By Fritz Hahn
Special to The Washington Post
Friday, December 30, 2005

New martini lounges, dance clubs, British-style pubs and neighborhood saloons all arrived in the Washington area this year, but the real news on the nightlife scene in 2005 concerned smoking bans.

After years of delays and parliamentary maneuvers, the D.C. Council's Health Committee approved a measure that could ban smoking in bars, clubs and restaurants beginning in 2007. (Outdoor areas and cigar bars would be exempt.) The full council is expected to approve the ban after a second reading vote next month, though amendments and modifications are possible.

Actually, it was a pretty good year for the District's nonsmoking nightlife venues: Blues Alley, the legendary Georgetown supper club, celebrated 40 years of live jazz. Halo, the sleek gay lounge near Logan Circle, doubled its size during a summer expansion.

Prince George's County is ahead of Washington; a new law that takes effect Monday will ban smoking in county bars and restaurants. (It will be reviewed after 18 months to see how small businesses have been affected.) The Howard County Council, on the other hand, declined to ban smoking in all bars and restaurants. (Howard County already requires bar and restaurant smoking sections to be enclosed, ventilated areas separate from other customers.)

In Montgomery County, where a smoking ban went into effect in October 2003, the County Council released a study in February showing that there were more restaurants and bars with liquor licenses and more restaurant industry jobs than before the ban. Beer sales, on the other hand, were down by 2,366 kegs between April and December 2004, which Restaurant Association of Maryland representative Melvin R. Thompson says is evidence that bars (not restaurants) are the businesses being affected. Interviews with bar owners and managers seem to bear that out, as a number said they would reduce staff if a ban cut into income.

"The smoking ban killed us," said Jim Brown, the owner of Silver Spring's Quarry House Tavern. After three decades of running the blue-collar basement watering hole, Brown decided to sell the tavern to the partners who run Jackie's, a nearby restaurant. (It reopened with a fancier menu and cocktails earlier this month.)

Still, a smoking ban didn't stop new businesses from brightening Montgomery County's nightlife scene this year. Juste Pehoua moved his eponymous lounge to Bethesda from a spot near the Washington Convention Center, bringing hip-hop and reggae DJs, live neo-soul bands and three dozen kinds of martinis to a neighborhood that lacked all three.

Also in Bethesda, a team of entrepreneurs opened Union Jack's, a bustling bar with a questionable British theme that drew crowds for weekend events.

Beer fans were excited about the addition of Gaithersburg's Dogfish Head Alehouse, the cult brewing company's first bar outside Delaware, which stocks fresh draft beer and selected "cellared" bottles that age like fine wines.

The most ambitious plan of the year belonged to nightlife mogul Joe Englert. Not content with being the man behind many of Washington's favorite happy hour spots -- including Lucky Bar, the Big Hunt and Capitol Lounge -- Englert looked eastward and hatched an ambitious plan to open eight bars and live music venues on a three-block stretch of H Street NE. Neighbors decried the plan at first but eventually compromised. The first pub, the Argonaut, opened in the summer and was soon drawing a mix of longtime residents and young, urban pioneers for rum drinks and after-work beers.

Two more venues, Englert says, are to open by the end of February on H Street: the Pug, a boxing-themed sports bars and the Red and Black, a rock venue along the lines of DC9 (which Englert also has a stake in).

In other Englert news, he and his partners opened Trusty's Full Service, a small bar near the Potomac Avenue Metro station and the closest place to grab a beer after a Nationals game at RFK Stadium. And he had a scare when a discarded cigarette started a fire in the popular Capitol Hill hangout Capitol Lounge, gutting the interior and forcing the bar to close for more than three months. One half has opened again, with the main room scheduled to reopen in January.

The Capitol Lounge wasn't the only nightspot damaged by fire. In Adams Morgan, Spy Lounge was devastated by a blaze in March; it reopened a few weeks ago with a mod new look. Across the street, Fasika's closed after a November fire. Kingpin, a gritty U Street hole in the wall, burned on Christmas day 2004 and remains shuttered.

On a more positive note, bars and restaurants around MCI Center continued to grow and flourish. New arrivals included the stylish IndeBleu lounge, home to cool DJs and a mile-long cocktail list; the clubby Lucky Strike Lanes bowling alley; Latin-Asian fusion restaurant Zengo, where the cocktails can impress more than the food; a huge, beautiful branch of the Clyde's chain; Oya, with luxury martinis (and luxury prices); and, in MCI Center itself, the drinx. martini lounge.

Adams Morgan, the city's busiest nightlife strip, saw a flurry of new faces around 18th Street and Columbia Road NW. Upscale dance club Chloe, suave whisky bar Bourbon and the laid-back Pharaoh's Rock N' Blues Bar & Grill were the best of the bunch, which includes T.S. Muttly's Irish Pub, Nolan's, Ventnor Sports Cafe, Blank and the late-night hookah lounge Prince Cafe. Cafe Toulouse opened, then closed a few months later when the owner moved back to Bulgaria.

The stretch of 14th Street near U Street also continued to be hot, thanks to the addition of Bar Pilar, a shoebox-size hangout from the owners of the neighboring Cafe Saint-Ex, and Busboys and Poets, Andy Shallal's activist bookstore-coffee shop-bar-restaurant-performance space. Down U Street, the retractable glass roof at Tabaq provided diners a great view and a great workout, thanks to the three flights of stairs.

Other nightlife headlines: Club U and Kili's Kafe felt the wrath of the police and the city's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board after violent incidents, including a fatal stabbing at Club U and shootings outside Kili's. Club U had its license revoked and was shut down; Kili's, on Eighth Street NW, has had its license suspended and remains closed while under investigation. Alice Despard sold Galaxy Hut, Arlington's cozy home of independent rock, to bartender Lary Hoffman. The Brickskeller, which offers more bottled beers than any bar in the country, finally added a selection of draft beers to its lineup.

In a startling public relations move, Marc Barnes and Masoud Aboughaddareh (better known as Masoud A.) remade megaclub Dream into a place called Love but kept the crowd-pleasing hip-hop and international nights intact. Swarms of lounge lovers came out to the hot, new kstreet -- almost 1,200 arrived one night at a club that holds 400 and gives priority to groups that promise to spend at least $500.

Rising rents forced the closure of Red, the (literally) underground dance club that throbbed until 5 or 6 a.m. on weekends. Stoney's, an L Street dive bar scheduled to close in January after 37 years, had a year-long Irish wake after landlords decided to tear the building down. Flanagan's Irish Pub marked 20 years of pints in Bethesda with a "closing forever" sign after the landlord decided to replace the building with condos. The owners found a new spot a few blocks away and opened Flanagan's Harp and Fiddle. It's more restaurant than pub, but the Guinness is still flowing. That's really all you can ask for.