Sterling's Ned Devine Is Waking Up N.Va.
By Fritz Hahn
Washington Post Weekend Section
Friday, February 17, 2006

I've been thinking a lot lately about the lengths people are willing to go for nightlife.

There are times when the last thing I want to do on a Friday evening is spend 20 minutes on the Metro to meet friends at happy hour across town, let alone spend 45 minutes in a car each way. And yet, for some, these weekend commutes are a way of life. The easiest way to start a fight on certain Washington-based Internet message boards is to complain about the influx of Virginians that arrives in Adams Morgan or on 14th Street every weekend, looking for a night on the town. I can't say I blame them.

The populations of Fairfax and Loudoun counties continue to climb, but the after-hours options aren't keeping up. Most of the places that have opened in the last couple of years are comfortable neighborhood pubs -- nice places to get a beer after work, but they lack the energy and excitement of the dance clubs that lure so many young people into the District and Arlington.

If, for example, there were more hip venues like Science Club and Wonderland in Reston or Fairfax -- and there are not -- then so many people wouldn't be forced to travel into Washington.

Finally, though, this may be starting to change. The biggest statement of intent comes from Ned Devine's Irish Village (21800 Town Center Plaza, Sterling; 703-444-7873), a multimillion-dollar venue with six bars, a prominent DJ booth, a flashy, "intelligent" lighting system and room for as many as 1,350 people -- making it one of the largest clubs in the area, let alone Northern Virginia.

Ned Devine's owner, Graham Davies, admits he was daunted by the size of the space when he first visited it 18 months ago. In this building's previous incarnation as Sterling Cinema Draft, the owners knocked out walls separating three mid-size movie theaters to create one enormous rectangular room. "I didn't know" what to do with all that space, Davies says. He had recently been to Las Vegas and visited New York, New York, a casino that built a life-size re-creation of New York's streetscape. Then it came to him: "I said to my partners, 'Why don't we do Dublin, Dublin?' " Davies, a native of Melbourne, Australia, previously opened Irish-and-Aussie theme pubs called Ned Devine's and Ned Kelly's in Herndon and Fairfax, and he's enamored with the Irish-style pubs popping up all over his homeland.

They laid stone streets and sidewalks and put up lantern-style lightposts, and Davies came up with a list of Dublin venues he'd like to copy: Mulligan's, which is mentioned in James Joyce's "Ulysses"; the Palace Bar, known as a haunt of authors, poets and journalists; and the Old Stand, a traditional 18th-century pub. Facades were copied from photos, and to make everything as realistic as possible, they added curtains, doorknobs, even "sample items" in the shop windows.

What started as a Dublin theme soon evolved; the facades include Harper's Bar, which stands in Wexford, and the Quays, a popular fixture in Galway. "Some of the guys who worked with us worked in those bars and said they were their favorite bars in the world," Davies explains.

However, because of space limitations, they couldn't create life-size working versions of each pub -- i.e., you can't wander inside the Old Stand for a pint. Instead, full bars have been set up on the "street" outside each front door, rendering the vibe more "Ned Devine's Irish Block Party" than Irish Village. (The exception is the Palace Bar, at the entrance, which has a stone fireplace and taps pouring a lineup that includes Guinness and Smithwick's.) Tables, some of which can be reserved for groups, and barrels are set up throughout the bar to provide a place to rest drinks. I'm reminded of those false-front ghost town sets in old spaghetti westerns.

Despite the effort put into the admittedly kitschy decor, it's more of a novelty than a draw. Ned Devine's is more notable for an ambitious schedule that features DJs and entertainment Wednesday through Saturday. As hundreds dance to Top 40, hip-hop and new wave classics on weekends, lasers flash overhead, computer graphics and psychedelic designs swirl across the 25-foot movie screens and a fog machine spits out a dense layer of white smoke that makes the room look like the foggy set of a Jack the Ripper movie. (Eliminating one of my pet peeves, bouncers prevent patrons from taking lit cigarettes onto the dance floor.) Thursdays feature an all-retro lineup of '70s and '80s tunes. Earlier this week, Wednesdays became a country night, hosted by WMZQ-FM, with line-dancing, country karaoke, drink specials and half-price steaks.

"It's a lot more clubby than [Ned Devine's in] Herndon," where rock and funk groups take the stage on Friday and Saturday nights. "Talking to the younger people, it seems like a lot of them would go to D.C. Well, instead of them going to D.C., let's give them a place to go locally," Davies says.

Some patrons, Davies boasts, come from as far away as West Virginia.

The crowd is more diverse than at other area nightspots: a mix of white and black, 40-year-olds in turtlenecks or polo shirts and twenty-somethings in striped button-downs and figure-hugging dresses. It's far more casual and less trendy than closer-in venues.

There is a fairly rigid dress code after 9 p.m., though -- I've seen guys denied at the entrance for the crime of wearing New Balance, meaning their whole group turned and left before setting foot inside. Management even asked some Washington Redskins, who turned up in a limo, to change before coming inside and taking advantage of the small VIP room (formerly one of the theater's projection booths, with a nice view of the dance floor).

Although Davies likes the dress code -- "People say it's not New York or L.A., well, we're in the D.C. suburbs, but that doesn't mean we have to drop our standards" -- he says it wasn't his idea. "The police advised us to have a strict dress code," he explains. "One of the big concerns is a massive gang problem in this area," so they've banned baggy pants, athletic wear, caps and sneakers, and employed off-duty police officers, plain-clothes security staff and a network of cameras throughout the building. Several clubs in the region have taken similar steps.

Other safety measures include a coat check and a row of high school-style lockers where patrons can ditch bags, wraps, cell phones or anything else they don't want to bother carrying around.

The Irish Village opened just before New Year's Eve, and it's still working out some kinks. A promised martini lounge with a cigar bar and high-end spirits has been "coming soon" for weeks, though it may finally arrive in the next few days. Though Ned's opens at 4 p.m. for dinner, it doesn't come alive until after 10. Arrive before the DJ goes on and you'll be treated to the sights and sounds of a "Riverdance" DVD or the Cranberries' complete video collection playing start to finish -- I've now seen this on two visits, which is twice more than I ever intended to. I suppose this is to encourage people to show up after 9 p.m. and pay the $10 cover charge.

Prices are fair, though -- I've never been charged more than $5 for a beer, whether a pint of Guinness or a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, and a high-tech computer system means that once you start a tab with a credit card, you can place an order at any bar in the building instead of going back to the same person every time.

Davies says he's looking forward to the World Cup in June, when all the games will be showing on those giant screens. In the meantime, he's comfortable enough to joke about how he's cannibalizing his own businesses. "Since [the Irish Village] opened, business at Ned's in Herndon has dropped," he says. "We're not just getting the people who went to D.C. -- we're getting the people who went to our other place."