The Interns' Guide: Happy Hour

Happy hour is an easy way to hit the town and sample new nightspots while keeping a budget intact. Almost any restaurant or bar you'll stumble across offers discounted drinks, but the key is to find a place that also offers a lively social environment.

Over the past few years, the Front Page's Thursday night happy hour has become a primary destination for Washington's young and hungry. The formula is simple: cheap bottles of beer and a taco bar. Starting at 5, twenty-somethings fill the narrow aisles and doorways. With all the meeting and greeting going on around the bar, consider this the intern version of the networking cocktail hour.

Competing for a captive audience, bars on Capitol Hill entice with some of the best food and drink deals to be found. In addition to discounted beer, the Capitol Lounge, a haven for staffers of all ages, offers food specials three nights a week, including its own Wednesday taco night (25 cents per crispy snack). Around the corner at Tortilla Coast, 50-cent beef tacos are served up on Tuesday nights, and margarita and beer specials are welcomed by full houses throughout the week. Grateful interns flock to the Hawk and Dove for beer specials (including $1.75 pint specials on Wednesday and a daily "Pint of the Night") and free snacks.

For outdoor seating with a cold beverage, no one on the Hill beats Red River Grill's long-running Wednesday deal: $1.50 beers and patriotic $3.50 red, white and blue margaritas. At rush hour, people-watching seats on the spacious patio are at a premium; you might even wind up sharing a table with persons of a different political stripe.

Downtown, Lucky Bar is teeming on Thursdays. In the '90s, Lucky created a huge market with its Dollar Bud Night, and even though prices have risen to $2 per bottle; all three floors are full of bike messengers, office workers and groups of friends drinking St. Louis's finest -- even on the makeshift dance floor.

The popular Lulu's Club Mardi Gras gets in on the action Monday through Thursday, offering $1 drafts and skimpy $1 burgers from 5 to 7, along with pounding dance music and prowling young singles.

If you're looking for beers and atmosphere on a budget, here are a few other top picks: Rock Bottom Brewery in Ballston on Wednesdays (the blockbuster $1 pint night) and Thursdays (Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Bethesda branch); McFadden's Restaurant and Saloon on Thursday and Friday for $2 beers, or $1 Yuengling specials on Tuesday; Clarendon Ballroom's rooftop happy hour on Wednesdays; and Politiki on Thursdays (although you have to beat the clock -- prices rise every few hours).

Finally, any list of cheap brews can't overlook the Miller High Life Countdown at Asylum, Adams Morgan's biker bar of choice. On Saturdays, pints of the champagne of beers are just a quarter beginning at 5, and the price rises 50 cents every hour.

If you prefer cocktails, head for the intersection of 18th and M streets NW. The champagne-and-caviar lounge MCCXXIII offers all-you-can-drink happy hours on Thursdays from 6 to 9 and Fridays from 5 to 9. Pay a $15 cover (about the price of two mixed drinks) and enjoy three or four hours of top-shelf cocktails. Just be careful -- you don't want to accidentally pay $9 for a Cosmo at 9:02. Across the street, the large dance club Five offers a similar deal on its tiki-themed roof Thursday through Saturday: $15 for unlimited drinks from 6 to 9. Try to arrive early and grab a hammock.