chaos on Thursdays or Fuego at Northeast’s Aqua on Fridays.
Phase 1, reportedly the nation’s oldest lesbian bar, is still going strong near Remington’s in Southeast. Chaos also packs the ladies in many nights a week but especially on Wednesdays. And be sure to look for regular performances of the popular drag DC Kings and the monthly Mothertongue poetry jams at the Black Cat.
A block north of Apex is the Fireplace, where a predominant African-American crowd gets cozy, though the Bachelor’s Mill, in Southeast, still reigns as the leading African-American hotspot.
Named after its owner’s great grandmothers but also its predominant clientele, sports bar Nellie’s opened last summer offering Latin-flavored pub grub and booze and packing ‘em in during any major game – or election, or awards show.
Nellie’s serves its still-reviving neighborhood, a block from Town, but the city’s main neighborhood bar remains, as ever, 17th Street’s JR’s. It goes all weekend long, though choice times are Sundays and Mondays, for $2 Skyy specials and showtunes, respectively. Further west, on the way to Adams Morgan, the Duplex Diner is more of a restaurant than a bar – but Thursday nights after dinner the city’s most connected, politically or otherwise, power up at what Out magazine crowned last year one of the “50 Greatest Gay Bars in the World.”
To the east, in the burgeoning 14th Street corridor, shirtless Thursdays at the Green Lantern are famous for their friskiness, and the Eagle, further east at 7th and New York Avenue, NW, is famous for … well, if you don't know what goes on at the Eagle, you may not be prepared to find out.
Once a month comes musicians Bob Mould and Rich Morel’s wildly popular Blowoff party at the celebrated 9:30 Club. Hairy muscle-bears congregate here in particular, pawing each other’s fur and dancing to alt-pop and progressive house. And then, every holiday Sunday comes Calor at Dupont’s club Five.
Finally, rough-and-tumble rock club DC9, a few doors down from Nellie’s, plays host to the alt-rock Taint and its affiliated dirty-drag Crack parties once a month or so. Both almost always sell out, with alt-queers getting down and dirty in the dive-y (on purpose) bar. You certainly won’t find your Senator here.
